Tag: politics

THIS IS NOT THE KINGDOM

george gaffga3 Comments

Let’s be very careful not to identify our identity in Christ with the government of this world. Recall Jesus’ words to Pilate:

36 Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.” (John 18)

Humans love power. That includes believers. The Bible calls it our flesh and says that the spirit and flesh are in a battle. To desire power is what we might call sin.

Adam and Eve wanted power, self-determination and then came Cain and Abel, one of which was willing to kill for power. And it continues.

Jesus invites us to give up our hunger for power. Read Matthew 5. He promises that there is something better in the Kingdom of God, which is always found where we place our trust in God and not in any human. Certainly I trust doctors and people close to me but not the powers of this world, not even when God’s name is invoked.

In the Old Testament we are told not to trust in chariots. “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.” Psalm 20:7.

And recall that when Jesus was about to be arrested, his disciples wanted to fight for him.

52“Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to Peter. “For all who draw the sword will die by the sword. 53 Are you not aware that I can call on My Father, and He will at once put at My disposal more than twelve legions of angels?”  (Matthew 26)

That’s 72,000 angels, certainly enough power to overcome the soldiers who were there to arrest Jesus.

The Kingdom of God is, as Dallas Willard wrote: A DIVINE CONSPIRACY, whispered from one person to another letting people in on the divine subversiveness against worldly powers and principalities. It comes through trust and love, not through the exercise of power. God desires a relationship of love among the people called by his name. And there are people in this world who don’t know his name but are living in his spirit of love, sometimes better than believers in God.

Wherever God’s love catches on we can know the Kingdom has found a foothold, a beachhead.  Politics won’t carry the day. Only love can do that. And God brought that love to us, not on a Jetliner or Army Tank or even a Police force. He came in a little out of the way place on the margins of society, and that’s where God is still found. We call his name JESUS.

WANTED: A MORAL COMPASS

george gaffga3 Comments

Is there anyone out there who knows how to point our nation to a true moral north?

We seem to have lost our way. When all we care about is ‘self’ and ‘winning’ we have entered through the wide gate that leads to destruction.

Any leader with an ounce of decent morality would stand before this nation and at least say something like “We ALL bear some responsibility for the incendiary atmosphere that is choking the good life out of us. And ALL includes your President.”

I know there are agendas and issues and things like politics. Health care, jobs, lots of money in our pockets and being number one in the world and having the strongest defense all seem to be at some point on the compass but not true north.

But for the love of God (really) let’s all get down off our high horses of being ‘right’ and teach our children a better way to think and live. Please, someone, write me some names of political leaders in our nation who HAVE a moral compass, of pointing the way to what is right and wrong instead of blaming everybody else and making sure we have enough votes to WIN.

I need some role models to believe in. Do your children have leaders that are role models? Hold them close.

Jesus said, the way is narrow that leads to LIFE and few find it, or even look for it. People don’t want the ‘best’ way unless best means ‘me first’. We want the road to victory where our enemies lie strewn along the pathway. Enemies being people we don’t agree with.

Jesus once prayed to his Father that his followers would be ONE like Jesus and the Father were. My God, what happened to that unity? We have forsaken you for the almighty mammon. Someone, out there, please help us.

I am remembering: OUR HELP IS IN THE LORD WHO MADE HEAVEN AND EARTH.

YES, Abe Lincoln said that times like these drive us to our knees. Then on our knees let us go before the ONE TRUTH NORTH, to beg God’s forgiveness and help for the healing of this nation.

May God have mercy upon those who are victims right now, today, especially our Jewish kin who once again find themselves the target of hatred and violence. Please Yahweh, come to their aid and comfort. Grant HOPE to your people everywhere. Amen

 

 

 

MIXING POLITICS AND RELIGION

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Even in my Bible study group people say don’t mix politics with religion. Well, Jeff Sessions has gone and done it. And it’s gonna bite him and this administration. When you mess with God and God’s little children by quoting scripture as some kind of proof text for your behavior you are on a slippery slope south, and I don’t mean Virginia. What we sow we reap.

We, as a country of Christian values and morals, have now set a ‘made up law’ above Christ’s commands to love, and God’s command to take care of the poor strangers and immigrants among us. And the current regime cannot get out of this by blaming another political party. And to further aggravate God I read that the leader is using this FAMILY SEPARATION as a bargaining chip to get his way on things like THE WALL.

