election year

This will be an interesting year it being an election year. And more so since many are talking about religion in politics. Over the past few years a number of books have been published criticizing the Christian right, almost to the point of hatred. Dennis Prager states that the right (religious or secular) is mostly willing to disagree with the left and talk about it but that the left sees the right as wrong and therefore evil, and will not discuss anything. While somewhat generalized, it appears to be true.

Then there are the books written by atheists over the last couple of years, likewise criticizing Christianity. There is also books written advocating new texts such as the Gnostics. There are a number of books responding to these being published.

Another group of books coming from both the religious left and right concerns the Christian's role in politics. Among the authors writing are Tony Campolo, Albert Mohlar, D. James Kennedy, Cal Thomas, Os Guinness, and David Klinghoffer. These all should be interesting reads, and more are on the way.

Reading some of these authors past material, I am seeing that it is really difficult to separate one's politics from one's view of Christianity, left or right. They appear to be intertwined. We have often thought that we can divorce religion and politics and have read the Bible in general and the NT in particular in that way. But that view is changing as more Biblical scholars see that the message of Jesus, "the kingdom is near" and of Paul, "Jesus is Lord," were direct challenges to the powers that be. Neither advocated a violent overthrow of either the Herods nor of Rome, but they used terms that could stir up anxiety among the ruling powers.

Paul used terms such as salvation, Lord, and rescue/redemption that the Romans had applied to Caesar, and applied them to Jesus. While some governors could care less about Paul's preaching (The Roman governor of Corinth), others saw it as a threat, especially near the end of the first century.

We will be hearing a lot about this mixture this year. Conservatives leaning in one direction, liberals in another. Hopefully we can talk and learn from each other. I think there are some underlying philosophies that we need to be careful of; for instance that we are created in the image of God and abortion is a challenge to that; that God created the universe and rules, hence global warming might not be all that affected by man. Mars is warming and unless those Martians are getting ready to invade, most think that it comes from activity on the sun rather than on earth. Underlying this is the idea that man can solve all problems without God's help.

I hope to read some of these books on religion and politics and see what can be learned from them. I will admit that I am on the religious right. I have problems with far too much dependence on Caesar (government) for solutions, especially when it is our responsibility. I fear that the desire for the so called social justice issues miss the issues of Biblical justice. Again, the religious left has criticized the religious right for talking too much about abortion - though the most innocent and helpless being is in the womb, created in the image of God. We all should do something to eliminate poverty but is government programs the answer, or are those who are "on the ground" better equipped to handle it.

I look at these and other issues over the year and hopefully learn from them.