Comments on: How Worship Reshapes Our Political Engagement

By: Mark Beuving

Mark Beuving — Mon, 05 Oct 2020 20:54:43 +0000

I love this, Kate. And thanks for bringing in Revelation 5! That passage has such profound political implications!

By: Tony Brubaker

Tony Brubaker — Mon, 05 Oct 2020 15:09:33 +0000

Thank you for this article Mark. Jesus should be our focus in whatever political environment we find ourselves in. How many Christians around the world continue to share the love of Jesus in their differing political environments. I should do the same in this environment or whatever environment comes.

By: Kim

Kim — Wed, 23 Sep 2020 16:39:51 +0000

Amen! Thank you for these Christ-centered truths and deeply important reminders. We are grateful for your voice!

By: Kate E

Kate E — Tue, 22 Sep 2020 16:53:51 +0000

Thank you, Mark, for all these thoughtful articles on politics. It’s such a breath of fresh air in a very divisive, angry time and I couldn’t agree more with your call for Christians to get back to the heart of what matters — Jesus. A couple weekends ago I was reminded of Revelation 5 as an unveiling of who truly sits on the throne and who truly deserves honor, power, and glory. I think you’re right that Christians don’t necessarily need to disengage from politics but I think we could do a better job of approaching it with humility, thoughtfulness, and a heart soft towards God. For me I feel like that means sometimes I align with more conservative platforms and other times more liberal and sometimes neither. But my prayer is that I try to view things through God’s eyes with the ultimate focus on his mission in the world. I know I do that imperfectly and it’s definitely a struggle in a world that’s very polarized.

By: Rachel

Rachel — Tue, 22 Sep 2020 13:26:06 +0000

I am a conservative who used to work in politics. Since leaving that world, I can look back and see how it became such an idol for me, a convenient substitute for truly following God’s heart. I have felt deep conviction about how my call as a Christ follower doesn’t fit a party platform. This morning I was get tangled again in my thoughts about what should happen with the latest political crisis. I have strong opinions, but they are based on my political instincts, not the Holy Spirit. I was again convicted about my call as a Christ follower and had to step back. It would be so much easier to “own the libs” than love them. It’s only through the surrender to the Holy Spirit’s conviction and influence that it’s possible. He always does His part. Thank you Lord.

Thank you for this article. I have to keep leaning further into what’s already there.

By: Kristina

Kristina — Mon, 21 Sep 2020 23:08:52 +0000

The hardest thing for me to get my head and heart around is when I see “the tactics of others” (who work themselves to the bone in desperation, who labor in fear, who make use of negativity and fear and manipulation to accomplish their goals.) more often in people who identify as Christian than those who don’t.

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 21 Sep 2020 21:35:57 +0000

At the heart of it all to me is an apparent cultural trajectory within the Evangelical church created by what it is we hope to ultimately get out of our political engagement. If we think we are going to take America back for God at the ballot box…we are kidding ourselves and worse falling into a seduction. I’m not sure that narrative was even created in the church as much as RNC headquarters utilizing Christian culture champions as their consultants. Christians are a voting block. But so is Wall Street and so is Gun rights advocates and Zionism advocates. And in classic form the way to coalesce every voting block is by engineering an existential threat or great hill to conquer. “By the way did you hear the liberals want to use CoVid to shut our churches down for good? Protect religious freedom and Vote Republican in November!“

Somewhere along the way the Evangelical movement became seduced by political promise. We can advance God’s kingdom by getting our people elected. We can roll back the devils agenda by filling high offices with our people. We can legislate and adjudicate morality in this nation if only we can push those $%&#@ liberals and gays and muslims out. Then God will bless America again. It never gets said this way but it appears at times that the church in America thinks it’s going to take over America and have it ready to give it to King Jesus when he returns. But do we realize that the path to such victories is filled with unconstitutional measures and civil rights violations of all kinds. Don’t look now but our Christian founding fathers gave us a system where many unbiblical things could become freedom.

Slowly we have forgotten both scripture and history. Jesus told us the kingdom we fight for is not of this world thus we do not fight in worldly ways. Yet I see Christians and even churches that seem to be raring for civil war. We think we are ready for battle when actually our willingness to trust carnal weapons means we are already utterly defeated.

It would have been fascinating to study how the church cozied up to Constantine 300 years into the New Covenant. I wonder how many parallels we might find in their justifications with ours today. John the Revelator in describing the whore riding the beast was considered by Luther to be a prophecy of the church leaving Christ and riding Rome. However I wonder sometimes if the apocalypse contains within it prophetic predictions of a certain time or if it’s more so a template of how every age might come to an end with spiritual corruption arising through political seduction.

So what is the role of the Christian? I say vote your conscience but don’t buy into the illusion of total conquest. Don’t invest your own credibility and witness in a politician. You have no idea how they really live or what they really. And for goodness sake let’s stop trying to anoint politicians with holy oil. All we end up doing is slipping in it and falling on our jackasses.