Election?

I am told there was an election yesterday. Being a student of history I know that we’ve had many bare-knuckle elections; ugliness is nothing new, vitriol has been with us as long as we’ve been on the planet. Here in Virginia we’ve been treated to statewide contests that rival anything found in a septic system - at least septic systems are underground and not broadcast over the airwaves and via cable; not sure why the EPA didn’t shut these election contests down and fine the candidates for polluting our environment - our air quality took a turn for the worse.

For the Christ-follower, our citizenship is in heaven (see Paul in Philippians). This is not lip-service, this is truth. There really is no salvation to be found on earth; not in big government, not in big business, not in small business, not even in the US Constitution - which I know is a pill for some of us to swallow.

The media talks of “culture wars” - but there is really only one culture war, and it is a conflict of kingdoms - the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world. No matter how admirable elements of political thought, philosophy, and social concern may be - and we should expect elements to be admirable if we believe that we are created in the image of God - they eventually decay and fail through inconsistencies and the gravity of selfishness.

When elements of the professing church are seduced into alignment with political agendas, and especially political parties, they trade the wedding ring of Jesus Christ for the cheap costume jewelry of this world. We can only have one core identity. Political parties will whisper what we want to hear, but when we wake up in the morning we find ourselves alone.

Whether the political right or the political left, these twin grindstones will crush the identity of Christ out of those elements of the church that align themselves with them - for both represent the kingdoms of this world. There is no righteousness apart from God’s righteousness; and to argue that a nation has at any time been “righteous” is, for the Christian at least, to argue against the clear teaching of Scripture that we’ve all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. If there are no righteous individuals (see Romans Chapter 3), there are certainly no righteous groups of individuals, and if there are no righteous groups of individuals there are no righteous nations. Let us celebrate that which is good while not denying that which is evil.

As I understand his life, my 5th great-grandfather Patrick Henry came to realize, to some degree, how patriotism could be used as a cloak for national greed, selfishness, and dominance. Henry, who certainly stood in the first rank of Revolutionary patriots, came to see, from a Christian perspective, the danger of using patriotism as a trump card in political and national life. It appears that Henry came to see himself as a Christian first, a husband and a father second, and a patriot third. I think that made him a better patriot. (I will pick Henry back up in a future post).

As Daniel well understood (see Daniel Chapter Two), all of the kingdoms of the world are temporal - in the final analysis the only election that really matters is God’s. This is not to say that we ought not to be engaged in the political process, but it is to say that the follower of Jesus Christ ought to function as an agent of peace, reconciliation, righteousness, justice; and to always remember that we are here first and foremost as sons and daughters of the living God and that we must guard against adopting any other primary identity or calling.