Editor’s note: This article was submitted for publication Fall 2018. This is a late upload.
By: Rev. David Wilson Rogers
It has been over a week now since the voters of the United States have spoken. As with most free and fair elections, there have been some noteworthy winners and some noteworthy losers. Additionally, there have been some surprising upsets and dramatic reversals. Unfortunately, one of the biggest losers in the latest election is Jesus Christ!
Christianity is inevitably a political religion. When Christ chastised the religious leaders for their ungodly nationalism, he was being political. When he called for allegiance to pay taxes to the Roman Emperor, he was being political. When held the religious tradition of his day accountable for upholding God’s priority for the orphan, widow, stranger, and resident alien, he was being political. Jesus was a political figure.
Quite understandably, political causes over the centuries have evoked the presumed authority of Jesus to justify, rationalize, and validate political goals. In the United States, many have presumptively asserted the claim that the U.S. is, and always has been, a distinctively Christian Nation, founded on Christian values, and governed in Christian morality. During times of war and conflict, allegiance to Christian doctrine has often been used to rally citizens toward the cause of presumed national unity and to under gird support for political aims.
In the latest election cycle, religion played a major role in the rhetoric of the campaign. Many called upon paramount Christian values such as ending abortion, upholding individual accountability, celebrating personal liberty, and upholding law and order as presumably Christian reasons to support only conservative candidates for office. On the other side, many called upon paramount Christian values such as protecting the environment, ending poverty, care for the least of these, and welcoming the migrant as presumably Christian reasons to support only liberal candidates for office.
Amid the stark lines drawn between liberal and conservative ideology, emerged a culture of hate, fear, shame, disgrace, and anger that has been used to frame the call for faithful Christian allegiance. The message was very clear. If one was truly a Christian, there is no way any Christian could possibly support that other party because it is a party of anti-Christian values, sinful allegiances, and such powerfully destructive idolatry that the party would surely destroy all that is good and beautiful about the American way of life.
Of course, none of this is Biblical or authentically Christian! Jesus Christ never supported one American political party over the other, and the Bible can never be used to validate the partisan platforms of any political party. Any attempt to do so only distorts scripture in perverse and selfish ways.
Fear, anger, and hate are three demonic values that Scripture resoundingly rejects for any Christian; regardless of that believer’s personal political leanings. Yet, many presumptively “Christian” appeals in the latest election were grounded in fear, anger, and hate. Along with these three deeply demonic appeals, the culture of lies, deliberate political distortions, and the vehement dehumanization of others constitutes a vile biblical sin.
Jesus is the big loser in the 2018 Midterm elections because so much of the election cycle was dominated by lies, fear, hate, and anger. So now, as the nation recovers from the shame and disgrace of a particularly vile election cycle, it is time that Christians repent of the political rage and fury that has hijacked our beautiful faith and work for the truly common good.
