The Election [jay]
Well, we did it --- and I am so glad we did. Barack Obama is president and everything seems to be as it was meant to be.
Now, if you’re a liberal, don’t be so happy. And if you’re a conservative, don’t lose it on me. I voted for McCain. But I am very happy that Obama is president.
For the greater part of my existence on this earth, and mainly through the avenue of the Church, I have watched over and participated in trying to keep America strong in its Judeo-Christian posture toward all things. My earliest memories politically are of Reagan winning the cold war and solidifying trickle-down economics as true capitalistic procedure. George H.W. Bush was next, standing bravely for freedom against the Muslim hordes of Saddam Hussein in Kuwait. In we swept, the great Christian nation, defending those who could not defend themselves and a great victory was won. But as we won in the Persian Gulf, the economy started going downhill in America and a dark horse from Arkansas named Bill Clinton rode a ticket of Change (sound familiar?) – with the key question: Are you better off today than you were four years ago? Screw defending freedom and helping those who cannot help themselves, in 1994 we gladly turned our backs on the man who led us in these ideals in order to answer Clinton’s most selfish of all questions with an affirmative “We deserve more!” And more we got. The prosperity of the 90’s can only be compared with the Roaring 20’s. And with money in our pockets and sub-prime mortgages for Joe The Plumber on the horizon, life was good.
How I remember the church, almost gleeful at the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Here was a guy empty enough in some part of himself to risk his family and his office in order to receive love in a way never intended for him, and we offer condemnation. Was he wrong? Of course. Did he lie? Yep. Should he have been impeached? Probably. But the Body of Christ did not love Bill Clinton, we condemned him. Where were the spiritual counselors offered to Ted Haggard at that point in Clinton’s life? Where were the prayer vigils roused for George Bush’s candidacy?
With a typical “we-told-you-so” posture, the evangelical vote swelled to record numbers in 2000 and secured the presidency for George Bush. 9/11 led to fear, which led to Afghanistan, which led to fear, which led to WMD’s, which led to fear, which led to Iraq, which led to fear, which led to a long war, which led to fear, which led to discontentment, which led to fear – you get the point. Pour the financial distress of the last few months on top of all that and I don’t think the greatest Republican who ever lived – Jefferson or Reagan – could have beaten Obama.
Nor am I sure that they should have.
Presidents pacify Evangelicals. What else are they supposed to do? Evangelicals are not the only people that presidents are called to represent. In fact, they are a small portion of the people they are to represent. In my opinion, the problem is not with the president, it is with the Church.
We Christians greatly over-estimate the power of politics to actually change anything. Government is meant to govern society, not change society. “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” is not a political statement, it is a personal statement. A nation is not a nation without the people who live in the nation. America is not America without Americans. Therefore, the only way that “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” can be true is if “Blessed is the [man, woman, child, family, neighborhood, village, hamlet, city, crackhouse, town, base, district, church, prison, whorehouse, fort, factory, office, school, bar, barracks, team, courthouse, institution, plant, camp, bank, store, zone, temple] whose God is the Lord”. I am not saying that Christians should not be involved in politics, on the contrary, I deeply believe in it. What I am saying is that having a Christian in government means that person’s call is to govern society as a Christian, not change society for us who put them in their office. No one person can change society. Only the Body of Christ can offer what the people in our country and world truly need. Societal change that is not a result of the life of Jesus flowing through His Body is not societal change. It is simply a shift from one idol to another idol. Lady Liberty with a picture of Jesus’ face taped over her face is neither Jesus nor Liberty.
Which is why I am so happy that Barack Obama is president. We have finally just stated what we should have stated a long time ago: “We are a secular nation”. The actual reality of an American Judeo-Christian ethic is hardly Judeo and even less Christian and it’s high time that we called a spade a spade. As a nation, we don’t care at all what God thinks. There need be no more half-ass stupidity about running the nation according to the will of God or ridding this place of abortion or protecting marriage the way it was meant to be. It is not a politician’s call to do these things, it is the Church’s call. Roe v Wade is not the reason why abortion is everywhere in America. Abortion is everywhere in America because selfishness and greed are everywhere in America. Government cannot change people’s selfishness and greed, only Jesus can. The Church is His Body that lives this message of change.
Barack Obama as president opens a door to authenticity and reality for which the spirit of our country has been screaming. Having a president who pacifies our religious pontifications and pompousness with subtle nods of the head here and there has done jack-squat for the furthering of the transformation that is the death and resurrection of Christ. I love Obama because he seems to say what he thinks. He promised absolutely everything to everyone and I don’t think there’s any possible way he can deliver, but I think that he thinks he can. And I respect that.
