Mike Cope, one of three senior editors emeritus at New Wineskins Magazine presents anecdotal evidence for the deep faith of Hillary Clinton. And while he’s at it, Mike gives sage advice for those who would get rowdy, loud, and excited during politico season. As Mike says,

“when vigorous political discourse turns into bashing of public figures, it perpetuates a great lie: that they are merely the ideologies and symbols attached to them. When a candidate’s ideology is mistaken for his or her personhood, it masks a crucial truth: that each person, no matter their political views, bears God’s image and matters deeply to him.”

Thanks for the be-good reminder Mike! You can read the complete post [here]

By chance or providence I happened to be on vacation when my wife and I visited the Pine Valley Church of Christ in Wilmington, NC. It just so happened that on that same day Mike Cope preached his inaugural sermon at his new church home. Mike couldn’t have been older than 25 years. He had a beautiful young family to support him in this newly accepted position at the Pine Valley Church. I’m sure there were the good times as well as the bad. Mike if you happen to stumble on this correct me where I’m wrong.

Files under Hillary Clinton, How to Live, Mike Cope, Political Correctness, Presidential Canidates, blogging, conventional church, creative, democrate, influence, politics, republican | |

In Ron Sider’s new book The Scandal of Evangelical Politics: Why Are Christians Missing the Chance to Really Change the World? Sider gives the reader a short piece on how Ed Dobson lamented on the Moral Majority’s need for a coherent political philosophy (at the time Dobson was Vice President of the Moral Majority). This failure to reflect, Dobson felt, contributed to many of the movement’s failures.

Dobson says that “a ready, aim, fire” approach led to the thinking of an American favored nation status while neglecting what the Bible teaches about the poor, unfairly attacking enemies, and using manipulative fund-raising techniques.

The book argues that the “absence of any widely accepted, systematic reflection on politics leads to contradiction, confusion, ineffectiveness, even biblical unfaithfulness in political work.

Consider the inconsistencies with the regard to the sanctity of human life. Almost all evangelicals agree with the principle. But many evangelical pro-life movements focus largely on the question of abortion—as if, as one wag commented, life begins at conception and ends at birth. But what about the millions of children who die every year of starvation or the millions of adults killed annually by tobacco smoke? Are those not also sanctity of life issues?”

Sider points out that Jesse Helms was a prominent pro-life leader who happened to represent happened to represent the largest tobacco growing country in the United States—even supporting government subsidies for tobacco growers shipping America tobacco to poor nations under America’s Food for Peace Program.

Files under Ron Sider, Scripture, politics, republican | |

I’m neither Republican nor Democrat. I’m an independent who freely votes for the candidate who best suits my distinct creationist stream of thought. Something I’ve noticed of late is how Christianity seemingly attracts those with conservative views while repelling those who are more liberal in their politics. It’s the, “I’m sorry, Hillary and Barack, only conservatives can go to heaven” attitude.

For me, it simply reinforces my belief that elephants can be blind. Conversely we discovered in one day, actually in less than one hour, just how contradictory spoken words can be. Senator Obama established that yesterday with an articulate, yet confusing speech on his experience and understanding of his pastor of twenty years, racial division, and unity. Articulate is a word that well describes this Senator’s word-smithy talents. But unfortunately his communication was murky and muddy at best. History may mark March 18th as the turning point in Obama’s presidential run. Personally, I found little for Obama to gain from his talk.

Back to the elephants. To keep Christianity linked to a one-party system, the issues have to be few and emotionally compelling. Any broader embracing of issues that calls for a more nuanced, less emotional sorting of factors moves toward greater political ambiguity. The Gospel message of peace, justice, and non-violence, though major concerns of Jesus, are lost in the fog of hot-button issues that tend to be moral in nature (same-sex marriages, abortion, right-to-life) that galvanize voters and demonize the other side.

 In a week’s time I think more about this country’s tanking economy and the growing federal deficit than I do the effect of gays on the institution of marriage. But how excited does anyone get about the federal budget? Defending the sanctity of marriage is much more sexy, but my guess is the sanctity of marriage is not in any real danger regardless of what the Constitution says, and making same-sex marriages unconstitutional is going to have little or no effect on gay couples.

The Gospel has social ramifications and, because of that, political ones as well; it’s just that there are no clear connections between following Christ and the political platform of either party in America. The best thing that could come out of this presidential election year would be for Christ-followers to grasp the opportunity to show both solidarity and celebration as common practices among believers who agree on Christ as our Savior, even in our differences over personalities and political platforms.

Files under Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Presidential Canidates, Racial Relations, democrate, libertarian, politics, republican, same sex | |