Thursday, January 17, 2008
The religious right
I am part of an evangelical list serve and the discussion has moved toward politics of late. I have moved to a more apolitical stand in recent years and in that light, I responded to the following question posted by someone else...
Who are the "religious right"? I mean, Jerry isn't with us anymore
and Pat is getting senile.
Those who would rather be right than politically correct, lol. Seriously while
the figureheads of the movement may be fading there are plenty of right leaning
Christians out there. I find the struggle is with the polarization. There is a
religious right and a religious left and both can tend toward pharisaism if they
are not careful. Were Jesus walking the earth today there would be people that
would say he can't be Jesus, He didn't join my prolife march but instead
ministered to the young woman outside the clinic or the Doctor inside. Then
there would be others that would say he can't be Jesus he didn't join our peace
march, but instead tended to the wounded soldier. This is why politics and faith
are tough to merge together.
Too often we ask what would Jesus do? This is the
wrong question because obviously Jesus would always do what I want to do, what
meshes with my world view. Oh that we would have politicians that would take a
true stand on morality and still love the immoral, that we would have
politicians that care about fiscal responsibility (good stewardship) and can
still make a way to care for the "least of these." How do we get there? We start
by ignoring what would Jesus do and ask the better question, "what did Jesus
do?" In this way we could make our decisions by scripture rather than our
feelings. Then we encourage our brothers and sisters in Christ called to the
political realm, vote for them, pray for them and hold them accountable to the
Word of God. The political realm is really a metaphor for life. Too often we
like Paul know the right thing to do and don't do it but hold our noses and do
what's expedient. Jesus never did that and nor can we afford to.
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(0) comments
I am part of an evangelical list serve and the discussion has moved toward politics of late. I have moved to a more apolitical stand in recent years and in that light, I responded to the following question posted by someone else...
Who are the "religious right"? I mean, Jerry isn't with us anymore
and Pat is getting senile.
Those who would rather be right than politically correct, lol. Seriously while
the figureheads of the movement may be fading there are plenty of right leaning
Christians out there. I find the struggle is with the polarization. There is a
religious right and a religious left and both can tend toward pharisaism if they
are not careful. Were Jesus walking the earth today there would be people that
would say he can't be Jesus, He didn't join my prolife march but instead
ministered to the young woman outside the clinic or the Doctor inside. Then
there would be others that would say he can't be Jesus he didn't join our peace
march, but instead tended to the wounded soldier. This is why politics and faith
are tough to merge together.
Too often we ask what would Jesus do? This is the
wrong question because obviously Jesus would always do what I want to do, what
meshes with my world view. Oh that we would have politicians that would take a
true stand on morality and still love the immoral, that we would have
politicians that care about fiscal responsibility (good stewardship) and can
still make a way to care for the "least of these." How do we get there? We start
by ignoring what would Jesus do and ask the better question, "what did Jesus
do?" In this way we could make our decisions by scripture rather than our
feelings. Then we encourage our brothers and sisters in Christ called to the
political realm, vote for them, pray for them and hold them accountable to the
Word of God. The political realm is really a metaphor for life. Too often we
like Paul know the right thing to do and don't do it but hold our noses and do
what's expedient. Jesus never did that and nor can we afford to.
