I have considered myself a Republican for a long time? I am becoming more and more uncomfortable with labels though. My aforementioned friend Jared Friesen recently sent me a couple of articles. I would normally push things like this to the back burner, but they were by two of my favorite authors, David James Duncan and Rick Bass. I finished the DJD article today. It was all about the right-wing's sequestering of the Christian faith. In other words, if you are a Christian in America, you have to be a republican who believes in whatever James Dobson (he doesn't use his name at all) and everyone else in Colorado Springs tells you to.When I was an RD at Calvin College we had many long talks about politics. It is where I first began to think that Christian didn't necessarily equal Republican. I met people there who loved Jesus and voted for other parties. They were great talks. We have continued these talks over e-mail.
For discussion starters, here are some of the questions that roll through my mind after reading a great article like this.
- If you're a Democrat what do you do with the abortion issue? Can you vote for a part that supports the killing of babies?
- Okay, so abortion is not the only "life" issue. What do Republicans do with "the least of these"? The poor, the alien, the outcast?
- If you're a Democrat, obviously the government is not going to solve social problems, right? I guess at least Dems are addressing them, even if it might seem misguided. Is error better than indifference?
- What about things like the environment, health care, affordable housing, education, war, peace, religious freedom?
- Its cool to be a Democrat. I want to stay pretty clear of things that are cool.
- Is there room for discourse in either party? People like Joe Lieberman are almost shot by the Dems and people with differing views are branded "unpatriotic" or "liberal" by the right.
5 comments:
There's no political party that speaks to all of my values and convictions, but I just can't get beyond the pro abortion/pro choice plank in the Dems platform. It's not popular to be a "black or white" thinker but I guess that's me when it comes to that issue. I'm kind of scared to push the "publish" button on my computer now. You asked for my input, so there it is. My view might be different than lots of others, but there it is.
Why is it that we Christians need to be so caught up in the law of the land or what government is doing? Government is a secular institution (even in the US of A) and its job is to look out for number one, in our case, the US of A. I don't think that is a terribly Christian idea. I mean if we are going to call on government to be Christian we can't stop with abortion. Jesus pardoned the criminal on the cross, a man who was being executed, and in doing so was subverting the Roman empire because the laws of that kingdom were of the world and not of his Father. It is incredibly freeing but also incredibly terrifying to think about the real Kingdom of God in my opinion. I think Christians should start thinking about that Kingdom a lot more than we think of the current empire (yes the US of A is an empire) we live in. This means doing something radically different and for different reasons than our government no matter who is in charge, red or blue, left or right. A Kingdom that is based upon Shalom (the complete sense of the word and not just simply peace) is very different than the nation we belong to (if you are American) at the moment. In many ways this will be uncomfortable, unsafe, dirty, and (this could be the worst one of all) uncool. I am not aiming these comments at the current presidential administration because we can't pretend we would live in any less of an empire if John Kerry or Al Gore, or even Hillary Clinton were leading us. They all have the same agenda - looking out for number one. We buy into this empire when we watch TV, surf the net, and go to the mall (unfortunately even when we go to church in many cases). The empire never wants us Christians to start thinking about a different way to live and it certainly doesn't want us to think about the word "enough." I realize this is all over the place and I am leaving myself open for all sorts of arguments but hey this is a response to a friend's blog and it would be so much better to have a good old fashioned face to face conversation. But we can't since we are all over the world.
1. You cannot solely look at killing "babies" and completely ignore the fact that the current administration continues to support the killing and "legal" torture of thousands of "evil" human beings.
2. I consider myself a moderate Republican but the Fascist-ish behavior exhibited by the New Aged GOP with re: to immigrants and blatant racism is too much to handle. We are regressing under the New Aged GOP and that's something that is unacceptable. This is 2007 and not 1957.
3. The topic of "solving" social issues is too difficult to talk about here. Sorry :(
4. The New Aged GOP is not interested in religious freedom. I honestly believe that it wasn't quite the issue in years past with the Republican party. The Democrats seem far more middle-of-the-road than the Republicans when it comes to freedom in general -- including religion.
5. :)
6. Fascism at its finest. Either you are with them or against them. Label them traitors and segregate them!
Good luck -- it's a difficult discussion and choice. You know how I feel about many issues: as long as you are happy with the choices you make then it's the best one -- just don't stomp all over me while you make that choice :)
Can't wait to read the articles...
T
What happened to a world in which people cared for each other rather than relying on their government to care for them?
Unfortunately this world is so far gone that the US government cannot reverse itself to the libertarian leadership it was intended to be without alienating the entire US population that has come to depend on "big government."
No empire has ever survived past getting too big for its own good, and I dont think that the US will prove to be the exception.
I liked Jared's comment about, "What is enough?"
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