Going the Wrong Way

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

When the teaching started going around that Christians should be involved in politics, I rejected it.  It was an obvious ploy by the "Moral Majority" of the late '70s to trump up Christian support for Republicans.  Having become a Christian during the Watergate days, I was deeply skeptical that Christians should take political "sides"...especially with the "side" that gave us the most corrupt and destructive government in our history...to that point.

I was...and am...impressed that Galatians 5:20 lists "factions" (Greek haireseis, literally, "dividings") as a work of the flesh.  It was hard to see how the "Moral Majority" and its (quickly-burgeoning) imitators were not such "factions," involving themselves as they did in the worldly power-mechanics of human governments.  New factions springing up is how politics works: but introducing a "dividing" in the Church wounds the Body of Christ.

I was also skeptical that the goal of worldly political power was one Christians should pursue: it seems a serious mis-reading of Jesus' mandate to seek FIRST the Kingdom of God.

The 1980 election confirmed my suspicions.  The major candidates were a staunch Christian and a self-proclaimed "conservative."  The "Christian Conservative" faction delivered its votes overwhelmingly to the "conservative."  It showed where the heart of that faction truly lay, and still does.

But my view has become a bit more Biblically-nuanced in the last 40 years.

I'm more convinced than ever that "Christian conservatism" is an unscriptural faction (unless I've missed some important admonition by Jesus that His followers be "conservative"); and that human political power has no part in enacting the Kingdom of God.  There is no scriptural mandate I'm aware of that we should seek first (or at all) involvement in the human politics of this world's kingdoms.

But that world is where our life takes place, and politics is part of that world.  If we believe Jesus is "Lord" of all things, He is Lord of all that world, and all its human activities, including politics.  It's not our priority to seek; but in their contacts with and responses to the world's politics, Christians should manifest Jesus' rule even that enemy realm.

And there's the problem.

A tourist in Ireland was driving cross-country, and had become lost on a country road.  Seeing a farmer working on his fence, he pulled to the side of the road, and called,

"Excuse me.  Is this the road to Dublin ?"

The farmer paused to look down the road...and turned to look down it the other direction.  Then he looked at the tourist.

"Aye, 'tis," said the farmer.  "But ye're goin' the wrong way."

American Christians' mandate is to manifest Jesus' Lordship, even in the world's political realm.  But for 40 years American Christians have been going the wrong way.