Monday, November 14, 2016

3 things


  • One of the things that happens when Christians put a political message in the forefront and move the Gospel message to the backroom is that they start acting as if people who think differently than them are enemies of the faith. They have exchanged the Gospel for a political agenda, yet keep on telling themselves that they're doing God's work and espousing their faith. Therefore, people with a different political view are seen as anti-Jesus. Opportunity for dialogue is lost, and we prove ourselves to be presumptuous and arrogant, just like many people have always thought we were. This mistake is one we have made in a big way this year. By identifying ourselves as Trump supporters more prominently than as Jesus-followers, we pay the price of becoming political antagonists to the 52% of the country that didn't support him.
  • To keep the Gospel unmistakably the main thing, we may have to just keep our political views to ourselves. That's one less potential stumbling block between us and the people we're hoping to reach. If there is to be a stumbling block, let the stumbling block be Jesus, not politics. [1 Peter 2:8]
  • I am not going to be any more at home in Trump's America than I was in Obama's. When the faith becomes simply a player in the identity politics of our day, eager for the rewards of power, we become participants in the game of Imperial spoils, just like the 4th century church, rather than ambassadors of an alternative Kingdom. Count me out.

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