On Being Involved In Politics And The Church

Grief exists in the political realm. Some of my friends who support Rick Santorum are going through the five stages today...many are moving quickly to anger. On my social networking streams (which include activists on both the left and right), some Santorum supporters are venting some fury at the inevitable Romney nomination...

while some on the left are being incredibly callous and tacky.

I've been thinking alot lately about what it means to be a Christ-follower AND politically active.

Christians are active on both the right and the left...although some on the right can't believe that liberals can be Christian. But similar thinking exists in the political realm as well...Jim Geraghty does an excellent job in describing this way of thinking in the political world. Geraghty was reacting to a BuzzFeed story that describe Obama campaign workers who view the Romney campaign as a joke.

Of course.


Such is life for political partisans; because we so strongly disagree with the candidates of the other side, we have a hard time believing anyone else could find them appealing.

...If you’re working for the Obama campaign, chances are that the president represents, if not your ideal political leader, then political leader on the national scene right now who you deem closest to the ideal. With that as your ideal or near-ideal leader, undoubtedly you would find Romney laughably unappealing.

Because we believe in our own ideological tenets so strongly, we can't believe that anyone can possible disagree with us. People that disagree with us are just...plain...wrong...correct?

The danger for politically-active Christians is to defend their political and theological convictions WITHOUT destroying their Christian witness.

As a Christian, I believe the Spirit resides within me. Paul, in Galatians, describes the resulting behavior:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. (Galatians 5:22-23).

I have friends who vehemently disagree with some of my theological and political beliefs. I don't mind that. I am troubled when Christians justify behaving outside the Spirit in the name of the Father.

This post is not only inspired by the reaction from some political activists to the Santorum news, but to another, more personal incident that occurred today. A funeral home had posted a "tribute" page for family and friends to post memories and loving messages about a deceased, gay Iowan. This was posted on his page:

"I believe David will suffer the eternal torments of hell no matter how nice he was in this life. I am deeply saddened that he did not repent before God took him."

It takes a lot of thought and meditation to express a belief in a way that does honor to Christ. At the same time, it takes an equal amount of effort to justify cruel behavior in His name. If you are going to make the effort...choose the former over the latter.