Church is a strange culture to navigate. Walking into a church building often requires fluently speaking a new language (Christian-ese), enduring inside jokes and sorting through all sorts of unspoken expectations that are not biblical and don’t even make sense. Though if a newcomer has the endurance and survives a few weekend services, what they will often find is a group of loving, kind and regular people with a desire to connect with God and a few others. However, in this red hot political climate a few churches have resorted to using their platform to high-jack the 90 minutes designed to lift up the all satisfying name of Jesus and use it to promote a political party, system or a specific candidate.
Before I am accused of demonizing democracy, let me be up front. I am grateful for freedom and our great republic. I vote. I have fairly solid political leanings. I can even sit down and talk fairly intelligently about foreign policy. But the time and place to have that conversation is not on a Sunday morning while hundreds of people look for hope and life from the person of Jesus.
I only bring this up because while tensions are high in the midst of nominations and party disputes, I have found [some] followers of Jesus letting their political leanings trump their commitment to the Word of God. I have no doubt of people’s faith in Jesus, but when hearing many Christian’s politics, I wonder who is pulling their strings. For example, when the issue of caring for the poor or refugee care is raised the most well-meaning Christians who are well versed in party politics are often lacking in what is most obvious to the heart of God.
The bottom line is that Democrats have flown the flag of the disenfranchised and marginalized and poor for many years. The Republican counter-parts are most likely grateful for their compassionate hearts and may even say so in the quiet corners of Capital Hill. But because Democrats also champion pro-choice as a cornerstone issue, Republicans are unwilling to separate the two. In other words, “if I care for the poor then I am somehow associating myself with bleeding heart liberal ideology.” This is a dangerous line to walk. How can an entire group of people be so passionate about the unborn (of which I am one of them) and yet blatantly ignore the needs and welfare of those living next door? We cannot.
So this is not a call to change parties, switch bumper stickers and or move to Canada. However, it is a simple reminder that the poor are with us. We can’t let our political leanings trump our commitment to loving and caring for the most marginalized in culture.
1 John 3:17-19 If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 19This then is how we know that we belong to the truth,
