I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone– for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men– the testimony given in its proper time (1 Timothy 2:1-6).

 In that spirit, we pray today that God would give our new President Elect the wisdom and godly focus he’ll need to lead our nation in a way that brings glory to God.  And, as Paul instructed Timothy, we pray for a government that would allow us to live peaceful, holy, lives, so that all men might be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.

As I prepare for the upcoming series on Death and the Life after that, I wanted to briefly meditate on one connection between ourselves and President-Elect Obama.  Now that the votes have been counted, President-Elect Obama finds himself in an interesting place, living in the tension between the “already” and the “not yet.”  On the one hand, he has been elected President.  But on the other hand, he has not yet taken office.  He has been chosen already, but he is not yet Commander-in-Chief. 

Those who have come to saving faith in Jesus Christ find themselves in a similar predicament.  On the one hand, we have been saved.  We have been marked with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession (Ephesians 1:13-14).  We have been given eternal life (1 John 5:11-13).  We are seated in the heavenly realms with Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:6).  Our place in heaven is secure, and we are citizens of heaven (Philippians 3:20).  But we’re not in heaven yet.  Like President-Elect Obama, we live in the already-not yet tension.

The big question is, how should we then live?  Should President-Elect Obama live as if he were not the president, since he is not technically the President until January 20th?  Or should he begin to live as if he is the president?  Should he wait until his inauguration to act Presidential, or should he begin now to learn all he can so that he might be best prepared to take office on that day?  I think the answer is clear – since he is going to be President, the wisest thing Mr. Obama can do is to prepare to be President until the day he takes residence in the White House.  The old Obama is passing away, so to speak, and the new one is coming.

We who have come to saving faith, whose citizenship is in heaven, who are heading towards an eternity with God, likewise should recognize that it makes no sense to live according to our old selves.  We are a new creation in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17).  Our future reality is as a resident of God’s kingdom.  That is where our treasure lies now, and therefore we would be wise to live in preparation for that place, not spending our money and time on what will not last, but giving ourselves wholeheartedly to that which will last forever.  As Paul put it in 1 Corinthians 15:58, “Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”  We are encouraged to “put off our old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires, [and] to be made new in the attitude of your minds” (Ephesians 4:22-23).  It makes no sense to waste your time living for things that will not last forever. 

We live in the already-not yet tension.  Our place in heaven is secure, but we are not yet residents there.  Therefore, do not live according to the ways that characterized your old way of life, and do not spend your time and money on what will not last.  Live instead as a citizen of heaven.

Shane Claiborne                           Jesus for President  

The second sign that this would be a different experience was parked outside Clark School:  a big veggie oil-powered school bus with “Jesus for President” painted on the side and back, their means of transportation around this land.  Having already read Claiborne’s first book, The Irresistible Revolution, I had come away impressed by how he and his community of Christ-followers in Philadelphia, called The Simple Way, had thought through every aspect of their lives, from money to clothes to health insurance to even how they fuel their cars (hence the veggie oil), in order to live as they believed Jesus would.  That book, as well as the Jesus for President book and tour, were the sort of experiences where the proper response was not “did I like it?” but “what am I going to do with this?”  And I freely admit being overwhelmed with trying to understand how a married father of two living in suburban Windsor could apply the things I had been reading and hearing in an attempt to live more like Jesus would.

The event at Clark School was a two-hour long mix of preaching and music, but definitely unlike your typical preaching and music event.  The music, by a duo who called themselves The Psalters,  was a hard-to-describe mix of Christ-focused songs influenced by slave spirituals, bedouin music, Orthodox chants, and punk rock.  The message, as tag-teamed by Claiborne and Haw, was essentially their take on the Biblical narrative, with the relationship of God and God’s people to the political environment in which they find themselves as the driving theme.  From the Israelites in Egypt to Jesus and the early church in the Roman Empire, they shared how God has called His people to be holy, to be different, to embody a different reality than the one being preached by those in power.  As the foreword to their book puts it, “Having power at its fingertips, the church often finds ‘guiding the course of history’ a more alluring goal than following the crucified Christ.  Too often the patriotic values of pride and strength triumph over the spiritual values of humility, gentleness, and sacrificial love.”  One of the last things Claiborne said on Sunday was, “we may live in the best Babylon in the world, but it is still Babylon, and we are called to come out from her and be separate from her.” 

