God and Politics

Sojourners is running an election year campaign entitled "God Is Not a Republican. Or a Democrat." You can check out the petition here. There are so many issues in life that should be informed by our faith. When I teach on Micah I spend the second week just talking about the wide variety of social issues out there. To even pretend that the issues fall into simple categories is foolhardy at best. When a group can list more than 40 issues in less than 20 minutes, it becomes very difficult to imagine that people can begin to grasp the complexity and interrelation of the issues, much less put them into simple "agree/disagree" categories. It reached a point the first time I went through this exercise with a group that someone blurted out, "God doesn't require us to care for the poor!" Ignore the fact that that is patently false. I've come to believe that this person simply was overwhelmed. When multiple issues fall to one side of the political spectrum and just as many fall to the other, and all are informed on by our faith, it's too easy to jump back into the world of comfort by denying the Truth of the difficult. We are called to care for the poor, even if our preference for tax cuts (or fill in any other political agenda) gets in the way.

Anyway, check out this petition and let me know what you think. I signed it.

[one more thanks to Jordon Cooper who pointed me in this direction]