Mediating Structures

In the course of writing a paper, I chanced upon Peter Berger's thin book on the role of mediating structures in public policy (Washington DC: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1977). Having excellent public policies is an ideal every government (ought to) strive at. However, excellent public policies need structures for the implementation of the same and Berger identified the dilemmas faced by the existing American structures to do just that. Anti-government sentiments is thick and anti-bigness is not irrational, hence the suspicion on the government structures. Hope is found in the mediating structures within the society. The mediating structures identified were neighbourhood, family, church and voluntary association.
Naturally, I was keenly attracted to what he wrote about the church's role as mediating structure. He pointed out 2 major assumptions made by the general public. Firstly that the public sphere is separated from the religious sphere. Secondly, religious sphere deals purely with the private sphere. Berger says, "Whatever may be one's attitude to organised religion, this blind spot must be reckoned a serious weakness in much thinking about public policy...'
Why so? The church or any religious organisation deals with family matters. Family matters pertains to all of life, cost of living, employment,education, health care, social welfare, security, ownership of possessions, inheritance, amongst some of the major matters of family affairs. In light of these,the church will see the need take interest in matters pertaining to public policies. To relegate herself to only religious or spiritual (understood well, all of life is spiritual- we are told to love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, i remember) perhaps spiritual disciplines, means that she is not engaging in life as she ought to be.
I am a novice in thinking about such matters but I think Berger's point deserves our thinking on 'doing-church' or 'running church'. It begins with the church taking interests in what is happening. Beyond knowing that God comforts the ones suffering, being One who gave very detailed laws to His people (Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus and Deuteronomy), surely He would have us take interests in the public policies and issues- what do you think? Many Malaysian had put in valuable thoughts on this, I have been reaping the fruit of their work but we can do with more. So we look forward to our church preaching, teaching and even Bible Studies connecting our thoughts to questions such as-
What do we think about/or respond to our education policy?
What do we think about/or respond the health care provided by our general hospitals?
What do we think about/respond the recent flood incident in the southern part of our country? (It is heartwarming to know that some individuals had taken great risks to save others regardless of race or religious differences).
What do we think about/respond to usage of the taxpayers monies?

Might we play a mediating role here?