The challenge for Claiborne, as well as for any Christian who wants to write or speak about politics, is that for many people there is only one question that matters:  Who are you voting for?  Are you a Republican or a Democrat?  Every time I hear the media try to categorize someone like Shane Claiborne, that always seems to be the question they are most interested in.  They love to do stories about how “younger evangelicals are no longer a lock to vote Republican.”  The implication heard by the media seems to be that by preaching the Biblical emphasis on the poor, the oppressed, and issues of social justice, Christians such as Claiborne are swinging voters to the Democratic party, even if they never come out and say it.  However, having listened to Claiborne and Haw for two hours, the clear message I heard was that “Jesus for President” is not about endorsing a candidate or a political party, but living your life with Jesus Christ as your Lord (or “president”) and putting your hope in the gospel instead of in politics or a nation (for a good example of what I’m talking about, check out this piece that aired Monday on CNN about Jesus for President.   

Not everyone will agree with Claiborne’s conclusions regarding non-violence or the relationship of the church to politics, nor the methods by which he gets there.  For example, I’m not convinced that the theme of empire is as prominent in the Bible as Claiborne and others seem to think, nor am I so convinced that Christians can not use political power redemptively.  But whether or not you agree with Claiborne, he is one of those Christian authors whose views and way of life deserve to be interacted with.  While his views on non-violence, the poor, and the call to define ourselves more by Christ than by our country are not new, they are well-articulated and creatively communicated, and may even be considered a prophetic voice in today’s church. 

“But the Jews were jealous; so they rounded up some bad characters from the marketplace, formed a mob and started a riot in the city. They rushed to Jason’s house in search of Paul and Silas in order to bring them out to the crowd. But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some other brothers before the city officials, shouting: “These men who have caused trouble all over the world have now come here, and Jason has welcomed them into his house. They are all defying Caesar’s decrees, saying that there is another king, one called Jesus.” (Acts 17:5-7)

                                  
            Bart Ehrman                                                              N.T. Wright

This debate is worth reading because Ehrman is a former evangelical Christian turned agnostic, educated at Moody, Wheaton, and Princeton Seminary, and is therefore much more Biblically-literate than many others atheists/agnostics who are out there.  Wright, on the other hand, is a Christian and first-rate theologian.  They have had three opportunities each to argue their case so far, and will hopefully add more soon.  I think the biggest revelation for me has been that Ehrman is taking his question “Why do we suffer?” to the Bible and finding many different (and sometimes contradictory) answers that do not satisfy him, while Wright believes that the Bible does not try to answer that question, but instead is more concerned with the question “What is God doing about evil?”  Ehrman goes to books like Job, Amos, Ecclesiastes, Revelation, etc. and teases out what he hears as explanations for why people suffer (as punishment for sin, as a test from Satan, etc.).  Wright does not see that as an appropriate use of the Bible (coming to it with the grid of our own questions), and instead centers on the death and resurrection of Christ as the key to understanding evil and how God is dealing with it.  The debate hasn’t been a slam-dunk for either party, in my opinion, but does reveal how one side (Ehrman) is forced to judge a Creator God by human standards of and perspectives on morality, while the other (Wright) ultimately can offer no satisfactory reason as to WHY we suffer, but can point instead to the truth of what God is doing about suffering.

The second thing I would recommend to you is a two-minute excerpt from Opfer der Vergangenheit (Victims of the Past) , a Nazi propaganda film that you can see on YouTube (thanks to John Umland for the link).  I don’t usually recommend Nazi films, of course… but it fits very well with my recent sermon on reconciling science and faith.  One of my main points was that if we are simply the product of a godless process of natural selection, where the strong and adaptable survive and the weak and less adaptable die, why are we so convinced about human rights and so opposed to injustice?  When the strong eat the weak in nature we call it natural selection; when it happens among humans we call it genocide and protest.  If we are simply the product of a godless natural selection, I’m not sure there is good reason to be offended by the Nazis.

Anyways, this disturbing Nazi propaganda film appeals to natural selection to encourage the German people to exterminate those “inferior life-forms” (specifically the mentally ill) so that they would not weigh down the progress of humanity.  It begins with these chilling words: “All that is non-viable in nature invariably perishes… we humans have transgressed the laws of natural selection in the last decades.  Not only have we supported inferior life-forms, we have encouraged their propagation.”  The excerpt, along with the truth of what happened in Nazi Germany, is a brutal testimony to what we would expect if there is no God, and is a powerful argument that human beings are more than just a product of a godless natural selection.

Lastly, there is an interesting discussion that happened last week on Public Radio’s Speaking of Faith program, hosted by Krista Tippett, on how Christians should live out their faith with regards to politics and political issues such as the war, poverty, abortion, and gay marriage (thanks to Rex Fowler of Hartford City Mission  for the link).  The participants were Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship and author of God and Government, Greg Boyd, Senior Pastor of Woodland Hills Church in Minnesota and author of The Myth of a Christian Nation, and Shane Claiborne, founder of The Simple Way and co-author of Jesus for President.  These three men are of different generations and have some interesting things to say about the relationship of the Christian to politics, which is certainly a very timely topic.  You can watch the discussion, listen to it, or read the transcript by clicking on the above link.

