Being inside any Political System is Against Christian Values
From the introduction of Keith Niles book titled, Jesus Untangled
Do you know what you get when you mix religion and politics? You get politics. That’s an old joke, but it’s truer than most Christians want to admit, especially Christians in America. At least, that has been my observation over the last few decades. A friend of mine once suggested that, today, many Christians are more American than Christian. I am beginning to think that he is right.
Many Christians are more likely to be moved to tears over the sound of the national anthem being played, or of someone quoting Ronald Reagan, than they are when someone reads the words of Jesus out loud. Many are enraged at the mere suggestion of someone disrespecting their flag, but they hardly bat an eye when someone contradicts the teachings of Jesus.
In the words of Paul, the Apostle, “My friends, this ought not to be.” It’s this very entanglement that disturbs me most. When I see people who claim to love and follow Jesus placing more emphasis on the Constitution than the Sermon on the Mount or living their daily lives according to their rights as American citizens rather than as surrendered servants of Christ, it greatly concerns me.
On a daily basis, I interact with Christians who are constantly appealing to the Constitution, or one of the many amendments, as a basis for their behaviors. Whenever I attempt to lovingly redirect these people to the person and character of Jesus as an example of how they should be viewing the world, I am consistently shouted down and accused of not being a real American, or of being a ‘liberal’, even though my appeal comes from the Gospel and isn’t about politics at all.
. . . I do believe that there is a very rich vein of wisdom to be mined in the writings of the early church fathers on this topic, partly because they were so close in space and time to the Lord Jesus and His apostles, but also because they were living in a culture very similar to our own (with a few notable exceptions, of course).
Those early Christians did not vote. They were not members of a democracy, as we are here in America. They were not protected by any laws – at least not prior to the reign of Constantine and his apparent conversion in the 4th century.
They were also, prior to Constantine, not living in a pro-Christian culture. In fact, they were living in a culture that violently opposed them and their way of life, and often turned against them.
We, like those early Christian teachers, know what it is like to have a set of values and ideal that the rest of the world just doesn’t seem to embrace. (Comment by Sister Kate in italics)
. . . Being an American and following Jesus are not the same thing . . . (and) any attempt to change the world through political power and influence is not only misguided, but it may even be anti-Christian and in direct opposition to the Gospel itself.
Afterward (by Sister Kate)
Keith Giles runs a podcast with a group of priests and ministers who have split from their contemporary churches and have formed their own parishes in order to divest Christianity from politics. They see today’s churches as extension of the Roman’s tax system and that true Christians are activists, not politicians. Keith Giles and his group of religious men are saying in their own way, in a different way, what Spike Lee says. Politics is the war of winning inches. Activism is the war of winning miles. Keith Giles and many other Christians around the planet are ushering in a return to the original Christian values, and at the heart of those values are our values, to march forward in progressive activism to reduce the suffering of the marginalized and protect the gifts bestowed upon us by Mother Goddess.
