Overview

The Gospel is Power to Serve. On trial for his life, Jesus said to Pontius Pilate: ""You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above"" (John 19:11). These words of Jesus tell the Christian a great deal about the nature of the nation state and its relationship to the Kingdom of God, as Willem J. Ouweneel skillfully explains. What is the Kingdom? ""The kingdom is not a matter of talk (idle words) but of power"" (1 Cor. 4:20). And where do we find this Kingdom? Already during his earthly ministry, Jesus told his opponents: ""If I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you"" (Matt. 12:28). That is, where the power of the Kingdom is manifested, there the Kingdom itself has arrived. In some countries, the presence of the power of the Kingdom is manifested in persecution and death. ""Whose children are they anyway?"" Christian children in Quebec have been placed on spiritual ""death row."" The Quebec Court of Appeal has given the Quebec government the authority to indoctrinate Christian children attending Christian institutions of learning. The separation between church and state has been erased by the state. The state will now determine the nature of truth. Secular humanism has been elevated to state religion. The result? The state has now arrogated the authority and legal right of the parents to form and shape the heart and mind of the child. This power grab raises questions about fundamentals: Whose children are they anyway? The answers forthcoming from the state are deeply troubling. On the one hand the state says to a pregnant mother: ""It's your body - do with the child as you see fit."" But once the child has been born and weaned by Christian parents and taught Christian values, the state then dictates: ""Yes, you changed the child's diapers, you fed and clothed and nurtured the child. But we, the state, will now indoctrinate the child with our religion."" All of which begs the question: Whom do we now obey - God or the state?

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Willem J. Ouweneel is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Systematic Theology at the Evangelical Theological Faculty, Leuven, Belgium. He holds PhD degrees in Biology (University of Utrecht, 1970), Philosophy (Free University in Amsterdam, 1986), and Theology (University of the Orange Free State in Bloemfontein, 1993). Dr. Ouweneel's many books include Adam, Where Are You? - And Why This Matters: A Theological Evaluation of the Evolutionist Hermeneutic and The World is Christ's: A Critique of Two Kingdoms Theology. He resides in the Netherlands.

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