If you have any comments on those links, I’d love to hear what you have to say!

My initial reaction, to be honest, was to laugh.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I certainly wasn’t laughing at the fact that Eliot Spitzer, Governor of New York, got caught soliciting a prostitute, or at the tragic effect this will have on his family and the state of New York.  I was laughing at the way the Courant put it:  “Experts Struggle to Understand Spitzer’s Alleged Romp with Call Girl.”  I guess that as a follower of Jesus and a believer in the God of the Bible, I have no struggle understanding how a man could seek out the services of a “call girl.”  More than that, I know that it is only by the grace of God that it is not MY picture on the front page instead of that of Governor Spitzer.  No – my reaction of laughter was not at Spitzer’s tragic mistake, but at the thought of “experts” trying to understand how anyone could desire to have sex with a call girl.

It’s called sin, ladies and gentlemen.  It’s a wrecked relationship with God, others, and the created order that causes us to do some really stupid, destructive things.  And try as some might to relegate that word to another, less enlightened era, sin has a way of rearing its ugly head again and again and causing many a person to become front page news.

The Apostle Paul was one of the leading figures in the early church, and was responsible for writing at least twelve of the books of the New Testament.  In his letter to the church in Rome, in Romans chapter 7, he writes words that surely Governor Spitzer would shout “Amen” to (regardless of his religion):

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.  I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do… I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do– this I keep on doing…  So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 

At Governor Spitzer’s press conference, he said “I have acted in a way that violates my… or any… sense of right and wrong,” and “I failed to live up to the standard I expect from myself.”  To which I say, “Welcome to the club.”  Paul knew it to be true, and I know it as well – I know what is right and what is wrong, but even though I have the desire to do what is good, I cannot carry it out (Romans 7:18).  Paul and the Governor both testify to the reality that there is something fundamentally wrong with us, something that entices us to act in ways that we know will eventually destroy us, our relationship with God, and our relationships with the ones we love.

The core message of the Christian gospel is that we are sinners saved by grace.  What that means is that I know in my very essence, I am a contradiction:  a person made in the image of God, with the capacity for incredible acts of goodness, creativity, and love, but also a person who is fallen, full of sin, capable of unspeakable wickedness and evil.  I am under no pretenses as to what I am capable of.  I know that, if I am honest, I am capable of what Governor Spitzer did, and much worse.  I have the capacity for murder, for rape, for theft, for a self-centeredness that would consume everything and everyone in my path. 

Honestly, I think The Hartford Courant should have read this way:  “Experts Struggle to Understand Why More People Don’t Have Romps with Call Girls.”  Really, with the way we are in our heart, it’s a wonder there aren’t more pastors, politicians, and the like falling into “moral failure.”  I would bet that the reasons there aren’t more moral failures are more likely fear-based – fear of getting caught, fear of getting a disease, or fear of damaging one’s reputation – than they are out of a desire for purity.

We are sinners, but the transforming beauty of the gospel is that we are sinners saved by grace.  We are not saved because of our goodness or our morality, but because Jesus came as a Savior – God coming to us – to do for us what we could not do for ourselves.  He came to live the life we should have lived, and to die the death we should have died, so that all who repent and turn from their sin to Jesus will be saved from the consequences of sin and set free from slavery to sin.  This truth is at the same time incredibly humbling and uplifting.  On the one hand, I know I am so full of sin, so thoroughly incapable of saving myself, that I have no hope apart from Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection paying the penalty for my sin and freeing me from bondage to it.  On the other hand, I know that I am loved so deeply that Jesus did it willingly, went through the agony of the cross to bring me forgiveness and new life.  I am no better than anyone else, yet I am loved so deeply, down to the root of my most hidden sin, that my very identity and motivation for living has been radically transformed. 

The gospel means that I can read about Eliot Spitzer with complete humility, knowing that not only am I just like him, but I am capable of much worse than what he did.  I know that I have no cause for laughing condescendingly at his mistakes, because I know that often it is only fear that holds me back from doing the very same thing, not my morality or a desire for purity.  It also means that I can read his story with incredible hope, knowing that this fall does not have to be the last word for him or his family.  As Paul put it at the end of that section in Romans 7:  “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God– through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24-25)  I thank God for how He daily rescues me, and pray that He might do the same for Eliot Spitzer and his family.

