For the record, there is no way for this blog to be anything other than my own opinions and musings. So while I will try to pick a real topic from Elder Board emails, agendas or conversations, the "take" is entirely my own. I hope in the coming months to get some guest bloggers from among the other elders so readers will get a wider range of thinking. I look forward to your questions and comments. Kent encouraged me to be controversial, so here we go: religion and politics. What could be more fun than that?
One of the articles that made the rounds of elder board email recently was one written by Gordon MacDonald of Leadership magazine. He wrote in response to a gathering of influential evangelical christian men who were trying to decide which candidate they would endorse for the 2008 Presidential election. MacDonald was disturbed, as I am, that any group would assume to speak for "us" as Christians, and himself in particular. He came up with his own list of questions which I will link at the bottom of this posting. I don't necessarily think he has asked the same questions that are on my mind, but his point is valid. Who speaks for us? Are Christians in this country a voting bloc? Have we been co opted by one party or the other as a tool for electing their candidate? I shudder at the thought. It may be easier to cast a vote that way, but aren't the issues more complicated than that? Doesn't God expect us to use our great privilege to vote in a way that takes all the things He cares about into account? Is God a one-issue thinker? I don't think so. I think he is a God of the marginalized and forgotten as well as a God who affirms the sanctity of life. He is a God who gave the care and responsibility for the environment and also for the family into our hands. He has personally suffered injustice and torture at the hands of his enemies and hopes we will stand against them and yet he is still the Prince of Peace. If you are still with me, you see that the morality of casting a vote is complicated and colored by the issues that affect not only ourselves as citizens, or us as a Christian community, but the larger world that God gave his very life for. I find, in looking at the possible candidates, that I am going to have a difficult time. None of them holds all the values that I hold dear, addresses the concerns I have in the way I would address them, or expresses their faith in the same manner I do mine. It is going to boil down to some tough compromising and to a great deal of faith that God is at work in the world. But in the end, the vote I cast will be considered, and it will be mine. I bring this up now, way before election time, not because I am particularly political but because since Gordon's article came out two weeks ago I have read two other articles that address a similar concern. So maybe it is timely for us to think about who is speaking for us and whether we like what they are saying.
2 comments:
I'm sitting here wondering.
Today at Bible study we pondered "deny himself, pick up his cross and follow me".
Grandpa and Grandma were proud they never missed voting in any election. They attended school board meetings long after their kids were out of public schools. That kind of modeling caused me to find candidates to run, support candidates and even become a campaign manager for a candidate. What I notice is something happens to people when they get involved in politics. The compromise and consensus things take over the character.
When I was looking for candidates it was almost impossible to find people to run who believe Jesus is God and obeying His commandments means something. There is this vacuum. While it seems like Presidential candidates are the issue, in fact it's who's your City Council member, your School Board member, your County Supervisor? How well have you gotten to know all these folks because they are the ones who go on and become your Congressman, your Senator and even your President.
I want candidates that follow God. But I don't want to be a candidate. I want to pray. I don't want to face the inevitable confrontations. I don't want to carry that cross. But the nagging thing is: do I want to be able to keep on being able to freely worship? Because candidates that do not fear God will not care very much if His way of doing things is followed or if freedom of religion even continues. How long will I let oppression creep relentlessly into my world to avoid picking up that cross?
My commentary says Jesus said "deny himself, pick up his cross and follow me" in the villages around Caesarea Philippi. "This pagan city where many gods were recognized was a fitting place for Jesus to ask his disciples to recognize him as the Son of God". I suspect Washington DC and Sacramento where the gods of power, money, intrig reign would be exactly where Jesus would lead "us".
While I understand the concern that unknown people are speaking for "us", at a minimum, hopefully, they have read the Bible or parts of it. Some exposure, surely, is better than no exposure, if they are going to step into the arena and be involved for "us".
Maybe I'll die before I have to face it.
Hey Elder Valerie,
Great Blog! And timely topic.
I have been loving the Lenten Reader Bread and Wine. I particularly have relished the rich variety of voices and views--including Ernesto Cardenal's discussion with poor Nicaraguans who lean toward socialism and John Dear's pacifist essay, "Sheath your Sword." These are views fairly distant from the common stands of most Christians I've generally known. For some reason, the discomfort I feel encountering those views really, really makes me happy.
Being around too many people who are all patting eachother on the back for our good sense to have found the right answer makes me a little scared.
As you put it Valerie, the world is just too complicated for a church community that easily chimes in with one unquestioned point of view.
I had a funny thought washing dishes that it would sure be a lot simpler if Jesus were running for president. Course, once upon a time, Judas kind of agreed with me, I guess.
Anyway, thanks for speaking up, Valerie!
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