I knew when this post came to my mind that it was going to ruffle some feathers, but decided that I would go forward with it anyway. This is my blog, this is where I share my feelings, opinions, and journey with the few of you that read and what a better way to come back after almost 2 months of not posting anything.
This is a very touchy topic in general, but becomes even more explosive in the church setting when it seems that everything gets shrouded with an adjective of ”faith-based” and “Christian”. What is this topic? Politics. Just the sight of that word caused some of you to recoil, shut your eyes and think happy thoughts. Well, let’s come back and talk about it for a few minutes.
I’ll be the first to tell you that I am far from being an expert in politics. I don’t follow polls, I don’t read every article out there about current politicians or who’s running for Republican primary at the moment, but I do try to keep somewhat up to date with what is going on. I think it’s important to know who is out there, what they stand for, and what your tax dollars are being spent on and it’s perfectly acceptable to voice your opinion about the leaders in power, compare their actions against Scripture, and still be respectful at the same time. It’s part of what makes this country great is our ability to publicly voice our opinions about who is in power, there are a lot of people in other parts of the world that could get executed for that same thing.
Here is where things start to get murky for me, how does our faith and our politics/patriotism merge without politics becoming our faith? I thought of this again this past weekend during the different services and programs going on for 9/11. This has nothing to do with 9/11 or the events that happened on that day, but that day and remembering that day does cause patriotism to boil from our spirits more than most other events for this generation, so it came up this weekend. Our church does a service to honor veterans and first responders ever year, this year they did it on 9/11 since the 10th anniversary happened to fall on a Sunday. During the service, the wife of a state representative who is a believer sang “God Bless America” and something happened as I look around that I have seen many times in different churches I attended over the years: people started raising their hands in worship. This gets me every time. I will admit that there are songs that can be worshipful for some that I don’t get and that’s OK, but whether it’s “God Bless America”, “The Star Spangled Banner”, or “God Bless the USA” I don’t feel that these are songs of worship. Songs that talk about battle, God blessing our country that we love, being proud to be an American – again, none of those things are bad, but are they songs that bring us closer to God so we worship Him or do they just make us more proud of our country?
Politics, the Republican party, and the church in America has become so intertwined over the last few decades that it’s hard to tell where one ends and the other begins sometimes. We become so engrossed with promoting a certain party or a certain politician within the church that we start associating our patriotism with our faith and we forget a few things:
1. Jesus is not a Democrat, Republican, or Independent and, as some hipsters like to claim, I don’t even think He was/is a socialist – He was the Son of God who came to earth as a man to take on our sins so that we could have life more abundantly and in turn we would love others the same way He loves us.
2. Jesus is not an American and does not prefer or promote America over any other nation in the world due to our patriotism or repeated singing of “God Bless America”.
3. Romans 13:1 – next time you get angry about who gets voted in and start blaming liberals, the devil, or the lack of political activism in the church remember the part of this verse that says “The authorities that exist have been established by God.” (NIV). Regardless of who you think is the right or the wrong person in office and how much you like them or don’t like them, God is in control, not you.
Let me end this ridiculously long post that I could probably split into several parts with this: I love my country and being an American. I don’t take that lightly, nor will I ever take it lightly. I am blessed because GOD placed me where I am. I have family members who have either served or are currently serving in the armed forces and I am deeply indebted to them for their service and the protection of the freedom that we do have, I will never forget their service and sacrifice for what I enjoy every day. What I am trying to get across is that we have to tread very lightly when it comes to political involvement in the church – our goal is to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves, give to the poor, stand up for the voiceless and forgotten, be a voice for the unborn (which includes more Christians being willing to adopt, but that’s another post in itself), and being the hands and feet of Jesus to a world that is battered, abused, and left for dead. Sometimes that means getting involved in politics and local government because it’s unavoidable, I get that but that should not be our priority when we do what the church was called to do.
Where do you stand? Should the church and politics be coexistent or only when necessary? Sound of below.
