An interesting article about the “buyer’s remorse” being felt by some Christians who signed on to Obama during the campaign and are now finding that Obama’s talk about reaching out to Christians, pro-lifers and others on the center and conservative side of the social debate was just that: talk. Within the article is this quote from a pastor who is having second thoughts:
But this kind of calculation is precisely what has gotten Christian political activists in trouble in the past, not just for 40 years but for 1,600 years. We gain access to Caesar in order to affect policy; we hold onto access even if it involves compromising some of what we want in policy; in the end, we can easily forget what policies we were after in the first place. I think this definitely happened to the Christian right. It doesn’t need to be repeated by the Christian center or left.
The “Christian left” doesn’t have to worry about becoming the tool of one political party – it is a tool created by a political party and its sole purpose is to cast a patina of Christianity over operationally anti-Christian policies. As for the “Christian right”, we debate as to whether the GOP has captured it, or that it has captured the GOP. The “Christian center” I know not, but worry that any such thing is bound to eventually fall to the “Christian left” because anything which is not explicitly conservative winds up liberal in the long run. But Christians, right left and center, have a vital role to play – actually, they have the role to play because it is only Jews and Christians who provide a sturdy center for a society to revolve around. Given that Jews make up only a tiny minority of Americans, it is up to Christians to do, or not do, what is necessary.
What are we Christians to do? As the late, great John Paul II put it, “be not afraid”. Very important to understand this – we’ve been afraid, and afraid for far too long. Time to be a bit fearless. We’re either people of a faith which believes that Christ has redeemed us, or we’re not. If we’re not, then we might as well give up the whole thing – but if we are, and I am, then its time to fearlessly confront the world. Paul didn’t ask politely to be heard – he shouted from the rooftops, as it were, what needed to be done. Yes, he lost his head over it – literally; but he gained an Empire. What should we care what they might do to us? Especially from the cowards we for the most part face? But even if they are able, as some point, to cut off our heads, then so be it. We’ll win, in the End.
We must not fall into a debate about Christian left, right and center – we must be Christian, and demand the world bend to our will. Get out of the left/right dichotomy – we want a Judeo-Christian society; nothing more, nothing less. What does a Christian really care about the ability of a person to make money off pornography? Capitalism is fine, as long as we don’t take it too far – and it has been taken entirely too far. What does a Christian really care about when someone says their God-given individual rights mean they can sh** in our public square? Free expression is fine, as long as we don’t take it too far – and it has been taken entirely too far. A right to abort children; a right to become drug-addled; a right to pile up money far beyond any reasonable need; a right to live off the work of others, the demand to preserve a forest “forever”; the claim that one may do whatever one wants with one’s own, the claim that one’s property is actually the property of the group…such conceptions are contemptible and unworthy of a serious, adult human being. Unworthy, that is, of a Christian.
Love is not soft and mushy – that is what weak-kneed men say it is; but real men – and real women – understand that love is hard as diamonds, yet far more beautiful and precious. If you love a thing, do you allow it to be wrecked? If you love a person, do you wish for them to live in filth? In the name of love a person will allow himself to be killed for a place, to die for a friend. What is soft about that? Why do we expect the soldier to show his love by standing bravely against the enemy, while we allow a man back home to say his love means he has to divorce his aging wife to marry some younger woman? If the soldier runs away from the enemy, we might even go so far as to shoot him for cowardice – if a man runs away from his wife, we’ll say that it was better than being in a difficult marriage. Just what kind of nonsense is that?
Courage is what we need – the courage of our ancestors who called folly and wickedness what they were, and demanded that people stop being fools and criminals. Everyone can be forgiven and, indeed, we must be ever ready to forgive at the drop of a hat – but the sinner must crave pardon, or all the forgiveness in the world will be wasted on him. We must have the courage to say that everyone who is suffering will be embraced, while also saying that everyone who is suffering from personal folly will have to stop being fools. No more excuses, no more soft-peddling and for the love of God, no more refusal to judge actions.
We must call Caesar to repent, not beg for crumbs from Caesar’s table. And if Caesar, for a while, takes a hammer to us, then that is fine – eventually, like the Caesars of old, he will bow down before our God, and beg forgiveness.
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