I, like many Americans, am uneasy.
This election has me unsettled. Not just because of my personal political views. Not just because of the hostility in our nation. Primarily because of the nature of the church in America. I've had a lot of thoughts rolling around my head the past few weeks and I needed to get them out. Here are the big things troubling me about where we are as God's people and a few things that I think we can do about them. I attempted to be as non-partisan as possible with this post, but you can tell me how I did.
I am deeply disturbed by the strength with which American Christians are clinging to their respective political parties. Christians on both sides of the aisle remain convinced that their party is the sole beacon of Christianity in the American wasteland. With that comes a tendency to overlook, excuse, justify, explain away, or ignore the deep faults that have presented themselves in institutional politics. We have somehow confused our politics with our religion so that if someone attacks our party, we feel they must be attacking our God. There's a technical term for this, of course:
Idolatry.
I don't know of anyone who legitimately believes that an individual or a political party is God. I do, however, know plenty of people who operate out of the assumption that their party speaks and acts on God's behalf. Idolatry is looking to something that is not God in the place of God. God is not confined by a political party. God does not smile or frown upon one political system over another.
My advice comes from the renowned theologians .38 Special: hold on loosely. I plead with my Christian brothers and sisters to hold on to your politics with an open hand. Your political party will not free this land from corruption, sin, and hatred. Your political party will not solve every societal woe, every social justice issue, and every instance of human suffering. And your political party will never restore the world to the state of eternal shalom that God promises his people. Whether you begrudgingly support the lesser of two evils or staunchly believe that your party is what's best for the world, you must acknowledge that they will never accomplish the work of God.
We were given a voice, and the two best uses of that voice are lifting praise to God above and speaking out for the people who cannot: the unborn, the immigrant, the poor, the oppressed, the imprisoned, the homeless, and the ill. Political parties pay very smart people a whole lot of money to defend themselves - they can manage without us.
Are you feeling defensive yet? Good, I am too. I can't tell you how abundantly guilty I am of this specific form of idolatry. I find it's always uncomfortable when our commitment to Christ conflicts with any other commitment. Don't run from that discomfort - it's never a bad thing to challenge yourself and test your own heart.
Next, we need to talk about America. One of the scariest things to threaten the American church is extreme nationalism. America, because it has enjoyed world power for a quarter of a millennium, is thought to be God's chosen nation on par with ancient Israel. I have seen many people share this verse from 2 Chronicles in reference to American politics:
if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. - 2 Chronicles 7:14
Rarely do I see any sort of context provided. This verse comes in the larger story of Solomon consecrating the temple. Two verses earlier, God says “I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for myself as a temple for sacrifices." The promise above speaks directly to ancient Israel, but we try to force ourselves into the narrative. Does it still have use for today? Of course! It tells us about the Creator God, it tells us about what he values, and it tells us of his relationship with his people, Israel. What it doesn't do is provide specific instruction for America during this election.
America is not a theocracy. America was not called out of Egypt. America is not God's chosen people. Israel does live on, but it is not in the form of America, it is in the church. It's strange to say this, but we are no more favored as a nation than North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, China, or the USSR. The Roman Empire fell, the Byzantine Empire fell, and America will fall. The church, however, will endure.
This brings me to another point that we seem to be confused about: the role of government. There are things that pretty much all of us agree that a government should do. A government should operate under a system of laws to prevent anarchy. A government should have some means of enforcing those laws. There also some things that most of us agree a government should NOT do. A government shouldn't act with absolute power. A government shouldn't control every aspect of everyday life. And of course there are roles of the government that we argue a lot about that I won't get into.
But one thing we need to get on board with is that the government is not the church.
I know, I know. Duh. But go with me. Many Christians seem to operate out of the belief that the government and the church have the same goal, or at least that the government may one day be molded to have a common goal with the church. We are going to vote for the candidate or party that we are confident will operate out of our Christian ideals. In this way, we expect the government to win where the church has lost.
I am of the belief that morality cannot be legislated. Christian values will never be imposed on the nation by force. I loosely paraphrase one of my professors when I say that it is unreasonable to hold the world to the terms of a contract that they haven't signed. It's unreasonable to expect our nation to abide by Christian values when they have not been shown what's so good about the good news.
If we are trusting the government to be the key agent of bringing God's kingdom to the world, the church has failed.
While it is the responsibility of the government to govern the nation, it is the responsibility of the church to transform the world. The church will not do this through the acquisition of greater power or influence or even by gaining a louder voice in the white house. It will only do so through self-sacrificial love. The kind of love that enables a person to look at their neighbor and say, "I love you more than I love winning." We can only transform if we submit to being transformed. We can only heal the sins of our land if we address the sins immediately in front of us, starting of course with the ones we see in our own plank-filled eyes.
I want to leave these tedious ramblings with two points.
First, we're all worshiping something. With our words, with our actions, with our concerns, anxieties, and attention. By these, the world will see what we worship. In the upcoming weeks, I want to take special care to ensure that I am not worshiping an individual, a political party, a political system, or a nation. I want to worship the God who gives us a nation devoid of borders, of all people and nations and languages. Anything else is no less than idolatry.
Lastly, now more than ever, we live in a world in dire need of unity, which should mean that we live in a world in dire need of the church. But, as is often the case, the church looks a whole lot like the rest of the world right now. if we want to change the nation, it starts with us. It starts with creating a community that catches the attention of all those outside of it. Today, I think that means that we need to create a community that is single-mindedly focused on the kingdom of God. Everything else is secondary: political affiliation, country of origin, language spoken, money in your bank account, or color of your skin. If we can agree that our citizenship is in heaven, that should mean we've agreed on the only thing that really and truly matters.
It sounds simple, it sounds cliche, but it also sounds like exactly what every single one of us needs. The stakes have never been higher. We of all people must make a commitment every day to engage in love.
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me." - John 17:20-23
~RJS~
