Self-Exam Time: Director's Cut

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

I have absolutely no artistic ability: but there's one story about a famous artist...I think it was James McNeill Whistler...that I identify with.

Amateur artists often visit major art museums, bringing their own paints to practice copying a masterpiece that's on display.  The guard thought nothing of the visitor carrying a set of paints who'd posted himself in front of one of Whistler's works, and was studying it closely.  But then the visitor began to add his own brush-strokes to the masterpiece !  The horrified guard quickly nabbed the vandal, and called police.

Police determined that the vandal was James McNeill Whistler...who was unsatisfied with his painting on display, and decided to improve it with a touch-up.

I tend to be wordy, mostly by going into the full background of whatever I'm writing about.  That's the historian in me.  I very strongly believe that "things are the way they are because they got that way;" and that the only way to really understand how things are is to know the details of how they "got that way."

Many of my posts are long, convoluted, wordy ones.  Sometimes even I lose interest halfway through the telling of how things got that way, long before I get anywhere near "how things are:"...which is usually my point.
 
That's what happened with this post.  So a short while after I'd "finished" it, I decided to touch it up.

Usually a "Director's Cut" is one in which additional material is added to the completed work, to improve it.  This "Director's Cut," however actually cuts material from the completed work...and in my opinion, improves it, by getting to the point.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Most of us quickly pick up on what is another person's primary motivation (or as we Christians say, a person's "heart").  I remember the day my brother visited me, and I showed him my new office, and introduced him to my new partner.  When the two of us went to lunch afterwards, the first thing my brother said was, "Man, Rob is all about money, isn't he ?"

My brother had spoken to Rob for less than an hour, and he exactly knew Rob's heart.

So I take it seriously when someone tells me my views of things are all about my politics.  If you hope to be truthful with yourself, you have to listen to what other people say about you. 
Sometimes other people tell you truth that you can't see, or won’t admit, about yourself.

It is (or should be) a given that every Christian wants truth.  Jesus said "I AM...The Truth" (John 14:6): so it's hard to believe anyone is Christian except they love The Truth.  That has to include even (especially) the unflattering truth about oneself.

That's my understanding too of scripture's repeated commands that we honestly and rigorously examine ourselves: our own works (Galatians 6:4), if we are "in the faith" (II Corinthians 13:5), if we are taking communion in "an unworthy manner" (I Cornthians 11:27-30).

Believing Who Jesus says He IS, and what scripture commands; I pay attention to what other people say about me, and examine myself to see if it's true.  So I test myself, to see if my view of things is all about "my politics." 

It's always "conservative" family and friends who say so: and insofar as they mean all my views are from a "politics" the opposite of theirs, I'd agree that's a fair characterization.

The actual political philosophy called conservatism is not at issue.  If it were, I'd have some points of agreement with "conservatives:" but I find they actually have very few points of honest agreement with conservative philosophy whatever.  Which is why I always denote them as "conservatives:" false, pretend, wannabe conservatives.

 (There's even greater hypocrisy when some call themselves "Christian conservatives:"
but the subject here is politics.) 

What my "conservative" family and friends mean by that label is more a tribal identifier ("us") than anything political.  And again, I'll happily agree I am not a member of their tribe.  But if they choose to see my views as solely about my "politics," it seems I should test my views in those terms.

So I did, choosing the most "un-conservative" politician I could think of, indeed a self-professed socialist.  This was the test:

If Bernie Sanders spewed lies upon lies, in everything he said, every day...if Bernie Sanders filled his twitter-account daily with violent outbursts of anger against other people...if Bernie Sanders stirred up his followers to despise and hate people he didn't like...

would I view Bernie Sanders as a good man, an honest man...a man Christians should follow ?

If Bernie Sanders did the same things the current president does...and if I adored Bernie Sanders, but criticize the current president for doing those same things...that would definitely prove my views were all about, solely about, "my politics."  It would also prove me a complete hypocrite.

But my view is that Jesus says liars and haters are children of satan (John 8:44).  If Bernie Sanders was a liar and hater, I'd take it on Jesus' word that he was a child of satan, and I'd warn other Christians not to have anything to do with him...same view I have of the current president.

I think it might be well that "conservatives" (especially "Christian conservatives") test themselves the same way, to see if their own views are all about their "politics."  They are, after all, under the same scriptural commands I am to love truth, and to examine themselves.