In my less than theological language I say this all sucks. I cannot keep silent living in a country that has such a terrible track record and history against people like native Americans, Africans, and immigrants who trying to find a way to life which is what we all want.

“Hey, he’s the head of a country, and I mean, he’s the strong head, don’t let anyone think anything different,” Trump told Fox News “He speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.” The  leader of this nation has made it clear in humor and seriousness that he prefers the totalitarian way of rule over democracy. I believe him. Christians must stand up and say NO.

Jeff Sessions, Sarah Sanders and the whole administration can quote Romans 13 all they want but may they never forget that we as God’s people do not bow to the IDOL OF LAW. We stand against any laws that go against the will of God as the book of Daniel illustrations, as the early Apostle’s practiced against Rome, and as people throughout history have done perhaps best understood in the UNDERGROUND RAILROAD.

At the Southern Baptist Convention Jeff Session invoked God in his defense of making life more miserable for immigrants than that life already is. But the President elect of that body of religious people made something else clear:

“Greear in particular had urged the denomination to step back from politics, including this passage in his speech to the meeting on Monday, prior to his election:

“We believe that Jesus is the lord of the whole earth. He is the king of kings and he is the lord of lords. We believe that he, not any version of Caesar, is the Messiah. He is the Christ, the son of the living God, that salvation is found in him, not in the Republican platform or the Democratic platform, and that salvation did not come riding in on the wings of Air Force One. It came cradled in a manger.””

While I do not equate the actions of this present government with those of Nazi German  I do find the following quote most interesting:

  • Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord. (Mein Kampf)- Adolf Hitler.

Yes, we have all heard about safety, about laws and how we are a nation of laws. Maybe we need to read more about grace and love and caring for the ‘least’.

This government, if it has the will, can find a way to alleviate this situation, govern rightly and justly and if we are going to side with God then we had better make sure we understand who God is and whom Jesus died for.

Let our leader make the same effort for our neighbors to have peace as he is making with the worst totalitarian leader on the planet. (My opinion).

 

Exodus 12:49 and Leviticus 24:22 – “There shall be one law for the native and for the alien who resides among you.”

Exodus 22:21 – Moses gives God’s law:  “You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien; for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.”

I urge you all to find a way to donate to groups/organizations who are helping with the refugee crisis because in truth you cannot have politics without religion.

Please let’s find a way for these little ones to be with their parents.

 

 

INSPIRED BY OUR YOUNG PEOPLE AND THEIR DESIRE FOR A SAFER WORLD

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I know that many people say that they don’t have the maturity to speak to political issues. Well, many have had the bad fortune of being killed within the system that has its flaws, many of those flaws aided by the lack of vision on the part of the political parties and leadership.

Young people are in many ways idealists believing they can make a difference and these tragic killings are driving them to desire and demand change. And I for one say that change is good. (I think our government Leader says that). I say that it’s good for our youth to find some purpose in life other than mere academics or what might be some other trivial pursuits.

Back in the days of Vietnam protests many of us were actually too immature to understand fully the dynamics of war and our country’s involvement. And to this day books are coming out trying to fathom just went wrong. To wait for all the answers is to be indecisive. I say ‘go with the impulse’.

All I remember as a young Christian in college was that I wanted to join a movement that cried out ‘no more deaths’.

We adults are so uptight about making money, surviving day-to-day, getting ahead and the like that we forget there are greater goals in life. When I see our young people and our communities coming together against some very large forces in this country I say ‘bravo’. I hope they keep going and keep leading us to find greater causes for our lives and the life of this nation. They are shaking up our existential crises. And that’s a good thing.

Some say they don’t have the ‘right’ to tell the adults how this country should be governed. I say, ‘they are the ones dying and have unfortunately earned the right that the adults have abrogated’.

I am not sure how many of these young people are believers but frankly I don’t care because as they put themselves out there for this nation and they are living in the way Jesus taught. NOT JUST TALKING or BELIEVING but DOING.

