Re(2): Christianity & Politics

I realize "political" is one of those slippery, multi-definition words like "my" (my wife different from my shoes or my God) or "love". I share the sense in which you were using it and what you have "little stomach" for. But to recognize that excommunicating one another for our varied attempts to understand how one political program/party/etc. may best implement Christian faithfulness is not good practice, it nonetheless does not allow us to go to the opposite side of pie-in-the-sky quietism either.

There is a tendancy of the political order to deify itself (witness IRS recent attack on some church in CA that had someone offer an opinion about the Iraq war). The proclamation that "Jesus is Lord" had no "religious" context at the time it was first made but it was made in exactly the same sense and as an alternative to the idolatrous proclamation that "Caesar is Lord".

Far too little of the Church takes much notice these days of the return of Jesus and its significance. Aside from the "left behind" novels, the topic is pretty much left to the prophecy chart folks on the one hand and for those who follow the lectionary, maybe a scant nod to that truth by singing "Behold, he comes with angels descending" on the first week of Advent and Trinity Sunday.

But the earliest confession is that Jesus is coming back and when he does it is not to be a religious figure but a political one -- "King of kings and Lord of lords" --all intrinsically and explicitly political lingo with no religious connotation in the original use.

• Re(2): Christianity & Politics - By karen November 7, 2005 at 05:28:32 PM