tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20715800.post114949074761645199..comments2023-06-22T03:32:39.901-07:00Comments on H-n-T: Christianity Isn't a Political Party, and Jesus Isn't a RepublicanHollyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18317867541610325491noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20715800.post-1150780661910307342006-06-19T22:17:00.000-07:002006-06-19T22:17:00.000-07:00I wanted to tell you that you are doing a great jo...I wanted to tell you that you are doing a great job! I read a few of your most recent articles and your ideas were very reasonable and well thought-out (and, most important, very Biblical).<BR/><BR/>As a person who greatly admires people like Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo, I really appreciated your article on political parties and how Jesus is not a Republican (or a Democrat). I would like to add that I am deeply saddened by the fact that millions of people now have more negative feelings about evangelical Christianity because of George W. Bush. Christianity Today recently reported that 64 percent of Americans would vote for an evangelical presidential candidate; 78 percent said this 10 years ago, before Bush gained power. I believe Bush has done more to bring down Christianity (and America, and the world) than any other person since 2000, especially because he is waging an immoral and unjustified $300 billion war in Iraq, killing thousands of U.S. soldiers as well as more than 30,000 Iraqi civilians.<BR/><BR/>And the worst part is that many millions of conservative evangelicals continue to strongly support him -- partly because they are confusing their political beliefs with spiritual beliefs. Why did conservative Christians abandon Jimmy Carter in droves in 1980? Carter was, and still is, a great Christian leader, towering above Bush in every regard. But Carter was a so-called "liberal" (really a moderate), and the only kind of leader that is palatable to many evangelicals is a hard-core conservative on the issues that they deem to be "Christian" (apparently concern for the poor is not one of them). Thus Bush gets their vote, even though it is obvious to me that Bush is just cynically using and manipulating evangelicals, and all he really cares about are money-related issues (particularly giving huge tax breaks to the wealthy).<BR/><BR/>This is the danger that can come about when Christians identify too strongly with one particular political party or candidate. I hope everyone learns some lessons from this.<BR/><BR/>Thanks for reading this. Keep up the great work.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20715800.post-1149807786491793172006-06-08T16:03:00.000-07:002006-06-08T16:03:00.000-07:00I thoroughly enjoyed your latest! I have somethin...I thoroughly enjoyed your latest! I have something in common with Peggy. I too am a PK and am a Democrat. My parents are both Republicans. However I accuse my dad of being a latent Democrat at times. I tend to be a left leaning moderate and my brother is probably a "Green" liberal. Where did my parents go wrong?!<BR/> <BR/>My biggest frustration is being able to find a political candidate/party which I can get behind. I look at my first citizenship as being Kingdom citizenship and I find it difficult to find candidates whose political stands line up with a Kingdom lifestyle. Aren't there more Christians out there like me? Not that I claim that I've got it totally right. It seems as though even within Christianity there is the religious right (evangelical) camp and the left wing, social justice, (theologically liberal) camp. Both extremes seem to let their politics dictate their theology. I propose a third option. That is a Kingdom of God camp where we let our theology dictate our politics. More importantly, we let it dictate our lifestyle. The best way to promote the Kingdom is, like Paul (W., not the apostle) said. We need to get off our duff and live it. We need to work on reducing the gap between what we say we believe and what we actually do. Christians who have taken up a political agenda, be it left or right, often are busy yelling at each other and at the world at large instead of actually living the values of the Kingdom. Case in point; Hollywood. The Christian right is at war with Hollywood. There are so many lost and hurting people in that industry. But I'm sure that many of those same people have written off Christianity because they feel that "Christians" have declared war on them. Instead they turn to all kinds of other avenues in their spiritual search. The same could probably be said about the homosexual community. Instead, what if Christians took Christ's approach? What if we actually made it a point to be incarnational? That would mean we would have to do things we may not want to do or make friends with people who have a different world view.<BR/> <BR/>Holly, I picked up an evangelical bent in your post when you said, "During his time on earth, his primary 'agenda' wasn't feeding or healing--it was forgiveness." I would disagree with that a bit. Jesus announced His agenda when He read from Isaiah in the Synagogue. He read the following: 18 "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." Jesus came to proclaim and demonstrate that the Kingdom of God was at hand. In order for the Kingdom to break through into our lives and world, there has to be a sense of restoration of what is broken. There is a sense of wholeness and restoration whenever we speak of Kingdom realities. That is part of the problem with evangelicalism and its current lean to the right politically. There is an overemphasis on one aspect, albeit a central one, of Jesus' mission. That is the forgiveness of sins. However forgiveness isn't everything. Jesus came to restore what was broken, including our severed relationship with God. People who had previously been locked out, who were unfortunate politically, economically, religiously, etc... were now ALL invited in. Jesus demonstrated God's love and he did it in real practical ways right at the level of need where people lived. That is the Good News! We evangelicals have reduced the good news of the Kingdom to "Salvation through faith by grace alone." There is nothing wrong with that. I believe in Salvation by grace. But if that is all there is, we begin to think that our only mission on earth is to save people for heaven. Jesus did not say, "Go and save people." He said, "Go and make disciples." What is a disciple? It is a follower. What did Jesus do? He proclaimed the good news of God's Kingdom AND he demonstrated it by loving people at their point of need. Ultimately, He loved us all at our greatest point of need by laying down His life so we could be restored into right relationship with God. That is the door into the Kingdom. But it is the starting line and not the finish line. The religious right are busy trying to save people for heaven, but seem to have little interest in working on building the Kingdom here and now. The religious left are busy trying bring about a better here and now, but minimize or even deny the need for salvation. True disciples focus on following Christ and continuing the work of building His Kingdom in a holistic sense.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20715800.post-1149614562871939722006-06-06T10:22:00.000-07:002006-06-06T10:22:00.000-07:00Nice piece, H. It made me think a lot. I wrote a...Nice piece, H. It made me think a lot. I wrote a little bit in reply, some of which is just echoing your writing. Nevertheless, I'd like to give you my thoughts as well. -paul<BR/><BR/>I think it's interesting to note that for those who believed in Him, one of the biggest misconceptions about Jesus in his time was that he was a political entity. When He came into Jerusalem on palm sunday, everyone thought he was coming to accomplish the polical goals they had as a people, one of which was to be freed from the Roman rulers over them. They were shocked when instead of this, he was tried and crucified.<BR/><BR/>Also interesting to note is that there was an established political entity which was there to administrate Jewish religious matters. Rather than polical activism, Jesus spent his time addressing people's needs directly by teaching, healing, feeding, and loving, not arguing about what should or should not be allowed behavior or organizing a comission to study the effects of homelessness on jewish society. <BR/><BR/>I think we make the same mistake today regardless of political affiliation. We thin that as Christians, our avenue to change the world is to elect people who will do the work for us. We think that we can stand up for our moral convictions (for Republicans) or stand up for the poor and needy (for deomocrats) by political means. While these approaches might help to some extent they never, ever excuse us from teaching, healing, feeding, and loving the people we meet everyday, as Jesus himself did. If our world does not change, it is our fault, not the elected officials, not the right wing concervatives, not the homosexuals, not big business. We are His avenue to change the world, one individual at a time.<BR/><BR/>If Jesus became a man to set up a political machine to administrate his purpose for humanity, he would have spent his time in politics, and he would have told us explicitely to do so.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com