The Gospel and the Government

Again, like my last entry, this is a subject I don't feel entirely comfortable or competent discussing. Please read the first paragraph of 'Compassion vs. Justice' to get a feel for what I mean and why I still am going to write.

I have been fairly lethargic about my polemecy for most of my life. It all just seemed so polarizing and cutthroat that I wasn't seeing issues or movements, I was just seeing arguments and divisions. The first campaign I was ever old enough to vote in was the presidential elections of 2004. This proved to be a less than inspiring first experience with voting and I think I voted just because I believed that you should. Neither candidate seemed like the best of Americans, which really, the president should be.

One thing that I have been serious about for a large chunk of my teen and early adult years has been my faith. This has looked different and the expressions of it have changed over the years. Lately, I have been consumed with the idea of justice. I think that justice can be defined by different groups with different ideas in very different ways; in that way it can be a very relative term. However, the justice I have been seeking to define is that of the gospel story of Jesus. The kind of justice Jesus displayed when he was overturning tables in the temple and when he was rebuking the pharisees and religious know-it-alls of his day, that’s what I’m after. And the justice Jesus showed to lepers, the blind and the crippled. I expanded on some of my ideas about justice in my last post; you can go there if you want more.

I bring this idea back up because during the increasingly heated presidential primary race I have been thinking some about how the ideas of the gospel carry over into government and politics. What I mean is that I have been considering how my vote and my opinions do and don't/can and can't reflect the radical and revolutionary teachings of the gospel.

Well, actually, I guess that was a bit of a misnomer. I probably led you to believe that I was going to talk about how to live the gospel in politics...my bad, not quite ready for that one. I've always thought that a firm structure of theory needs to be developed before it starts getting all gussied up with practice. Well, maybe in theory I don't believe that...I'll stop.

I guess the question that has really been on my mind is whether or not the gospel and politics are compatible. Whether or not a government could be run following the ideas of the gospel—turn the other cheek, placing the needs of others before your own, et cetera.

As I thought about these questions I thought about the gospel and about Jesus. I thought about how He wasn't consumed with being a citizen of Galilee but rather a citizen of the kingdom of God. I thought about how He spent almost no time arguing with the political and religious giants of his day—the Pharisees—while still undermining and changing the structure of both politics and religion for history. I thought about how He declined the devils offer to rule the lands and didn't appease all those who thought he was going to be a political ruler, but instead became a king in a different way...in a way no one suspected.

Of course Jesus was Jesus, and we (or at least certainly I) are/am something far less. But I think we can still be, as followers of Jesus, people who think out of the box. People who defy the standard. People who don’t fit the mold people think we will, but do what is right in a way that is radical. A people who seek justice, compassion and mercy before revenge, defense and policy. The latter mentioned things are still important, but if we were to seek to be citizens of God’s kingdom before citizens of a particular country or political party they seem to be less important.

What does this mean for voting or political activism? Well, I think that it means there is room to wiggle. No candidate, so far as I can tell, completely embraces the ideas of the gospel and certainly if someone had they have long lost out (somehow I don’t think turning the other cheek or tithing or putting others countries interests before the interests of our own would be the most popular platform). I’m going to vote and I’ll vote for the candidate that I feel makes the biggest strides towards compassion and justice; the candidate that will change the most policies which are not in alignment with these things. But I’ll try to remember my place in God’s kingdom, working to reach this world—to be a peace maker and a kingdom bringer—before I get to caught up in a political scene and forget that Jesus redefined justice by thinking outside of the box and that we can continue to try and radically pursue it.