Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Post-Partisan Faith

Christians seem to be extremely partisan, more so than other religious groups. I recently saw a report on Fox News where the commentators expressed their concern about Obama’s supporters elevating him to the status of savior. I find this a bit ironic since many of Bush’s supporters claim that he was placed their by God. Bush was God’s chosen vessel in their eyes. That should be much more concerning. I’ve never claimed that God chose Obama, nor do I know anyone else who has. I do think he is a genuinely good guy who is trying to do what is right, rather than just playing the God card. It seems the former president did just that. He and his constituents used Christians in order to increase their power. It didn’t turn out so well. We ended up with two ongoing wars (Did God tell Bush to start those two? If so, God hasn’t read the sermon on the Mount.), and a ruined economy.
The solution to the alliance of the North American Protestant Church with the right cannot be fixed by younger generations of Christians allying ourselves with the left. We can work with all people and groups with common goals. This means we may work with both parties on different issues. Christians should join liberals and radicals in the streets to protest war. We should join libertarians when the government oversteps it’s boundaries. We should join conservatives in protecting the unborn. In other ways, we should join with feminists in asserting the equal rights of both sexes. We should join with labor unions, and even socialists and communists if need be, in asserting workers’ rights. We should join with hippies and deep ecologists to protect the environment. We rarely do such things, however. Instead, we focus internally and embrace a gospel of selfishness, wealth, and apathy. We shut out the “evil” world and pray for God’s judgment. How stupid we are!
Where is love if we shut the world out? How can we proclaim the victory of God in Christ if we know no one outside our church? How can we claim anything that can be legitimately called salvation if it’s all about us? Jesus never taught selfishness. We certainly didn’t tell us to shut ourselves off from the world. He enjoyed the company of whores, traitors, bastards, outcasts, and lepers. The church has become no better than those who opposed Jesus’ message. We have sold out. WE have become the enemies of God in our arrogance and hatred. For as I John tells us if we cannot love our neighbors, how can we love God?

No comments: