It's been awhile since I've written anything but am
now on vacation and have had more time than usual to sit back and reflect on
things. I am the type of person that needs time to do this to process
stuff and over the recent past haven't really been taking the time out to do
this. And, I realized that what I write will be offensive to some, which
is not my intent, and I'm sure I'll receive a lot of criticism for what I'm
about to write.
Anyway, I felt inspired to write this based off of
a response to a post on facebook I received from a friend of mine regarding a
quote I posted from an individual named Dr. Cornel West. This post is not
necessarily about that specifically (you can read it on my fb page if
interested) but did get me thinking about a number of things, particularly my
faith (which is Christianity) and spirituality, and how that should inform
every aspect of my life, including my political ideology. Side note:
It's sometimes difficult to label myself as christian since there are so
many brands of it...for example, most, if not all, of the high level
politicians claim the christian label, however what I find that they actually
are claiming is a civil religion working for the ideals of that politician or
political party...and each civil religion (called christian) has its nuances
between each person and party, depending on what fits each best.
Unfortunately, too often people get faith and
politics confused...or at least turned around, I should say. In many ways
our politicians have co-opted christianity and made it something to run a
platform on. For example, George Bush, claims to be christian. He's
against abortion (I say this tongue in cheek and I might add is not a litmus
test to being a christian in the first place) but under his leadership, Texas
executed 152 prisoners which is more than any other governor in modern American
history. Mike Huckabee, another self identified christian, demanded that
Cpl Bradley Manning be executed for this intentional leaking of classified
material and video. While I understand this to be against the law and is
defined as treason, should a man who claims to be christian lead the charge to
kill him?
I'm not trying to bash Bush or Huckabee or their
supporters but the above is important to point out when truly assessing what
they believe since what they believe is so important to a lot of people. There
are many other examples I can give of leaders claiming to be christian making
political decisions that are clearly counter to the teachings of Jesus, but
that's not the problem in itself...everyone makes mistakes. The problem
arises when these people call themselves christian, make decisions counter to
what they say they believe, then interpret those decisions as in accordance to
their "christian" ideals. What happens then is an unauthentic
interpretation of christianity, ultimately creating a civil religion which is
inconsistent with the teachings of jesus. This is why I say that it can
be difficult to label myself a christian because of all the messed up
connotations that are now ascribed to this label.
So let's start here...I believe in the Jesus of the
bible. I believe in his actions and teachings. If I believe these
things, it should inform how I treat people, my ideologies, philosophies,
generally every aspect of my life (including who I vote for in elections and
even if I participate in elections at all). That being said, I do not
believe in the christianity of Bush or Huckabee or most of the politicians that
I believe have created a strand of christianity more suitable to getting them
votes and more suitably called civil religion.
The teachings of Jesus call us first and foremost
to love God and to have love and compassion toward our fellows. It errs
on the side of this love and compassion over wrath and destruction. Jesus
does not teach us to execute others who have betrayed us...he teaches us to love
and bless our enemies. Jesus teaches us to take care of the poor and sick
and to protect children and widows. And people, in order for us to do
this, we have to give ourselves to do it. And while most Americans don't
want to hear it, Jesus teaches a social response in order to carry out his
teachings. Of course this social response isn't the responsibility of any
government and should be a individual and/or community response; however, why
are so many self identified christians scared of any kind of talk regarding
putting social policies in place in the US. It works all over the world,
why not here. The reason why social talk is so madly resisted is not
because it won't work but because it will mostly effect the wealthiest people,
who can sway people's thoughts against this talk by demonizing it as they have
greater access to media outlets. But, another biblical lesson is
applicable here...to whom much is given, much will be required...in this
instance, perhaps that means that those who are wealthy should give more to the
poor and sick, the child and widow.
I want to follow what Jesus taught and still teaches. I fail
miserably on a daily basis (especially dealing with airports and baggage), but
I still try. I truly feel that for those of us that want to follow Jesus,
we have to take into account what he would have us do here. Do we really
believe that the decisions that have been made in our nation's recent history
is God-ordained...all the hate, slander (just look at current campaign
practices), greed, etc? I don't and I think we need to step out of the
box of civil religion that has been created and get back to the Jesus of the
bible and let this inform how we form our political ideologies.
