DISCLAIMER: This post does not in any way make reference to anyone and it is not trying to make you do or believe anything, it is purely a series of reflections on certain things which have made me reflect, so do not get offended.
In the light of recent political election campaigning and voting booth antics, I feel the need to express my views in a slightly more serious vein than my friend Patrik. The Legalise Cannabis Alliance with its fancy manifesto clearly typed out by a many times over shot-up pot-head as funny as it may be was not, as was predictable, of any actual relevance in the electoral outcome, thank God! I also got a manifesto through the door about an independent participant in council elections who wanted to segregate anti-social families to an area of town and ban "gansta rap" from jukeboxes... What are we, in a fascist regime?!! I ended up burning in my garden the manifesto of an unnamed nationalist party who clearly doesn't like anyone other than pure-breed Brits!
Much has been said about this election, but for a guy who looks into a church and asks "What party do Christians vote for?" there is little chance of him getting an answer. And this is where I get a little... annoyed... angry? There is obviously no major party representing Christians, which is quite a good thing I think, since I don't believe Christians should be too involved in games of power, but I do believe that it is a serious thing to go and vote, using your right to vote... A person who decides to use his right NOT to vote replace it with the one of sitting on the couch has clearly not really understood much about life. I felt like a rat, walking around campus not being able to vote on the 05/05/05 because of my lack of registration!
The thing that irritates me is in seeing a mixture of hypocrisy and ignorance coming out of the mouths of children of God. When we take our stand and say "I'm going to vote for the party which is against abortion, against homosexuality and against weed!" we are making the rashest decision ever! Also, when we work in the community for a week to try and help families sort out their gardens and their lives, then vote for the party which is encouraging the maintaining of social disparities, there is clearly something wrong. There is something wrong in the way we are thinking and there is something missing in our reasoning.
Sure I'm against abortion, homosexuality and weed, but is that what Christians are about? Are we not forgetting that we are under the covenant of grace and we should be extending love to the lost? Don't get me wrong here, I'm NOT saying we encourage those things, but I am thinking about whether we are building our decisions on legalism rather than love. We can also learn that what is repressed tends to grow with further strength, just as Christianity does in oppressive nations, that is why Paul said "everything is permissible, but not everything is good!", to show us that the law just makes people want to sin more!
What's more, I just don't see the sense in acting out of love and outreach, then voting for a person who will build up barriers against poor countries and their people, then raise up taxes for the poor and lower them for the rich.
... I'm not saying there is a party to vote for (especially in this completely bogus British selection of parties), I just want to challenge the thinking of some people as to what are their motives when they tick the box. If they believe they are in Christ, then that's great, I myself have to question my own motives, since I am as biased and misinformed as anyone, though I like to think I'm not... ;)
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3 comments:
Right on about love vs legalism. I read this book encouraging Christians to not only go out in "the missions field" and helping at the grassroots level, but also getting involved in those institutions that draw up policies and laws that affect the poor & needy. Your post reminded me of it. You would like the book. Here's a link to it:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0830823638/qid=1115654986/sr=8-3/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i3_xgl14/002-2335180-4224838?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
Hey you! I read something interesting yesterday, that reminded me of what you bring up in this post. It's got to do with the "something wrong" you make reference to, and the covenant of grace we're under. It's a bit long, but I'll still put it here :) it's from Brennan Manning's "Abba's Child".
"Homophobia and racism are among the most serious and vexing moral issues of this generation, and both church and society seem to limit us to polarized options.
The anything-goes morality of the religious and political Left is matched by the sanctimonious moralism of the religious and political Right. Uncritical acceptance of any party line is an idolatrous abdication of one's core identity as Abba's child. Neither liberal fairy dust nor conservative hardball addresses human dignity, which is often dressed in rags.
Abba's children find a third option. They are guided by God's Word and by it alone. All religious and political systems, Right and Left alike, are the work of human beings. Abba's children will not sell their birthright for any mess of pottage, conservative or liberal. They hold fast to their freedom in Christ to live the gospel - uncontaminated by cultural dreck, political flotsam, and the filigreed hypocrisies of bullying religion. Those who are bent on handing gays over to the torturers can lay no claim to moral authority over Abba's children. Jesus saw such shadowed figures as the corrupters of the essential nature of religion in His time. Such exclusive and divisive religion is a trackless place, Eden overgrown, a church in which people experience lonely spiritual alienation from their best human instincts.
The command of Jesus to love one another is never circumscribed by the nationality, status, ethnic background, sexual preference, or inherent lovableness of the "other". The other, the one who has a claim on my love, is anyone to whom I am able to respond, as the parable of the good Samaritan clearly illustrates. "Which one of these three, in your opinion, was neighbour to the man who fell in with the robbers?" Jesus asked. The answer came, "The one who treated him with compassion." He said to them, "Go and do the same."
This insistence on the absolutely indiscriminate nature of compassion within the Kingdom is the dominant perspective of almost all of Jesus' teaching."
Voila, make of it what you will =) Brennan Manning's an ex-alcoholic, so I'm guessing he knows some about rejection, lack of compassion and alienation within the church...
It's a good question you raise about us as the body of Christ reaching out to people, by offering our service, and then being inclined to vote for the people who maintain those inequalities, but are pro-life and anti-gay.
I guess I like Manning's "third option".
I also really like what you said about whether or not we are making decisions out of legalism, rather than love - the way God taught us.
Rock on monfrère.
hey joey its Lindsey - from Switz. :) I was on thais's site and found a link to your blog so I thought I'd see what you are up to!
Over here in Switzerland, I got my voting papers yesterday. One of the votes is about whether homosexual couples should be allowed to marry, and thus have the same rights as other married couples. Its a similar issue to what you brought up, and I was thinking of similar things as I was reading through the booklet - what role did my faith have to play, and what would God want?
Praying for you all during the end of the year uni exams :) I am on holiday now :)
- Lindsey
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