A sassy excerpt from a recent post:
"There are some who are very comfortable mixing church with politics, but they tend to do so in a very narrow and partisan way. The Common Christian Party is not interested in the false dichotomy of Left v. Right, Democrats v. Republicans, and Liberals v. Conservatives. We believe the lens by which we interpret reality, including political matters, should be Jesus and His cross. As finite, infinitely flawed human beings our sight will never be perfect, but wedding yourself to worldly ideologies will ensure that you are half-blind, with a patch over at least one eye. We must engage in a politics that is particular to the way of the Christ.Check it out!
Perhaps (at least until we regain our Christ-centered political consciousness), we should at certain times refer to our selves as the "Body Politic of Christ", instead of simply the Body of Christ, and "the party," instead of the church. The notion of a body politic is very explicit in it's representation. Party is slightly less so, yet still provides much more clarity in terms of ecclesial politics, than the word church, currently does. When it is not used in a recreational context (e.g. birthday party) or in reference to a person or group, the term party has very strong political connotations and can be defined as a "political group organized to promote and support it's principles and candidates for public office," (dictionary.com). We believe in promoting, supporting, and more importantly living the principles of Jesus Christ, which have profound political implications, and this is why we designate ourselves as a party."
4 comments:
Daniel,
What do you think they mean by:
"We believe the lens by which we interpret reality, including political matters, should be Jesus and His cross."
This sounds like Christian code for something, but I don't know what it means in this context. I hear it used all the time.
Mike,
It doesn't seem that obscure to me. The claim here is just that as followers of the Messiah who rules by dying, our political lenses are forever 'tainted' by the power of self-sacrifice.
Or to put it differently, we can never look at the coercive nature of 'politics as usual' and military involvement without the critical lens of Christ's sacrifice.
Does that help?
-Daniel-
Thanks for the link, Daniel. Sounds great!
It does make more sense and I like your clarification very much.
I have a problem when people use that canned Christian language without clarifying. For example, I think Pat Robertson could use that same line and actually be talking about the religious right and the republican party. I feel certain that he would also suggest he sees reality "through Jesus and his cross".
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