Government can be an inefficient deacon

I recently saw two articles – one by Robert Martin in the Young Anabaptist Radicals blog and the article to which he is reacting, by Tim Stoltzfus Jost in The Mennonite.

The Jost article calls for Christians to support proposed health care legislation. Martin agrees but notes:

I agree with the article in The Mennonite and the resolution in Columbus that the Mennonite church “asks members to urge their legislators to support legislation extending access to all Americans, especially the poor and disadvantaged”. That is EXACTLY what the Mennonite Church has done over the centuries. But what is MOST important to our traditions of the church, is that it doesn’t stop there. It is the church (meaning the body of believers characterized by faith in Christ) living out the mission of God that ultimately bears the responsibility for the Kingdom. To sit back and expect the government to do so I would argue is going along with the idolatry of the government (also stated in Article 23 of our confession of faith). To say that the government has more power than the church to effect change in our society, I believe, is a wrong statement.

This seems like good advice for all Christians. We need to want our government to do help bring about justice for all and justice means more than being civilly or criminally correct in the legal sense. But we need to remember that government can never be Christ-centered in what it does and that Christ-centered ministries fill a different, no less valid role.

Martin notes that the Anabaptist/Mennonite foundations are not advocating government to do things and let the government determine the ethics involved. but do what needs to be done themselves. This would be what I have always understood about Mennonites, that they have a long history of being noted for their pacifism. But we need to remember their often lesser-noted social programs and the successes they have had.

There are other Christian organizations who do great good work. We should remember that church or other Christian organizations such the Salvation Army, Church World Service, and many others have often outperformed government and secular private organizations such as FEMA, Red Cross, and numerous “Human Services” departments. I cannot help but think that part of that is that they consider themselves serving a Cause and not just helping clients, able, because they answer to God rather than a bureaucracy.