Church hosting election season challenge
November 8, 2012
In the tradition of early American political and religious life, Providence Bible Presbyterian Church in Bonners Ferry will host an Election Season Challenge from 7 to 9 p.m. Friday, November 9, that will feature messages from the Bible addressed to elected officials and citizens regarding their mutual duties and obligations.

All members of the community are invited to the church at 6530 Washington Street, just off Main Street at the top of South Hill.

Elected and appointed civic officials alike at every level of our government will receive invitations and are urged to be in attendance. Several pastors from the area will address the assembly. Refreshments will be served and there will be time for getting to know your officials afterwards. Messages will be recorded and made available to the public at no charge.

The Election Day sermon tradition has nearly been lost in our day and age of misunderstanding regarding the so-called “doctrine of the separation of Church and State.”

Inhabitants of New England during the colonial period and beyond would be incredulous at the current reticence of the Church to speak to the culture. Not only did pastors in each town preach every Sunday, but in keeping with the conviction that all human activity falls under the jurisdiction of God's Word, sermons were preached at significant public events; anniversaries, thanksgiving days, fast days, and election days.

Politicians listened carefully to sermons that urged them to the faithful discharge of their duties before the God who sovereignly rules and placed them in their positions. Citizens were likewise called upon to resist tyranny in all its forms.

Those sermons were also printed in newspapers for all to read, and often distributed in pamphlet form as well. In all civic actions, citizens and rulers were charged to promote virtue, suppress vice, and support people of "proven wisdom, integrity, justice, and holiness."

All citizens would still do well to measure their actions by these criteria.

Please call Pastor Len Pine at Providence BPC, (208) 267-3327, for more information.