Politics

It’s November 4th and I have failed to even mention the election or politics before now. For the last three months especially I have been daily bombarded with news clips, sound bytes, campaign promises, propaganda, and a literal mound of political jargon. There is much talk about this campaign being different, about it being ground breaking. But once we get past the jargon and political clout, racial significance and romanticized ideals, it’s still the same. The theme of this election has been Hope and Change. The pastor at the church I visited last week made an excellent point; has there ever been an election that did not promise change? Can anyone remember a Presidential election where the candidate promised to keep things the same? Granted, I’ve only been alive for a handful, but I do not remember that being the case. Now it could be assumed I am referencing only Obama’s campaign, but McCain also wishes to distance himself from the presidency before him.

So once again we have the stratification of the nation. Obama is made out to be a ‘false prophet and terrorist sympathizer,’ and McCain is made out to be a rich elitist who has no idea how to fix the economy. On the converse side, Obama is the savior of a nation and a people, while McCain is the war veteran who will protect the American way. So where is the truth? For Christians, truth must always come before stereotypes, wishful thinking, and just the ease of labeling the Other as a villain while idolizing what we believe to be right. For Christians, what should be our response?

As I write this, two fellow Divinity School classmates are sitting behind me. They have been talking loudly and blasting the ‘far right’ and Republicans. I have heard this same matter of talk used for Obama as well. Now I am going to propose a new idea of how to handle this election. Why is it that we feel the need to elevate a human onto a pedestal every four years? Whether Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, or unaffiliated, we all lift up our own candidate while we vilify the other. The sad and disturbing truth, the only absolute for every, single candidate, is that they will let us down. They will disappoint. They will fail. They will not fulfill their promises. The world will not change. As Christians, we must recognize that America will either rise or fall and it will have nothing to do with who is President. God is Sovereign. Obama is not sovereign; McCain is not sovereign. Now very few people would ever use this language to describe their candidate, but it comes across in how we think, speak, and act every single day.

Jesus’ political policy was not right or left. Jesus would be neither Democrat nor Republican. If the role of Christ in his first coming was to establish a right-minded political system, then he would have. As it was, he lived within one of the finest tuned political machines of known history; the Romans had few equals. So instead of vilifying the other, Jesus calls us to love the other. Instead of labeling and hating and stereotyping, Jesus dares us to get out of our comfort zones, off our soap boxes, and to engage the other. We engage by talking, but also by listening. We need to listen to one another, understand one another, maybe even disagree with one another, but always love one another. This changes worlds and nations, not politicians. The leaders of today will be dust tomorrow. The pillars of the state will crumble over the years, and the generations after us will wander these shores and say, “This was once America.”

And God will continue to say, “I Am that I Am.”

Know No Suffering

I have recently completed the first half of Peter Storey’s book, With God in the Crucible. Peter Storey is the former president of the Methodist Church of Southern Africa and of the South African Council of Churches (SACC); he provided a powerful voice against the apartheid regime in South Africa for over three decades. The subtitle for Storey’s book is Preaching Costly Discipleship. His work hearkens to the previous works of individuals such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Reading about his immense suffering, I have come to question what it means for the Church to exist in such a tranquil state here in North America. I have no idea what it is like to suffer for the sake of Christ, at least to the degree Storey graphically intimates for his readers.

