the moral majority

I realize that there is a potential that I am going to offend some of my readers by getting into this sensitive issue, but I am going to take my chances. I was reading an article on Neil Young recently where he said something about the US government along the lines of "it's a Christian administration and thus does not represent the interests of a lot of Americans." Hearing Papa Neil say this made my skin crawl because I realized that the clearest representation of Christians to him and the majority of the public is that of close-minded, right-wing, judgemental, bigots. The problem that we Christians in the West are having a difficult time accepting is that we are living in a post-Christian society and the influence of the church has been steadily declining for some time now. Knowing this, how are we to live in our society in order to influence change? The marriage of church and state has shown itself to be bunk, and to be perfectly honest, I do not now where I stand on the issue of faith and politics. What I do know is that trying to legislate morality (like the Moral Majority advocates) is a waste of time and alienating to many people outside of the faith community. Our mandate (in the words of my pastor, Randy Hein) is to "live covenantally", to take the commandment of loving our neighbour as ourself far more seriously. Social justice should always be a huge part of our faith, but to try to legislate the morality of society is ludicrous. Christian morality flows out of a love for God and thankfulness for His free gift of grace. Right-wing Chrisitians desire people to be moral strictly because they feel it to be "right". But if Christian morality flows out of a love for God and a desire to obey Him, why attempt to legislate the morality of those who do not know God? Would it not be better to show Christ's love to them, to be an example rather than first telling them that they are "wrong" in our eyes? The Christian right need to re-guage their priorities so that they do not come across looking like judgemental, religious nuts. Better for us Christians to be known for our love than our politics. We need to show people Christ, not try to control their behaviour.