“I offer this book with the heartiest sentiments to all the jolly people who hate what I write, and regard it (very justly, for all I know), as a piece of poor clowning or a single tiresome joke.” – G.K. Chesterson (Orthodoxy (Moody Classics))
I came into the emergent conversation probably a little bit later in the game than many. I didn’t even start hearing the name emergent until after college (circa 2003-2004).
As I started tracking blogs and other online conversations I began seeing the term more and more. And once I launched my own blog in 2005 and began making connections with folks in the UK, I started hearing from people who were actually taking part in the conversation.
I gave in and joined a couple discussion on Facebook over the weekend about faith and politics.
Several folks whom I consider good friends (and still do) made comments that basically said if you vote for any candidate that supports abortion, you need to really question your salvation and faith.
That really bothers me. But I really don’t want to delve into that here.
For the record, I’m pro-life. Always have been and likely always will be. And I also hope that my pro-life stance doesn’t end with birth of a child. I hope that it goes from conception to the grave. Am I caring for that baby after it’s birth? Am I advocating for quality of life and freedom and justice for that baby as he or she grows into adulthood? Am I advocating that the child will be free from oppression?
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
I will also add that my pro-life stance doesn’t always agree that “life” is the ultimate answer. We tend to think it is. We tend to think that prolonging life is the ultimate goal of medicine. But just because we have the technology to keep a person alive via machine – doesn’t always mean that we should.
But I digress.
Anyways, I wanted to share a couple different views on the election. Two different “Christian” authors have shared some of their thoughts on the election.
This first video is a video of John Piper who shares his thoughts on the unusual challenges this election presents. Such as Sara Palin as VP. Can a woman be “commander in chief?” And what about race and what about abortion? Shouldn’t Barack Obama be concerned about the 12 million unborn babies who have been killed in the U.S.?
Beyond the initial comments, I think Piper makes some great excellent points.
We don’t live for politics. We don’t base our confidence about the future on who gets elected… Let those who vote or do politics do it as though they were not doing it. Which means there is a type of engagement that is not all consuming… We’re not here fully. We have a foot in heaven and a foot on the earth. We are citizens of two kingdoms. This is not our main home. This world is passing away… We know this system is disappearing. We shouldn’t be so worked up about our opponent getting elected that it will undo his life.
The second point of view is from Don Miller. He shares his journey from being a Ronald Reagan Republican to a Barack Obama Democrat.
My Journey from being a Reagan Republican to an Obama Democrat.
I grew up in a Southern Baptist Church along the Gulf Coast in Texas. It was a suburban church nowhere near a bus line, protected as it were from most demographics that didn’t have our common interests. Those interests were embodied in the Republican Party, then led by President Ronald Reagan. Reagan captured our attention with an anti-communist, anti-atheist message, that was easy to understand, emboldening the American people against a clear threat , that of nuclear war and a godless communist regime. Reagan rode that same horse his entire career, even as an actor while President of the Screen Actors Guild, taking stands against blacklisted actors and directors thought to be sympathizers with communist ideology. The Democrats, on the other hand, were squishy, hard to understand, and believed life was complicated. They sounded intellectual and suspicious.
So take some time and dig into these thoughts, these world-views. Do they line up with yours? Does it matter?
I keep going back to Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw’s thought, “What matters more is not who you vote for on Nov. 4 but how you live on Nov. 3 and Nov. 5th.”
Another world is possible!
And one final thought, especially for those of you who haven’t voted yet, “Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.” — John Quincy Adams
This book arrived a little late for me to read (as I had hoped to) before the Oct 27th review deadline.
But it’s still on my stack to read ASAP. I’m wondering if anyone out there has read it and what your thoughts are. I’m still digging Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw’s comment that its more important what you do on Nov. 3 and Nov. 5th than who you vote for on Nov. 4th. I wonder if Dr. James Kennedy says the same in this book. Who do you think Jesus would vote for? And would he even bother?
How Would Jesus Vote?
Summary from the Publisher: The 2008 election is shaping up to be one of the most important political contests in American history. In fact, Dr. D. James Kennedy believes it will be a watershed moment that could impact our very survival as a nation under God.
Values voters—people whose political views and votes are based on their faith in God—are being targeted as never before. As the campaign season moves forward, the significant players will debate terrorism, radical Islam, nuclear threats, global warming, social issues, gay marriage, immigration, education, health care, and many other essential issues that can create sharp ideological divisions.
Into this overwhelmingly complex political situation, Dr. Kennedy and Jerry Newcombe bring a clear, compelling, and nonpartisan exploration of what God’s Word has to say on these critical matters. How Would Jesus Vote? isn’t intended to tell readers which candidates to support; rather it offers a Christ-centered understanding of the world to help readers draw their own political conclusions.
