Loading...Politics and Christianity make strange bedfellows.
It's nothing personal. It's just that politics is a power game, and Christianity is about giving up power. Politics invites masses of people to unite behind one person or cause, it looks after the interests of constituents, it votes and names winners and losers, and these days cooperating with people from another political party is a disastrous for politicians hoping to retain power. Christianity is about kenosis and cooperation. Kenosis means self-forgetting or self-emptying - losing power. In 2nd Corinthians 10 the apostle Paul said, "Whenever I am weak, then I am strong." Jesus said, "You must die to live." He said, "Sell your possessions and give the proceeds away and come follow me." John the Baptist said, "Share what you have." The essential message of the Gospel is that powerlessness will send you into depth of relationship with God. The beatitudes which open the sermon on the mount talk about the blessedness of poverty of Spirit. Powerlessness as gift. That is the strange, paradoxical Christian message. Also note that Jesus commands us to cross the road to help someone who is very different, even alien, from us - see Good Samaritan story.
We've been playing with words lately (playing with instead of arguing about which is a counter-cultural approach to the war with words). Two words that are helpful Christian terms have been ruined by their political definitions. Conservative and Liberal. Sometimes people accuse me of being liberal. Sometimes people accuse me of being conservative. I bristle at both labels because I am decidedly neither, rather, I identify solely as Christian. No other club may have me because I am 100 percent sold out to Jesus. I hope you don't accept either label for yourself either because these days those two words are simply unhelpful stereotypes which seek to indicate where you stand on an issue. They hope to divide us. They are about power. "If you're conservative you're with me, and if you're not we're enemies." Sounds like elementary school level dynamics.
Conservative is a great religious word. Its root is conserve. Conserve means: preserve, keep together, protect, save. A conservative keeps that which is important, helpful, sacred, vital to keep. There is much in life that is worth conserving! In our baptismal covenant we promise to continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of the bread, and in the prayers. That is marvelous Christian conservatism! At Christmas we bring out our Bethlehem and nativity stories which we have preserved and conserved (kept together) for 2000 years.
Conservative left alone though only gives us half a loaf. Conservative needs its counterpart liberal.
Liberal is a great religious word, also. Liberal is word whose root means free or freedom. Christianity is liberal in as much as our relationship with God in Jesus Christ is always inviting us to look for the next new freedom. The Israelites wandered across the wilderness searching for God-granted freedom. Jesus is all the time telling people to drop their nets and possessions and come follow him into the unencumbered freedom which results from an active relationship with God. Always ask the liberal question, What new freedom is God inviting me to venture into today? Bethlehem is my own heart what new thing will be birthed within me this Christmas?
Christmas is a perfect time to reunite these two good words. Christmas conserves the oldest religious truth we know - God is in -incarnate- all life. (look at John 1 which says not one thing came into being without God.) And we relax into the liberal hope that God will freely bring gifts of new life to our lives at anytime. Picture mother Mary pondering all these things in her heart - what new thing, what new freedom, will this Son of mine bring to the world, to my own heart?
Hold onto that which is important, holy and helpful from the past and always look with great hope for the next new God-given freedom that awaits us.
And remember you are free to not let any label stick to you save the one that saves - You are a follower of Jesus Christ: a Christian.
P.S. Politics is not a bad word. A political system helps with social order which is good. I am glad there are people who are willing to serve in the political arena. Just know that it's shadow side is that it's an incubator for idolatry. Our ancestors, the Israelites, learned the golden calf lesson (Exodus 34). We need to conserve their learning!
P.P.S. When conservatism is left alone it only wants to hold onto the past and to old traditions; it hates change. When liberalism is left alone it only wants change and the next new thing; it wants to throw away everything traditional and old. They are both dead wrong when they're left alone. These two tired old words need each other! So do we.
