My Christian friends on the political left don’t want to talk about the abortion and same-sex marriage issues. Yes, they agree, killing babies and “men committing shameless acts with men…” (Romans 1:27 ESV) is sin, but those issues are not nearly as important as ending unjust wars or easing the plight of the poor. They want their Christian brothers and sisters to look the other way when Obama advocates for pro-choice and pro-gay agendas. We should not do or say anything that might jeopardize his power base lest it inhibit the programs he is pushing for “…the least of these.” The ends, apparently, justify the means.
My Christian friends on the political right seem to have forgotten Matthew 25 and the scores of Scripture references outlining the responsibility of both religious and political leaders for the ethical treatment of the poor and the aliens living in our midst. So they become apologists for Big Money/Big Business. It is far better to support the “Pro-Family” candidate who takes care of his Military/Industrial Complex buddies at the expense of the poor, than to allow the “Pro-Choice” or “Pro-Gay” candidate to get elected. The ends, apparently, justify the means.
At the last church I pastored I had a parishioner accuse me of only preaching on Scripture passages that made Jesus sound like a Democrat. I told her is she would give me a list of our Lord’s “Republican” sayings I would preach an entire sermon series on them. She never provided me with the list. But the fact is, liberal Christians are just as convinced their Jesus is a Democrat as are conservative Christians that he is a Republican.
Both liberals and conservatives fail to notice that the three groups of people who rejected Christ in the early first century were the political leaders, the moral leaders, and the religious leaders of their day. All of the modern political systems, modern religious systems, and modern moral systems still reject Jesus Christ today. If not by their words, then by their actions they reject him. The mistake a lot of people make is they want Jesus Christ to fit into their morals; they'd like him to fit into their religion; and yes, many of them want him to be a member of their political party. They haven't understood that Jesus Christ always, always, always stands in judgment upon our religion, our morals, and our politics, and speaks so fervently and forcefully about them (and often against them) that we find our politics and our religion and our morals locking horns with Christ's. True disciples of Jesus Christ know that. They don't change their Christ. They change their politics, and their morals, and their religion!
I am frankly sick of being told that I must vote for a candidate whose lifestyle or voting record shows he is no friend of Christ. I need to vote for him in spite of his transgressions I'm told, because his party must have a majority in congress in order to insure passage of a “Matthew 25” (Christian left) or “Pro-Family” (Christian right) agenda.
Therefore I am forming a new Christian political organization: The U.C.C.K. (The Union of Christian Curmudgeons and Kvetches. pronounced "yuck"). We will put forth no candidates or platforms. We will simply work to vote out of office all incumbents whose voting record shows little or no concern for both “the least of these…” and for Biblical morality. My Christian friends on the far left and far right (Christian anarchist and Christian libertarians) will be especially pleased to note that there will be no membership rolls, no registration forms to fill out, no dues to pay and no meetings to attend. To “join” you simply decide in your heart you are one of us.
If you decide to join, please DO NOT contact me to let me know. For if you did, we would inevitably get into a discussion and eventually we would discover how each of us voted in the last several elections, what our denominational ties are, our eschatological views, and which college and pro-ball teams we support. The result of course would be that each of us would decide the other was not worthy to be included in the U.C.C.K.
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