In this weeks Leadership Weekly email put out by Christianity Today an interesting tactic is being employed by many churches in their communities that will certainly do nothing to create a sense of goodwill or bring about any sort of partnership between the church and the communities they’re trying to reach and be a part of. Here’s the story:

It’s become known as “The Bush Doctrine.” In order to prevent another devastating terrorist attack like 9/11, President Bush announced that the United States would launch a preemptive strike against any credible threat. It doesn’t exactly jive with Jesus’ command in the Sermon on the Mount to “turn the other cheek,” but then again the United States Government isn’t pretending to be a church.

So what happens when a church decides to employ the Bush Doctrine by preemptively suing their local government for a zoning code the city hadn’t yet violated? This week Collin Hansen reports about the escalating tensions between churches and cities over land use. Municipalities are less welcoming to churches buying and building in their communities, because it takes land off their tax rolls. As a result, many are changing their zoning codes to severely restrict where churches may locate.

Some churches are responding with aggressive legal maneuvers of their own—including filing lawsuits before the cities even reject their land use applications. Do these strongarm tactics work? Are they right? And what is the impact on the church’s mission in the community afterward?

Here’s a full-length article in Leadership Journal about the same issue.

I must say that this is a rather destructive tactic, and one that will certainly engender more and more animosity against the church in the community. This certainly can’t be the sort of message Jesus was asking the church to convey…