I regularly get e-mails from well-meaning friends and family members telling me that we (meaning, ’I’) should support Candidate X or should oppose Candidate Y because they support/oppose a Biblical worldview or are in favor/against Issue Z, which, according to the e-mail’s author, is important to/damaging to the cause of Christ. Last November, our nation made history on many levels. Much of that is good, and much is not good. I am not going there with this missive. I’m going somewhere else.
Somewhere that may cause many of my friends to tilt their heads and ask, “Has he finally gone off the edge?”
Somewhere that may cause many others to wonder if I finally drank the Kool-Aid.
This is not necessarily a politically-based note, though if that’s what you see here, I won’t argue with you. This is a verbal vomiting of things I’ve been thinking about for a very long time, and only recently have come to an understanding of.
It is presumed by many in evangelical Christianity that the only party one should support is the Republican Party. To be sure, there have been several officeholders of this party who have supported the cause of Christ. But this made me wonder: can one be a staunch Democrat and also be a Christ-follower?
I work at a university that serves a predominately black population. The school takes much pride in this historical fact. It’s a good place to work, filled with good people. I have come in contact with people from many areas of the world, far-off places like Ghana, Egypt, and Nigeria, as well as Detroit, Alaska, and Alabama. They don’t look like me, talk like me, or think like me. But many of them serve the same Christ I serve. When I asked them why they support one party over another, they look at me like I’m from Mars, as if everybody should have known. I get asked how I can support my party in light if my allegiance to Jesus.
Amazing, isn’t it?
This got me to thinking: what should we look for in our candidates and parties? More importantly, what should we look for in ourselves? And how does that translate into political opinion with a Biblical worldview?
This is harder than it looks. The preacher guys and the commentator guys on the radio would have you to believe that all you have to do is look for the (R) after someone’s name, and push the button beside it. It ain’t necessarily so.
Which of the commandments are the greatest, Jesus was asked. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; and love your neighbor as yourself, He responded. Those two lay the foundation for every law and regulation in Scripture. If we were to use those two commands as core beliefs and applied them to the political system, what might out election results look like?
What does it mean to love God with one’s heart, soul, mind, and strength? Love is an action, contrary to whatever pop music tells you. What is love? Not the kissy-kissy love or the ‘I love Pizza Hut pizza’ love. Those are self-serving flavors of love. Those are ‘what can I get from this?’ loves. Even the ‘I love my boyfriend/girlfriend’ love can be a selfish when-can-I-get-some love.
Loving God requires an act of defiance to self. It requires us to put Him and His will first, even above ourselves. John Lennon said all we need is love, and he was partly right. Love is where it starts. There are those with whom surrendering the will was the easy part: learning what it meant, how to implement, how to relate to others….those were the difficult parts. Some of us (looking in the mirror as I type) had to make a choice to love God. This required a conscious decision on my part, and required me to override my natural tendency to put ME in the front of the line. Others of us felt the overwhelming emotion first, and later learned what it was, how to express it, how to motivate it. Still others, at our weakest point, experienced the power of God as He restored our lives, rescued us from ourselves, and purged us. Combine these and we have someone who has experienced the love of God and wishes to return that same love to God in their worship, in their service, in obedience, in their life. Loving our neighbor, though, can be a bit harder. Who is my neighbor, the man asked Jesus. Look at that guy in the mirror. Your neighbor is everyone else.
Sooo….how do we apply this to governance?
The ideal candidate would be one who proposes policies that advance the welfare of the public while complying with Biblical standards and precedents. Haven’t seen any lately, have you?
Okay. Accept that there may never be an ideal candidate. Then we must select the best of what’s left.
So how do we set our priorities?
There is a school of thought that says to choose the lesser or the two evils. There’s another that says to not let the Better be the enemy of the Good; in other words, pick the most achievable option rather than the most preferable one. Still another says to examine the stances of the opponents and select the one who most aligns with the two commandments we earlier spoke of. But what if they contradict? Which point takes preference over which other point
The parties contribute to the madness by overlapping on policies. I tried to distill each party down to its core beliefs, but there is much overlapping the further we get away from the core.
