Church and State

This topic kept on coming up this week with various people..perhaps sparked from Sunday's sermon where the congregation was encouraged to vote and to be knowledgeable about whom and what they were voting for. Funny, Christians have so many divergent views on Church and State - is it appropriate to meld the two; or even mention any politics on the pulpit? Personally, I thought it was a fair comment - as Christians who make up part of this society, we should vote; well, I think all Canadians should vote...it's our civil duty.. I've flipped flopped on church and state; the days of Stockwell Day actually made me really nervous..always thinking; oh no, a professing Christian; I wonder how he'll screw up in the public eye now to bring shame on all of us..and so I suppose it was out of fear that I didn't support him (well among other things). I wonder if most people who reject church & state being 'in bed' together reject it on grounds that the state will corrupt the church; or that religion will corrupt society...funny..how ironic...but i guess history proved it true to a degree..i certainly wouldn't want to be living in the dark ages; where popes could declare war; and fund it through tithing. Although I think it was politics that corrupted the church; that in turn corrupted society. now that i realize that i'm in a circular argument with myself, i'm going to stop.

I think I just need to understand other Christians' reasons for being uneasy about the Church, well Christians really, being a part of politics...I don't really get it..could we even separate ourselves from the rest of society and daily life that is so affected by political decisions?; unless we secluded ourselves, but that wouldn't be God's purpose for us w/r/t the great commisssion. We certainly pray for our leaders; to make good decisions; etc...(though sometimes I wonder when we prayed, did we even know what 'good decisions' meant? i.e. Godly? Practical? Utilitarian? Fair?) So where do we draw the line? Should we lobby the government to voice Christian views? Should we try to write letters to them to tell our MPs about what God's holy standards are and try to encourage society towards it through laws? Where do we draw the line..is it good enough that we just pray vaugely for our leaders during service?

anyway, just rambling before bedtime..goodnight!

on a diff note; I just ran spysweeper on my computer 2 weeks ago and cleared out 1500 traces of spyware and 68 software installed; i just ran it now and it found 28 software and 31 traces..what the heck?