Obama is not going to try to pacify Evangelicals with concern for abortion or legislatively protecting marriage, and he has said as much. He has socialist leanings in regard to economic policy and he has clearly stated what those leanings are. Are these things important? You better believe it. But now the onus for responsibility for change lies where it was meant to lie. The Church can no longer sluff it off on politicians who claim to be Christian and then condemn them when they don’t pull off the expectations that we should really have of ourselves. Now we may have to actually leave the comfort and convenience of our McMansions and mega-churches and do the work of Jesus.
God bless you, Mr. President-Elect. I pray for His mercies on you and your family, for protection from evil. I thank God for you and pray that you would know and experience the mediating work of Christ that will transform your spirit and breathe life into the deepest parts of you. May the joy of the Lord be your strength, may you have fullness of joy and may you find that joy only in Christ.
I pray the same for myself, my family, my friends, my church, the Church. God grant us repentance, mercy, grace and transformation.
Awesome. Let the Bride try on its righteousness again. She looks better in white anyway.
ReplyDeleteI don't have much to say, because I agree with everything you said.
ReplyDeleteYour words are very refreshing to hear.
hey jay - great post; i read with much interest. i agree totally that politicians pacify Christians; i think their lip service is as empty and worthless as you seem to. but i think you get off track in giving America over to the secularists. i mean, if we are truly "secular" then why are there laws against any "wrong" behavior? you will have a hard time rationalizing why we impose penalities for murder but allow abortion. [i think you may be actually arguing that we are immoral, not "secular"]. I would also say that our country was never intented to be, and ought not to be now "secular". Rather, I think that we were/should be Religiously Free. i guess you're leaning on a sort of libertarianism, and while i respect that view - i think it's intellectually dishonest. much the way i think that atheists are on shaky ground trying to argue for a kind of workable morality absent religion. i think the source of our laws - moral structure, etc - is undeniably linked to the God of Christianity and He ought to be defended in the public [political] square.
ReplyDeleteI thought about referring to my favorite quotes, but there were so many I essentially would have ended up rewriting your article :)
ReplyDeleteHey Josh -- thanks for your thoughts and for interacting with mine in the essay.
ReplyDeleteIn response, I guess it depends on whose history books you read on what day. In my experience and learning, I have a hard time equating what I see in Jesus and Old or New Testament law and story being inherent in the founding documents or spirit of our country. I believe rebellion and selfishness, which was the beginning of our country, birthed the disgusting sins of Manifest Destiny, oppression of women, child labor and abuse, slavery, vigilante justice and across the board racism -- all of which are the fruits of such secular choices as were used to found the US. We know this tree by its fruit. The First Continental Congress was not a prayer meeting and while the founding fathers may have believed in God -- even the God of the Bible -- I do not believe He or His Spirit was the plan for their design of this country.
I too find libertarian thinking intellectually dishonest, which is why I oppose all forms of party politics. At the same time, I choose to try and be a responsible citizen but a more responsible Christian.
To answer your question about why we have any laws at all, I would say that law and the rule of law in any country and on any level is a mark of the justice that is the stamp of the Imago Dei in humans. I believe that America is immoral as well as secular. I also believe that our defense and friendship toward Israel is about the only thing that I can see that cause the Lord not to judge us the way He did Babylon.
Those are a few thoughts I offer. As originally stated, source and perspective play a huge role in forming these opinions. I'd love to do a book swap with you to learn more of your perspective and learning vantage point.
Peace, bro.
Jay - hey thanks so much for writing back. i have a huge smile on my face at the opportunity to discuss!
ReplyDeletehere's my not-so-short response - I don't dispute even slightly the depravity, perversions, or failings of mankind, American or otherwise. But I think an overly bleak assessment of our history is just as lacking as a falsely rosy one.
You point out all of the bad fruit and none of the good! What tree bore the fruit of emancipation, of women's sufferage, the fair labor standards act, or religious freedom? What tree laid the groundwork for the realization of equality? You cannot applaud England for these accomplishments - nor any of Europe. Nor Russia, or China, or South Africa. Not any country on the face of the earth but America.
I think your point on the concept of "rule of law" is sometimes true but ignores the practical application. The actual rule of law is only evidence of Imago Dei insofar as laws reflect the nature of the true God - otherwise it is evidence of sin nature. Our basic laws, are on the whole, Judeo-Christian.
