Peter Leithart makes a helpful point with regard to the role of worship in the political lives of Christians:
Christians are engaged in political action just by being part of the church. Worship is the leading political activity of Christians. In worship, we sing Psalms that call on God to judge the wicked and defend the oppressed, and God hears our Psalms; we pray for rulers to rule in righteousness; we hear the word of God that lays out our alternative way of life, and we sit at the table where we who are many are formed into one body, an alternative Christian polis, by sharing in the one loaf. The problem is that in many churches those things don’t happen. Churches don’t sing Psalms, and especially don’t sing the hard Psalms that call on God to judge the wicked. More churches are having weekly Eucharist, but in evangelicalism that is still more the exception than the rule. The first political agenda for American Christians is to get worship more into line with Scriptural requirements.
Bob Kauflin also has a helpful blog post here, discussing the “how and why” of singing God’s judgments. Bob looks at (1) God’s judgment at the cross; (2) God’s past judgments; (3) God’s future judgments.
