Our Only Possible Salvation on Memorial Day

On Tuesday mornings, after our men’s group, some of the guys meet for breakfast with men from our “brother” group (a few years ago the original group grew to so many men that we morphed into two groups).

From time to time someone will ask me about going to the breakfast; this past week I was asked again and I replied, “Well, I know that politics comes up a lot and I don’t like being in the minority.” Being in the minority can be wearisome. Since most, if not all, of the men who have breakfast together style themselves “Conservatives”, my comment can be taken to mean that I’m a “Liberal”; but I would say (and do) the same thing if the group were Liberal. I want my center of gravity to be Jesus Christ and His Kingdom, I want to live as a citizen of heaven before I live as a citizen of the United States, and assuredly I want to live as a citizen of heaven before I remotely consider identifying with a political party or political agenda.

For years I have been intentional in not using the words “conservative” and “liberal” because I frankly think they are thoughtless, forgive my bluntness. Explain what you believe, explain what you stand for; explain your understanding of what other people believe and stand for – think these things through. The result might be that we grow in our own understanding, that we challenge our own assumptions, that we place ourselves in a position where the Holy Spirit and the Word of God can use us to build bridges to others in order to share Jesus Christ.

Another reason I don’t use the words “liberal” and “conservative” is that I don’t want to build barriers, and I think this is a major communications problem – is my goal to convert a conservative to a liberal or a liberal to a conservative? Or is it to thoughtfully share Jesus Christ? Is it to thoughtfully bridge relational chasms?

I have read articles and books that were making thoughtful points and presenting worthy ideas when the author starting using the words “liberal” and “conservative” – and I’ve  thought, “What will the person who is not a conservative (or liberal) think when he reads this, for all of a sudden a barrier has been thrown up? Now the author is attacking the other “party” and what was once a reasonably-presented argument has now, with the use of polarizing words, become a tribal issue.”

And doesn’t the use of such words, at least for the Christian, dehumanize other people, for how can I know the heart and mind and soul of a person, in some measure, unless I listen and ask questions?

I recently read Edwin Lutzer’s book, The Church in Babylon, it raises a number of important issues and had the potential to be a wake-up call to Christians, but there are places where Lutzer brings out his big brush and talks about “liberals” – what is the point of that? How is that effectively communicating? How is that persuading? I know political and theological folks who consider themselves liberal who have Biblical perspectives on issues that those who consider themselves conservative don’t seem to have, and I know folks who consider themselves conservatives where the reverse is true.

Let’s not forget that Jesus called both Matthew the tax collector and Simon the Zealot.

If we are followers of Jesus Christ, no broad brush is our salvation, and no civil religion is our salvation; Jesus Christ and only Jesus Christ should be both our testimony and our salvation. Our overcoming can only be by the blood of the Lamb and the Word of our testimony (Rev. 12:11). A simplistic nationalism, a confusion of the Gospel with our nation, an ignorance of our nation’s historical sins and our present sins, and a framing of life in political and economic terms, without those terms being informed by the Gospel, is toxic to our life in Christ and our testimony.

If the Word of God is informing our view of economics, politics, education, business, standard of living, entertainment, sports, healthcare, immigration, foreign policy; in other words, if the Word of God and the Cross of Jesus Christ are at the center of our lives, and if we are submitted to the Cross and God’s Word, and if Jesus Christ is our first love…then I think I can safely say that we will nearly always find that God’s Way is not our (naturalistic) way, and that God’s interests do not align with our own selfish interests, and that  it will cost us to follow Jesus Christ in obedience in all of these areas of life – we will seldom, if ever, find ourselves in either the majority or even in a significant minority.

Of course, and I do not write this tritely, if we are with Christ then we are in God’s majority; that should be sufficient for us. To quote Saint Athanasius, “Do not say that the world is against Athanasius, say that Athanasius is against the world.”

The only hope for our country, or any country, is Jesus Christ. This means that God’s People live as citizens of His Kingdom before they live as citizens of any earthly nation or identify themselves with any earthly political perspective. It means that God’s People live as a distinct minority so that they, by God’s grace, might be salt and light in the midst of insanity. It means that we are willing to suffer for Christ and others. It means that we are not known as conservatives or liberals or moderates…but rather as followers of Jesus Christ.

“Then he [Abraham] said, ‘Oh may the Lord not be angry, and I shall speak only this once; suppose ten are found there?’ And He [the Lord] said, ‘I will not destroy it on account of the ten.’”