And I think the aspirations of the founders - the standard they set -counts for something. No doubt, hypocrisies existed and still exist, but that hardly negates the hope they clearly had. Take for example quotes from two of the most often cited "religion-rejecters" among the founders:
Jefferson said, "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. Almighty God hath created the mind free...All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens...are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion."
Franklin said, "The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth - that God governs in the affairs of men."
Alexis de Tocqueville's first-hand accounts of early America are indispensible, "I do not know whether all Americans have a sincere faith in their relgion, for who can read the human heart? But I am certain that they hold it to be indispensible to republican institutions. This opinion...belongs to the whole nation, and to every rank of society." [he wrote extensively on the injustice of slavery as well].
See the most foundational document of all - the declaration of independence - to see how it indentifies God as Lawmaker, Supreme Judge, Creator, and Protector. The entire concept of freedom, as Jefferson pointed out, is possibly the most powerful testimony to the respect the founders had for the God of Christianity.
My overall point is that the most foundation aspects of our country, the most stripped-down core beliefs are, in fact, Christian. America is the first nation, and maybe the only nation in the world based on the understanding that power and rights come only from God, to man, and from man to government. In every other society, rights come from government and are given to the people. I agree that our support for Israel is right in the sight of the Lord, but I cannot presume that it is the only reason he does not punish us. I think the founders revered God in their designs for our country, and I think a great many Americans revere God still. I think we ought to recognize His place in our history, repent of turning our backs on Him, and defend His place in society now. [And I think the election of Barack Obama is a giant step in the wrong direction on this subject.]
I'd love to exchange books or talk to you further sometime. Thanks for the discussion - I really do get a lot of enjoyment out of it.
thanks for writing this. ive been thinking about this bc as far as my personal beliefs for the most part we are pretty much on the same page except you know alot more about all of this but then i do have so friends that would completely disagree with you but more on the basis of saying that the principles of truth are applicable to any situation and are good for people even if they arent believers, like how the law was good for people even if they weren't part of Israel? my most honest thoughts on the election are that if i could have voted i probably would have chosen mccain at the end bc of abortion even though i dont think that will help the issues underneath abortion at all and i couldnt decide whether it was a christian guilt trip, but that i am so happy that obama won, and i REALLY miss election caliber saturday night live.
ReplyDeleteHey Jay. I just read your blog about the 2008 presidential election. Great stuff. I have always said that America gets the leadership it deserves. You are right on about how the Evangelical Church judges failing leaders instead of praying for them. I am determined not to make that mistake this time. My prayers for Obama will continue, regardless of his idealogical leanings, and initiatives that may oppose my views. You are a son in the faith who makes me extremely proud. I love you.
ReplyDeleteInteresting article, Jay. I appreciated a lot of what you said, and found your paragraph on early political memories an excellent description of the political history in my own memory.
ReplyDeleteI do think we have to be careful of our judgment of Christians, whether they be evangelicals or 'fundamentalists' or Catholics or mega-church-goers. It's good to learn to pray for a man like Bill Clinton even as we point out to our children that what he did was wrong. It's more than a little common right now to call Christians on the carpet for aspiring to change too much by politics or for being too judgmental, but I think we too often cross the line into being rather judgmental against each other.
As you say, the Church's primary method of effecting change is through love on the local level, and politics is only secondary, though important. It's an overgeneralization, though, at least among the Christians I know, to say broadly that we judge failing leaders instead of praying for them. Just for clarification's sake, then--and I'm not accusing you of disagreeing here--I think that if we're going to unite against the enemies that are 'not flesh and blood, but ... principalities and powers ...', we need to be careful of our critical attitudes toward our Christian brothers and sisters.
Hey Josh, Sorry for the delay in responding to your response.
ReplyDeleteIn light of the ongoing thoughts around this issue, I'd agree with your thoughts that the founding fathers based the moral code of American law on the a moral framework that is the Bible and Jehovah. Be it Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Adams, Hamilton, Burr, Jay...all the founding fathers had this basic framework of morality. I'm not arguing with that.
But I also feel on some levels like it was simply gestural and cultural for the time way more than it was the life and work of Christ being lived out in the real worlds in which the founding fathers walked. Again, I point to the fruit. Manifest Destiny and the slave trade were already practiced and/or in the hearts and minds of these people. Their words and their actions did not match up with the morality that they were declaring. This country was founded on rebellion and selfishness while proclaiming freedom for all -- a self-regulated spirit of entitlement that said, "You can't treat us like this because we deserve better."
