From Salon:
[quote begins from Salon article by Michael Scherer, "How Would Jesus Vote?"]
Pastor Chris Stephens runs his church services like a rock show. Colored strobes dance across the stage, electric guitar solos punctuate the hymns, and his sermons are filled with exhortations like, "We need a God explosion." The roughly 2,000 worshipers who belong to Faith Promise Church know to expect a blunt-talking believer when they come to Sunday services, a man unafraid to take a stand for Jesus.
So it was no surprise two years ago when Stephens devoted a sermon before the presidential election to a discussion of God's hopes for the ballot box. "If you are a Democrat or a Republican before you are a Christ-ocrat, you are an idol worshiper," he told his congregation. As he explained it, God cared most about just a few core issues in 2004: ending abortion, opposing gay marriage, appointing conservative judges and ensuring the freedom to pray in the public square. Christian voters, he told his congregation, ignore these issues at their own peril. "If you reject Christ, if you have never been born again, you are not going to heaven," he said at the end of the sermon.
[quote ends from "How would Jesus vote?"]
The real issue with which this article is concerned is the apparently successful attempt of an allegedly "moderate" gay marriage-opposing, right to life "Democrat" to peel off the evangelical base from a "right to choose" Republican.
I don't think Democrats have to take that stand to win back Christian voters. I don't mean the extreme or extremely stupid kind who are governed by emotion, but the thinking, caring ones. Those people vote Republican out of various fears, some more worthy than others. But the Christian who is not a Christocrat but a believer whose religion really matters to him or her could very easily, by making the correct argument, cause at least some of those people to rethink the notion that Jesus wants Christians to be Republicans.
Rather than argue about abortion or gay marriage, Democrats need to cite the substantial amount of text in the gospels that focus on private prayer, on making sacrifices (e.g., the widow and her mite) for the benefit of the community and especially the poor, and on his insistence that mere belief in what he propounded would NEVER be enough.
The very ads used by the Republicans to discredit opponents could be turned against them in such a case. In the Tennessee campaign with which the Salon article is specifically concerned, the GOP has used ads with definite racist implications intended to ring those fear-of-the-other alarm bells in white Republicans. Would Jesus approve of that? I think not, my friends. I think not.
The religious left needs a credible ministerial voice to remind people that Jesus was all about acts, not words or beliefs. Regardless of ambiguous statements that he came to fulfill the law, he was clear that the law which he fulfilled imposed two basic duties: to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind ("the first and greatest commandment"; and love your neighbor as yourself (the second commandment which is "like unto it.") From these injunctions, he said, "flow all the law and the prophets."
But if you look at what he did rather as well as what he said, he was constantly testing the letter in favor of the spirit. And I don't know what he would say or think about abortion---I can't think he'd approve, but since he didn't say, I don't know----but I do know that he was absolutely clear that those who follow him should worry about the state of their own souls, not the souls of others.
He constantly attacked the Republicans of his day (the scribes and priests) for their hypocrisy and cowardice. About the occupying Roman forces, he evidently kept his own counsel (give back to Caesar what Caesar owns; give back to God what is God's) but he was the outspoken opponent of those among his own people who made religion all about public demeanor and public expression.
I am personally not troubled by questions about Christ's views on sexual sin. I am personally saddened by the extent to which our society elevates sexual pleasure above all others. It means that a mere physical sensation is presented to the young (and the middle-aged) as the pinnacle of human life. And since this is a pleasure that is most compelling for the young, it elevates a pleasure best enjoyed in one's young years above all of the deep, transforming hard-to-express joys of middle-aged love and midlife sexuality.
It's badly confused the young. The longing to love and be loved, to build relationships with family and friends, to create a community---a wonderful and (to me, anyway) divine aspect of human experience----has become so mixed up and confounded with the desire to enjoy a few seconds' spasm that it seems to me the two can never again be extricated.
But human sexuality was never intended by nature (or, let's stipulate, God) to continue in the same monontonous path for an indefinite period; and in a Christian life, notions of fidelity and commitment---the elevation of the spiritual connection that two people of any sexual identity may feel----is treated as the as the goal of Christian marriage. It's a commitment to make a daily commitment to the other, whatever desires one may feel that would threaten to pull apart that bond.
So I ask myself why not allow same sex couples to make this same commitment? Even if you think there's a chance this might not be what God intended, why not leave the issue to God and out of Christian love and charity lovingly welcome the willingness of two human beings of any sex to make sex and the passionate pursuit of sex secondary and subsidiary to this feeling of passionate commitment?
But even a Christian who believes gay marriage to be clearly in opposition to the teachings of Christ should be reminded what the man himself had to say about the politics of judgment and exclusion. He reached out to precisely the people whom the law of his times treated as unworthy, contemptible, soiled.
So if the question is "What would Jesus Vote?", I think it's clear that he wouldn't vote for a candidate whose aim is power and the consolidation of power, who resorts to negative campaigning ("false witness"), or whose platform is based on fear of the other and the sinfulness of the other. What was his mission about if not to demonstrate that sin doesn't rub off and that the most self-righteous/self-consciously righteous are on a par in God's eyes with those they view with contempt?
I think it's clear that he would reject the politics of those whose appeal is to hatred, fear, or cowardice. He would preach that perfect fear is the enemy of love, that it casts out love and encourages people to view themselves in the most selfish terms----and to justify (just for example) the risk of imprisoning the potentially innocent out of fear for their own hides.
If Jesus were to return now, the people who most confidently assert their worthiness would very likely be the first to turn on him when he didn't say to them the things they expect to hear. He abhorred loud public prayer, hypocrisy (exalting the letter of the law while killing the spirit) and the sort of selfish fear of death that would prevent one from doing the right thing.
I don't think he'd approve of political ads designed for the purpose of obtaining power by means of "false witness" (or---as we Dems call it---"swiftboating.") I am certain he wouldn't approve either of people who are more concerned with keeping their money then with helping the poor.
He never ever said "the Lord helps those who help themselves." That jolly old Benjamin Franklin and even he was making the point that you can't lie around waiting for God to fix what's wrong with your life or make you "healthy, wealthy, and wise." He wasn't saying not to help people who aren't as good at helping themselves as you are.
If the Democrats focused on the messages of the actual Gospels they would find a mine of good reasons for those who call themselves Christians to vote Democratic. The platform of the all-inclusive "Party of Everyone Else" is well-adapted to the true Christian message of love and brotherhood (and especially brotherhood with those on whom the rich and self-glorifying wouldn't deign to wipe their feet). The message should focus on the ideas of redemption of sin and the fact that to redeem a sinner, you first have to let the sinner in. It should focus on our mutual humanity and our mutual desire to feel safe and to feel that our children are safe.
Matters of belief should be pushed back where they belong, to the sidelines. If a person who endeavors to follow Christ is more generous to sinners than Christ himself would be, you have to believe that an excess of mercy or love will be forgiven. It's at least clear that an excess of judgment and punishment would be looked on with disfavor.
It should reject the notion that cowardice and the selfish fear of injury to one's own precious hide could ever be seen as a justification for cruelty or torture or that life can be made safe or that we are somehow entitled to safety (a state unknown to most people in the world). Life is hard and dangerous and a true Christian shouldn't consider physical security to be more important than doing the right thing (tempering justice with mercy).
This is the true Christian platform, even though so many security-craving American Christians have forgotten it. The Democrats need to remind them.
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