I totally agree with my friend Brian here:
In the end if they break ways with Christ’s teachings we are required to break with them as well and speak truth in love
And saying such things just scares the bejeebies out of so many of my “secular” friends. They just can’t seem to grasp the idea that the “theocracy” ideas of the Religious Right are not what one is necessarily proposing in speaking of following Christ’s teachings rather than political parties. I want to say something like “Be not afraid”, but the American political ideology that says “Separation of Church and State” seems to require of them that they eschew any traces of “religious ideology” when considering politcal policy. My attempts to steer them off of this course of thinking, or to try to explain how such a sharp separation is not feasible (except to those who claim they have no such “religious problems”– to which I try to argue that no matter how “detached” and “rational” they claim to be, their “politics” is also based in spiritual/social values that they will insist are not “religious” in nature — but they ARE. )
And so I find myself hesitating to say this often enough (things such as what Brian has said here, and tweeted just prior to his post going up). I’m afraid it may pigeon-hole me in the eyes of certain political tweeters who follow me. I can only hope that they read into just a few of the details.
I noticed just within the last hour that @james_ka_smith was having to explain to a tweeter that he was NOT Republican, assumed by that tweeter since Smith had no doubt said something “un-euphoric” about Obama. This euphoria was all over Twitter last night, as well as on MSNBC. I watch MSNBC, but it’s been immensely harder lately. The blind spots are glaring even brighter than they usually are.
I sure wish we could talk about this in the churches. But it is as about as TABOO to take ANY side whatsoever, even a non-partisan one that would get up the dander of the defenders of the “beloved” (such as Obama) being questioned.
Maybe I should try to set up such a conversation where we can talk about what the church we inhabit needs to be saying to the powers that be, or talk about the question of just how to do that.
My title of this post is based on a bumber sticker that I got from Sojourners back in 2004. But I differ somewhat from the way one often hears it discussed by Sojourners writers. While I find much , much more in common in terms of what we see the Gospels telling us about the merits of political platforms and discourse, I am somewhat less enamored with the political process as it exists in America than I find in m any (but not all) Sojourners articles/speeches.