Emancipation was a political move, not a moral one. Women's suffrage happened because women made it happen. Fair labor standards, sure -- but at what cost? Where was our Christian government before these reforms? Did the Bible not speak to these things? Where was a basic living out of the institutions of Scripture in the governing of a supposedly Christian nation? I hear/see the founding fathers speak of Providence, Divinity and the Sovereign -- but only as it was expedient to their understandings of where they wanted America to go. How can founding documents proclaim freedom for all while slaves are actively being sold? How is freedom a key cornerstone of our country when we moved west and declared that it is God's will for our country to occupy this land and rip it away from the First Nations people? These are not just political policies, they are crimes against humanity. I simply do not see a real application of the life and work of Jesus, which is what I define Christianity to be.
I don't know what else to call it but secular because, in my opinion, it is not Jesus. We can declare a Judeo-Christian ethic all we want, but that's not the transformative work of Christ. I'm not arguing for a Christian state or a theocracy, I am simply glad for what I see as an owning of what has always been a reality. Truth sets people free and in this case, I believe the foremost recipient of this freedom can be the church. We must stop relying on our vote to get our powerful people to do our work for us. We must repent, beg God for grace, be transformed by the renewing of our minds, and begin to change the worlds we live in personally.
Jenna, point taken. Thanks for the check.
ReplyDeleteJay -
ReplyDeletethanks for your response. i'll comment here and then you may have the last word if you like:)
i actually concede all of your points regarding the sinfulness present in the early days of our nation, etc.
but, as i said before, i think you are off base in condemning the entirety of our beginning as an un-Godly affair. For one thing, I'm concerned about the "fruit" standard you apply to our country as a whole. Is a Nation the same as a Person? Do they have exactly the same requirements as individual people in the eyes of God? Can a Nation be personally saved, redeemed?
Suppose they were the same in the eyes of God - do you condemn yourself as "secular" just because you can identify sinfulness in your life past or present?
Isn't it better to judge our country with a wide view in light of its circumstances and peers? Seeing both it's bad and good and trying to improve it? Carol Lebeau once said, "Its bad enough to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It's even worse to throw out God."
Can't we recognize a difference between individual people and a Nation while acknowledging that Nations may yet contain in their make-up a special attention to spirtual things?
Again, you point out bad fruit, and dismiss the good. Your assertion that Emancipation was only a political move baffles me. I assume you mean that Lincoln saw emancipation as a necessary part of preserving the Union. I would agree - that is historically correct. But Lincoln was also possessed of a philosophical dictomy that I think is an excellent picture of just what America is all about. He believed slavery was wrong because of his faith in God, and he saw that his responsibility to the nation was outlined in the Constitution [was political] and that compelled him to preserve the Union. Both things motivated him.
You want to accept or acknowledge the removal of the "faith" part of the equation in public life. But I think Lincoln thought, as I do, that for Americans, one is not nearly as good without the other.
Lincoln, by the way, recognized the hypocrisy of slavery and it was a great part of his motivation in fighting against it.
He said, "Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes." [Soon] it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty; where despotism can be take pure without the base alloy of hypocracy."
You say sufferage was accomplished because women accomplished it.
Why do you blame our sinfulness on a lack of God, but suggest that our triumphs have nothing to do with God? For you, slavery is evidence of bad fruit from a bad tree, but sufferage is not fruit at all - good or bad - its just...."women" making something happen.
I also have a hard time accepting your condemnation of our westward expansion at the "expense" of the American Indian. You call this a crime against humanity but you make no mention of the crimes those tribes routinely perpetrated on eachother. Furthermore, how do you reconcile the God of the old testament and the "crimes against humanity" he perpetrated on the peoples he punished with your view of modern America? You believe the American Indian was a peace-loving race? They were good?
[that is not to suggest that i think we did nothing wrong in dealing with the indians.]
Two final thoughts:
I think the greatest accomplishment - the legacy - of America is Freedom. Among my many freedoms, the freedom to worship as i please is my most cherished.
That freedom, I can safely argue, has fostered the largest advance of Christianity and Christian missions in the modern world.
The fruit of freedom is the primary fruit of the founders. And that fruit is good.
Lastly, I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment you brought up in your original essay and echoed in your last response - that the Church needs to take responsibility for spiritual matters and stop relying on our votes to get things done.
You are 100% right to say "We can declare a Judeo-Christian ethic all we want, but that's not the transformative work of Christ."
Amen to that.
Thanks for the convo -
Josh
yeah... after Jay "gives the last word" it's time for you two to buy each other a beer and swap a book.
ReplyDeleteamen to that, too, justin
ReplyDelete