DEMOCRATS:
-Some call them ‘liberals’, meaning ‘willing and eager to change for the public good.’ The term has developed an evil connotation in recent decades. At its core, though, this may be the party most resembling the Old Testament. A core philosophy might be, ‘Man is, at his core, inherently evil. Therefore, for the betterment of society, government must restrict his choices and actions.’ Sounds a lot like Moses’ view of the Israelites. It also sounds a lot like the Holiness movement: comply with these codes of conduct, and all will be well. To be sure, many social welfare policies were begun under Democratic control. The intention was to improve the lives of those who had a difficult time helping themselves. A very Christian-like goal, if there ever was one. Labor unions, children’s advocates, and other organizations addressing social ills arose from this group, and most accomplished much good.
But just as the holiness movement moved into legalism, the party moved away from its core and into the mode where we currently find it: pushing the envelope of morality and acceptable conduct. They now embrace much of the evil they formally fought against. God’s power over life and death has been transmogrified into a constitutional right to kill babies. Marital sanctity and security of the family unit has transformed into diversity in sexual orientation and a right to create life apart from a marriage. Even discussions of God in general and Jesus in particular are offensive to many followers of the party, as there are no absolutes, and truth (and God) are all relative.
REPUBLICANS:
-Early in its life, the ‘Conservative’ party (meaning, we prefer to maintain the status quo, and support change, but we do so grudgingly and slowly) was created on the core belief that, ‘man is, at his core, inherently good; and the best thing government can do is to leave him alone to make enlightened self-serving choices that will, in turn, serve the best interest of society at large.’ This is Ayn Rand’s ‘objectivist’ philosophy at its best. Mandated manipulations of economies in the former Soviet Union and elsewhere bear some of this out: when government dictates, the economic machine is not free to respond to laws of supply-and-demand, and becomes inefficient. This party tends to favor deregulation and release of governmental controls. This tends to restore an incentive to work and produce, since producers have much to gain if they are successful. This falls squarely in line with the ‘if you don’t work, you don’t eat’ philosophy of the New Testament.
Though it may be more efficient, this system is nonetheless heartless. It is almost Darwinian in nature, permitting only the strongest to survive. Only with much bearbaiting does this party ‘consider the least of these’, and then only with much grumbling about taxes. The free market trumps most other concerns: business is our business. In the last few decades, however, it has become the darling of much of the Christian public, primarily due to its opposition to abortion. Lately, many members of this party who supposedly had high moral standards have been caught (literally) with their pants down, provoking warranted cries of ‘Hypocrite!’ from the opposition.
Okay, there’s a thumbnail sketch, admittedly short and lacking much, of both major parties as I understand them. And what exactly does this have to do with anything, you ask? Glad you asked.
We each have different priorities on our lives, even as we agree on Christ. I’ll stick my neck out here and list a few of mine. I affirm that a human being, created in the image of God, is a precious and valuable thing. That life should be protected at any and all costs, irrespective of whether it is preborn, infant, aged, or handicapped. My friends who support the other party agree on that statement. But it’s the application of that statement to real life that becomes the wedge between us. I look for a candidate who will oppose abortion in any size, shape, or color. That is my priority. My friend, who affirms the same statement I made earlier, looks for the candidate who he thinks will best provide a healthy environment for children with healthcare, nutrition, and loving caregivers. We did not choose the same candidate last November.
“But what about sanctity of life?” I argue.
“What about sanctity of those who are already alive?” he counters.
It’s hard to argue with him. He’s right. But so am I. And it is not likely that a candidate will meet both of our criteria.
This was a rather longwinded way to say that there are people on both sides of the political aisle who love Jesus very much, and have given their lives over to Him. Because they don’t vote for the same person I do doesn’t make them ‘evil.’ It makes them someone with a different perspective. A brother. A sister. Looking at the same world and trying to make a difference in His name.
Aw man, and I didn’t even get to talk about immigration yet! Maybe next time…..
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