Author Bios:
Jerry Newcombe is senior producer for Coral Ridge Ministries television and has produced or coproduced more than fifty documentaries. The host of two weekly radio shows, he has also been a guest on numerous television and radio talk shows. He is the author or coauthor of more than fifteen books.
Dr. D. James Kennedy is one of the most trusted and recognized Christian leaders of our time. The senior minister of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, he is the featured preacher on television’s “The Coral Ridge Hour†and radio’s “Truths That Transformâ€, syndicated on over one thousand stations throughout the U.S. The founder and president of Evangelism Explosion International and chancellor of Knox Theological Seminary, he is the author of more than sixty books, including the bestselling What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?
Inside USA, a program on the English version of Al Jazeera recently did a story on Christianity and politics in America. Shane Claiborne, Chris Haw and the Psalters were each featured briefly as they worked on the audio version of “Jesus for President.”
If I’m not mistaken you’ll also catch a glimpse of Jamie Moffett sitting behind the sound board in the recording studio (Moffett was on the Something Beautiful Podcast 1.6).
So last Thursday night, before going to the Dallas Arts Museum with Laurie, we stopped by the bookstore and I took the opportunity to grab “Jesus for President” off the bookshelf. I’m loving it. Seems I’m picking it up any time I have more than 5 minutes of downtime. I’m about halfway through it and it’s challenging me. Challenging my thoughts about Rome, America, empires in general and what it means to be “Holy and set apart” and it even stretches my idea of allegiance and communal living.
The book is written by Shane Claiborne & Chris Haw. Both whom I know very little about. The book is also artfully illustrated throughout by Holly and Ryan Sharp. Love it. Funny thing – my mom was skimming through the book last Friday before we went to lunch together and she thought I had already marked the entire book up. I almost told her yes – but its part of the illustrations in the book to emphasis various ideas, quotes and points. Makes reading it a lot more fun.
The book starts off with a familiar story:
You grew up in a good family; hardworking dad and a mom who was there when you needed her. They taught you and your little brother to share and showed you how to pray every night before bed. In Sunday school you learned about Jesus and sang all the songs with the rest of the kids. There was Noah and his ark, Moses and the Ten Commandments, and a little baby Jesus asleep on the hay. You learned about the blessing that was America and were grateful to live in a country led by good Christian leaders. With a hand over your heart or above your brow you pledged allegiance to God and Country, for the Lord was at work in this holy nation. But lately you are beginning to wonder if this is really how God intended things to be. And you question if God is really working through places of power. Maybe, you wonder, God had a totally different idea in mind…
Claiborne doesn’t pull any punches from the beginning:
…we’re hardly able to distinguish between what’s American and what’s Christian… Rather than placing our hope in a transnational church that embodies God’s kingdom, we assume America is God’s hope for the world, even when it doesn’t look like Christ.
In Chp 1 he offers a great definition of idolatry:
Idolatry begins when our seeing a reflection of God in something beautiful leads to our thinking that the beautiful image bearer is worthy of worship.
He explores the history of the Jews (and Christianity) and explores God’s desire for the Jews to be totally separate, to be apart, to be different from their neighbors. That’s why God is reluctant to give the Israelites a king. If they have a king, if they build a temple, if they worship idols – there’s nothing different between them and their neighbors. Even after the exile from Egypt, the Israelites begin to get nostalgic and whine about going back to Egypt where they had been beaten and enslaved.
It may take only a few days to get out of the empire, but it takes an entire lifetime to get the empire out of us.
And yet even after the Israelites have their own country, and their own kings, and they run into problem after problem, God could have said, “Nope. You wanted a king instead of me. You dug your hole, now live in it.” He could have said that, but of course, with God… Grace always triumphs over judgment.
And through Israel’s history, Claiborne continues to point to the fact that God choses the weakest, most unlikely characters to be the heroes of the liberation story.
And I love how Claiborne takes the Leviticus law and paints a picture that these are not only things to help the Israelites remain healthy and strong, they are things that completely set them apart from the empires that surround them.
…these laws were intended to create a new culture free of the unhealthy patterns and branding of the empire. If we imagine putting those laws in contemporary terms, we can see the subtle critique of culture implicit in them: “Thou shall not have in they home the electric box with the talking screen,” or, “Thou shalt not wear clothing marked with a swoosh or any other image that requires the blood of sweatshop children.” … Many of the Israelites’ laws were after all, a direct confrontation with those of the world they knew. They were ways of driving a wedge into the wheels of injustice and interrupting cycles of oppression… There were laws for welcoming strangers and illegal immigrants and practices like gleaning, which allowed the poor to take leftovers from the fields.
Sure, we Americans like to think we’re strong and we must defend our borders, but if we’re a “Christian nation” as many like to point out – shouldn’t we be set apart and living differently than those around us. Shouldn’t we be loving the stranger — even the illegal aliens?
