I understand that it’s difficult for most people to refrain from an opinion on the recent presidential election. I am continually frustrated, however, by the majority of God-following people that I have talked to who exclaim, with every degree of certainty, that a Democrat in the White House is going to be the downfall of our country and of morality. A scarier presumption by some is that Obama’s term is going to lead to the downfall of Christianity itself. I’m not writing this to make a case for Obama–to be honest, whether or not Christians like him is the least of my worries. I am writing this to point out the inevitable failure of Christian involvement in politics; I think we can all agree that God is bigger than any government.
Many Christians I talked to the day after the election were a mess. The majority had voted McCain, and lamentations were deep and widespread. They pictured a nation of rampant gay marriage and abortion as an inevitability. The irony, of course, being that Obama is not actually pro-gay marriage, just pro-civil union. Which was also John McCain’s position. Not that it matters.
I think this speaks to a troubling underlying problem. Christians, for whatever reason, believe that the best way for America to fall into God’s plan of being the Hope for the World is to enact Christian policies through legislation. They assume that America is a “Christian Nation,” or “God’s Country,” and lament at the watering down of God’s ideals in this republic. Believing America is God’s Nation is to make God very small–a Being who can only work through the “power-over” political systems of man. Believing America has ever been a Christian Nation is to ignore its history. America was founded by a small group of Unitarians (who believe that there are many ways to God, not just Jesus) who slaughtered and displaced Native Americans all across the continent, categorizing them as subhuman “savages.” The country was then built upon a foundation of slavery for the majority of its existence, and has then been involved in every major war in the past century, including dropping two atomic bombs on villages of innocent Japanese people (who most likely had very little knowledge of what their own government had done at Pearl Harbor). At what point in this rich history could America’s will be considered God’s? And why, then, do we still hear battle cries all across the Christian establishment to “win back America for God?”
To assume that this is God’s country is a fallacy. But to then assume that it is our Christian duty to attempt to legislate Christianity is to make God even smaller. As a follower of Christ, I believe that Jesus is the only one who can change hearts. Laws can change actions, and arguments can change minds, but God transforms the heart. So why do we think that winning legislative battles will win America for God? If the last 30 years have been evidence, more often than not these legislative battles turn Christians into loud, obnoxious beings who fail at Christ’s mission of love and humility. Christ himself had every opportunity, and obviously the capability, to insert himself into the political situation in the area of his ministry. In fact, the Jews expected him to become political liberator from the Roman Empire (and eventually killed him for not meeting this expectation). He knew that God’s heart-changing power through love and service fits nowhere into the manmade power of rule, reign and legislation. He saw God’s power as something a lot bigger than an administration; he saw God’s kingdom as something that transcended political affiliation and earthly citizenship. He commanded, the night before he died. for his disciples to go “wash the feet of this world.” He did not command that they push for legislation that required everyone to have clean feet. Both would bring about the same physical result of clean feet, but only one–love, service–had the power to change hearts.
This idea that the body of Christ is called to be a large, political power puts severe limitations on its ability to be what Jesus commanded–to wash the feet of this world. As the cliche states, “no one ever became a Christian because they lost the argument.” So as we enter into four (and perhaps eight) years of a Barack Obama administration, can we (as Christians) stop believing that it is our duty to legislate Christianity? I hardly think it’s what God has in mind.
Austin's Thoughts 