I grew as a Christian during Vietnam. I grew because I learned to step out of my and my country’s comfort zone. I learned to live more faithfully, if not idealistically, to my Lord who calls me to stand with the prophets and with Jesus. Jesus was scorned for his identification with those on the left (there’s a word to make some of you nervous). Jesus shook up the status quo and parted ways with the religious RIGHT because they were WRONG.

I am not sure what will come from all the outcries and marches of our young people but it seems that a whole lot of adult people are getting on that train. It’s the train of glory and it goes against the grain of the big money and power. I like that (even though I mixed a couple of metaphors).

By the way, I served in the military for one year (67-68) before being medically discharged. (It was a small thing but not as small as a bone spur).

 

SEE NO EVIL??

george gaffga6 Comments

After the events of the past few days I feel the need to speak out, not as one associated with any political party, but as a Christian.

I am convinced that the President has given tacit approval to hate groups within our country. Groups like the KKK, the neo-Nazis, White supremacists and others sense the Presidents’ sanction for their behavior. I believe this behavior stems from ‘EVIL’, pure and simple. They wish to take back their country. From whom? We have already taken this country, by extermination, from Native Americans and America has built this country through enslavement of African Americans. And now under the guise of ‘freedom of speech’ these white nationalists are threatening Jews and other minorities against whom they will fight with force if necessary.

We do not have a moral leader at the helm of our nation. We have a power hungry egotist. He is doing virtually nothing to protect the rights of those who have been so downtrodden in our history. And now he is equating the protests of ‘the left’ with the EVIL of the neo-Nazis and others like them.

I cannot speak to the heart of the President but a tree is known by its fruit. Jesus said that. I know for myself that my own words and actions speak at times of a heart and will that needs transformation. I believe that for all Christians and if a leader calls him or herself by the name of a follower of Jesus then let the words hold true for them as well. Words that are spoken reflect a certain character no matter how well those words are then reinterpreted by the speaker or spokespersons.

Christians, I believe, must stand, in the strongest way, against any Nazi expression. While it may be ‘free speech’ it is EVIL and what happened at that Rally and especially to the young woman who was murdered was EVIL. The people ‘on the left’ may have their ‘issues’ but the EVIL perpetrated by hate speech must be fought by the expression and prayers of Christian believers, among others. Behind the EVIL of the neo-Nazis is the Satan who desires to defeat faith and the faithful.

The Christians of today who are as complacent as the Christians were in Nazi Germany are guilty for non-action (myself included) against the EVIL we witnessed. Consider the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor who spoke out against the Nazis in Germany. These words in his radio address were censored.

“If the leader tries to become the idol the led are looking for–something the led always hope from their leader–then the image of the leader shifts to one of a mis-leader, then the leader is acting improperly toward the led as well as toward himself. The true leader must always be able to disappoint. This, especially, is part of the leader’s responsibility and objectivity. “ (The day after Hitler came to power.)

 If anything needs to be taken back in America it is the courage of the conviction of Christians to follow God and not Caesar.

Read these words from a French sociologist and political theorist:

“I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers – and it was not there . . . in her fertile fields and boundless forests and it was not there . . . in her rich mines and her vast world commerce – and it was not there . . . in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution – and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835)

 

 

 

Guns and the President

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My initial reaction to Mr. Obama’s executive actions concerning guns?  Wonderful, amazing, astounding, courageous and in line with the Christian ethic.

Whatever this nation can do to save some of the 30,000 lives that were destroyed last year by guns is a step in the right direction and in accord with everything I believe about what it means to follow Christ in this particular matter.

Gun violence is evil whether done agains oneself or another. It destroys life. There are good and proper ways for people to own guns for the right reasons. With all the other laws and resources we use to make life safer in this nation how can anyone deny the moral validity of doing the same things about guns.

And about the evil people who use guns to destroy the lives of others? More enforcement is in line with why God institutes the governments of the earth. Helping people with mental illness is a noble cause to strive for.

I am not a particularly political person and when I have leanings they are usually on the ‘right’ but this matter has no left or right, only what is good in the sight of the Lord, right along with caring for widows and orphans.

To be pro life means to take action with regards to what the President suggested. I will be looking at candidates who are pro life across the board. I will not have many choices, I fear, and wonder exactly why that is.

But I will, as best a Christian can, support the President in this action. I will do so not because of any political affiliation but because my conscience is held captive by God.