However, the organization has seen a decline in its impact since the 2000 election of George Bush, a decline which they hoped to turn around with the election of a Florida megachurch pastor named Joel Hunter as the new president.  Hunter has become a national church leader in the issue of global warming by forming the Evangelical Climate Initiative, which acknowledges the reality and dangers of global warming and challenges Christians to do something about it as part of our mandate to be stewards of God’s creation.  And many leading Christians have responded to the ECI, including Rick Warren of The Purpose Driven Life fame, as well as the presidents of 39 evangelical Christian colleges (including Wheaton College).  Others, however, have argued against the ECI, claiming that global warming is a big scam and a waste of time, including Jim Dobson of Focus on the Family, Chuck Colson of Prison Fellowship Ministries, and Jerry Falwell of Liberty University.

So it was interesting to see an article in The Hartford Courant last week proclaiming that Joel Hunter had decided to step down from his upcoming appointment as President of the Christian Coalition.  His explanation was that he realized he would be unable to broaden the organization’s agenda beyond opposing gay marriage and abortion.  Apparently, he had hoped to include issues such as easing poverty and saving the environment, but was told that although those issues were fine, they weren’t the issues Coalition members were concerned about.

That’s right – apparently fighting poverty is no longer an important issue for Christians.

How in God’s good name did abortion and gay marriage become the defining issues for Christians in America???  And after those two issues, it seems that more focus is given to issues like prayer in schools and morality on television and in Hollywood than it is to causes that are ABSOLUTELY CENTRAL to the Bible and the teachings of Jesus – issues like poverty, injustice, and oppression (read the oft-overlooked prophetical books some time if you disagree).

Certainly the environmental issue is one of those that believing Christians differ on.  The theology of some Christians is that God has called us to be stewards of His good creation, which He will ultimately redeem at the end of time, when the barrier between heaven and earth is destroyed and God descends to live for us forever in the new heavens and new earth (read Revelation 21-22 if this is a new concept to you).  Thus, creation care is part of bringing God’s kingdom to earth.  Others, however, believe that God will rapture Christians out of the earth and ultimately destroy much of what remains on the earth in his wrath before re-creating the new heavens and the new earth (a literal reading of Revelation popularized in the Left Behind series).  Which of these two theologies you agree with will have a huge say on whether or not you believe saving the environment is worth dedicating time to.

But back to the relative importance of poverty, injustice, and oppression versus abortion and gay marriage.  First of all, there should be no need to make this into an either-or debate.  Certainly there is room for Christians to lovingly and truthfully engage with all of the above issues.  But if I had to set a priority as a political advocacy group based on what the Bible teaches, I would have a hard time keeping fighting poverty and injustice in the world off the top of the list.  Am I to believe that although we live in a world where millions are dying from AIDS in Africa, where there are genocides, wars, injustices done in all countries, millions more living below the poverty line, that the issue of primary importance for the church is making sure Adam and Steve don’t tie the knot???

If you have noticed any of the current books, articles, and blogs dealing with the intersection of Christian faith and politics, you will notice a heavy dissatisfaction with the impact organizations such as the Christian Coalition have had on how Christianity is seen and issues Christians are being encouraged to devote their time to.  From Jim Wallis’ God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get it to Joel Hunter’s Right Wing, Wrong Bird: Why the Tactics of the Religious Right Won’t Fly With Most Conservative Christians, a theme I see repeated over and over is that God is not a Republican (as the Christian Coalition seems to have convinced many American Christians) nor is He a Democrat.  Candidates should not be evaluated solely on their stance on abortion and gay marriage, but on all faith issues, including poverty, injustice, and even war.  Certainly killing people, whether they are unborn babies, death row criminals, or people in a foreign land, is an issue worth engaging as a believer.  And Christians should not be misled into thinking that God’s biggest agendas in this world are outlawing abortion and gay marriage.

One of the most hopeful things I see as I look to the future of the church in America is the number of evangelical churches recognizing that feeding the poor, clothing the naked, caring for the sick, and fighting oppression and injustice are an integral part of what it means to be a Christian.  They have realized that engagement with these issues does not make one a “liberal,” but rather a follower of Jesus who recognizes that bringing the kingdom of God to earth means doing all of the aforementioned things.  My deepest prayer is that NewLife, and the Christian church in general, would be known not for what we are against, but for what we stand for – good news, the gospel of Jesus, freedom and justice for the oppressed, hope for the poor, healing for the sick, and eternal life for all who are willing to trust in Jesus Christ.
 
In closing, take time once again to listen to the revolutionary words of Jesus, who identified himself with the poor and oppressed so that he could teach us that every act of kindness is truly worship unto him:

Matthew 25:31-46 – “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory.  All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.  He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.  ”Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.  For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,  I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’  “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?  When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?  When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’  ”The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’  “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.  For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,  I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’  “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’  “He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’  “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”