On a similar note, in my Christian Ministry class last Thursday two people stood up and discussed the state of the Christian Church in Rwanda and Zimbabwe. They humbly rebuked the Western notion that wealth equals God’s special blessing on a people. In the US so many churches concern themselves with foreign missions in an effort to take God to these foreign lands. My two friends reminded me that God was there before the missionaries came. Oftentimes, God even seems to be more present in these lands. There is a disparity between how we view God’s goodness here in the States and how God’s goodness is viewed in war-torn Rwanda. Even though I personally reject the ever more popular ‘Health & Wealth’ gospels, I often catch myself speaking of God’s blessing when it especially pertains to my own benefit. The global community of the Church must work in dialog and not in monologue. The Church in American may bring the money, but it seems the Church in Africa could show us a faith ‘forged in the furnace of suffering.’ We go to church with smiling faces because we’ve been convinced that God is in the business of making us happy, and if we are not happy then we must not be pleasing to God. Rwandans go to Church praying and weeping for the strength to forgive the murderers of their friends and neighbors. There is a reality of faith in suffering which simply does not exist in a life of plenty and comfort. In North America, how in the world do we understand these words of our Lord?
“But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets” (Luke 6:24-26).

Peter Storey pens the story of his people, of a mixed people. The story is in his sermons, given for the love of his people. With a culture that is every more global we can no longer ignore the pains of this world. Starvation, slavery, illness, poverty, racism, murder, war, toils, and strife are rampant on the Earth. In our effort to respond to this pain, however, we must be careful not to ‘go to the nations’ and forget our own. Having been on several mission trips I found it easier to minister there than at home. My excursions into the world will not save me from refusing to minister at home. The sick are here, the poor are here, the discriminated and hated are here, the lost are here, the fullness of Christ in the least of these is here in the United States.

Triune God, let not our comfort mold our faith, but let our faith disband our comfort.

A God-Centered God

In a recent discussion with a friend of mine, we very briefly disagreed over God’s ultimate desire. He suggested that God’s greatest desire is to be relational with God’s people. I countered and suggested that God’s greatest desire is to bring glory to God’s self. Now this language is already problematic. Can God desire? When we speak of desire, we tend to imply need, or the longing to attain something previously unattained. So with this understanding, God could not desire because God does not need, nor does God lack anything from a previous time or moment. There is no Time for God and there is nothing that God does not already possess. When we speak of desiring, I suppose we mean the purpose of existence, or natural expression of one’s self.

For God, therefore, what is the purpose of God’s existence? What is the natural expression of God’s self upon all of reality, sensible and insensible? To clarify this we must understand who God is. What is God’s nature? For only in understanding God’s nature can we express that nature’s expression upon reality. As a result we must be careful in what we use to understand God. One individual may equate God with a negative experience involving a former pastor or minister. One may understand God through health and wealth, viewing the blessings of their life as being from God. With all these various experiences, one must be careful in what they deduct concerning who God is. For this reason, Scripture remains the most important source of revealed information involving God.

From Scripture we know that God is many things. God is relational, but God is also the greatest good. God does not desire relationship with us because we have anything to bring to God. If God is the greatest good, then God loves perfectly. If God loves perfectly, then God’s love for us will lead God to reveal to us the greatest good. God’s love will result in God revealing God’s self to us. In addition to this, because God is the greatest good then God will also love that which is good. With nothing greater to love than God, God loves God’s self. If we say that God loves the good, then God must first love God’s own good nature. So the question remains. If God is the greatest good, then would the greatest good love what is most good or what is not mostly good, namely humanity? This is common sense. The good would love the good. Humanity is not more good than God. Therefore, God will always love God’s goodness before God loves us.

But…because Christ died for humanity, the elect before God assume the aspect of Christ, thus becoming the greatest good in the form of Jesus, the Word of God. God’s love for us issues from a love for God’s own self in the form of Jesus. I realize this is a very God-centered soteriology, but I cannot see how it could be any other way. The universe is not concerned with us. We are not its center. We are merely a pin-prick on the scale of infinite magnitude; I believe this to be for a reason. We are not the ones who matter, as much as we like to think the opposite. From birth to death, the ages of humanity are like dust before an eternal God.

Praise be to the Father for allowing us to matter. Praise be to the Son for making us lovable in the eyes of the Father. Praise be to the Holy Spirit for sanctifying our souls and communicating the perfect relationship between Father and Son. Praise be to the Trinity for loving the greatest good, and allowing us be loved as a result.