Jesus says, "No. My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then my servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, my kingdom is not of this realm."
The first was teaching evolution in schools. We attached Jesus to this social issue and hoped that we could legislate Christianity into America. I am not talking about legislating morality, nobody is questioning that. What do you think laws prohibiting murder and theft are? I am talking about legislating Jesus. It's not that Jesus isn't concerned about teaching evolution or creationism in schools, it's that he isn't fighting the battle. We are fighting the battle and I think that Jesus wishes we wouldn't involve him in it. You see, the problem is that the battle of evolution in schools was lost, and Jesus doesn't like to lose. In fact, he has never lost, and never will. He always wins, and when we attach him to issues like evolution in school, it looks to the world like he loses.
When Christians lost the battle for evolution, they retreated and bifurcated society. Visualize an elementary school playground and the battle over the basketball game when one kid gets pushed down. "Fine! If you won't play by my rules, I'm taking my ball and going home!" That mindset is what created things like Christian coffee shops, Christian music, Christian bookstores, Christian TV channels, Christian schools, Christian neckties, and even Christian diet plans. Unfortunately, the Christian subculture can't decide if they want to separate from the secular world or imitate it.
It's happened over and over again since then. Abortion, prayer in schools, gay marriage, and so on. It wouldn't be so bad if Christians won a battle from time to time, but Jesus never promised that - in fact he seemed to say that things were going to get worse. So what's so bad about fighting for these causes?
Nothing - in fact please do fight for them. Just don't attach Jesus' reputation to them. The Bible has a heavy theme of God doing things "for his name's sake." Check it out - the phrase is all over the Bible, and if you ever highlighted it, it's probably only because your hand kept going past what you were aiming for. What is God's name? It's his reputation. God is extremely concerned about his reputation in the world, because that's how people come to know him - check out Joshua 2:10-11 for an example. Rahab's response is flipped upside down when Jesus keeps "losing" battles....it's more like "We have heard about how your God can't stop abortion and homosexuality and pornography and evolution. When we heard about it, our hearts were overjoyed because your God is dead."
Christians don't have to lay over and die. If the Church were really salt and light in the world, bringing the gospel to many people and teaching them to be disciples rather than simply "in the club," the social issues would naturally follow. Instead, Christianity has only managed to make itself more irrelevant to the world.
For our battle is not against flesh and blood......
Sources: John 18 and Ephesians 2
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