Why do Christians keep falling for the claims that politicians will help us?
I’m looking forward to reading Gregory Boyd’s The Myth of a Christian Nation, in which he discusses separating church and state in the pulpit. (You can read an excerpt of it here.)
There are unfortunately many who see the evangelical church as another wing of the Republican Party—both in the party and in the church—and it strikes me as nuts that the church which claims to follow Jesus, seems to have paid no attention to Jesus’s rejection of political power. Didn’t they read this?—
- Taking [Jesus] up
- and showing him all the kingdoms on Earth
- in an instant of time
- the devil said to him:
- “I will give you all this power
- and all their honor
- for it was given over to me
- and to whomever I want to give it to.
- If you prostrate yourself to me,
- everything is yours.”
- Answering, Jesus said,
“It’s written: ‘You will prostrate yourself to the Lord God, and him alone will you worship.” [Lk 4.5-8]
But you’ll notice how often everything is thrown away in the pursuit of political power; how it all too frequently becomes a god to those who chase after it, and how like so many idols there is a devil behind it, accepting the worship.
Because it’s power. Political power is simply human power, seized from God in the very same way that the devil tries to seize power from God, from us, and from anyone who gets in its way.
And if the church goes along with it, the church will get political power. Remember the Moral Majority? What did the Christian Right do once it was given political power in the early ’80s? That’s right; it squandered it. What did it do again once it was given political power in the mid ’90s? Squandered it again. The Christian Right constantly is told, and tells its members, “Elect us and we’ll fix all the moral problems in the country.”
Now we have a president and a Congress that claim the Christian Right as their constituency. How’re they doing? Well, they haven’t done jack squat about the moral problems; seems they’ve invested all their time into this excuse for their re-election: “These things take time. I’ll need another term to do it in. Don’t vote for the other guy, okay? I really do believe in all the things you do. I can prove it if you give me another term.” It’s like a wife-beater begging to be taken back; and the American people, particularly the Christian Right, are the suckers with low self-esteem who do it.
More ranting later.