Political Fasting

"60 Minutes" this past Sunday night featured an interview with David Kuo, described as a politically-conservative Christian and Federal-government employee for the faith-based initiative office.  He claims that politically-conservative Christians are being manipulated by the Republican party so he suggests a "fast" from politics to be able to evaluate the relationship of Christianity and politics.  He said that Christians have been sold a bill of goods that Jesus came "primarily" with a political message.  Who claims that?  What Christians are interested in doing is linking up their values and their politics.  Isn't that what everyone should do?  How can value-less, unprincipled voting be a virtue?

Certainly Christians need to be very wary of the allure of political power for power's sake.  Perhaps individual Christians might evaluate whether this suggestion is appropriate for them.  However, it would be very unwise Christians en masse "fast" from politics because it would be abandoning our responsibilities as citizens and Christians.  Other citizens who have their own ideas of what our country should be like aren't going to "fast," and Christians walking out of the public square would leave it without our input and balance to issues being decided.  Christians have an interest in the kind of country we live in and the activities of the government we live with because it has immediate impact on the ability we have to be salt and light in our country.  "Fasting" even for a time, as a group, could lead to policy changes that are difficult or even impossible to change.

It seemed to me that Kuo directed his comments at the "religious right."  Is the religious left immune to the dangers he warns of?  Kuo's concern seems genuine, but he doesn't seem to recognize that a mass exodus from the political debate effectively concedes the debate.

To support his point that politically-active Christians have mutilated their Biblical values, he took Lesley Stahl to a convention and pointed out to her that, while there were Christian groups there advocating issues like pro-life, ESCR, prison issues, and marriage, there was no group advocating government policy for helping the poor.  The problem with this is that many Christians believe that helping the poor is the obligation of the church and individual Christians, not government.  The absence of this kind of group isn't evidence of the absence of that value.  To prove that he'd have to go to churches and congregations and find the absence of ministries for the poor, the absence of sermons about helping the poor.  I've no doubt there are congregations that don't value this biblical responsibility, but there are many more that do and are very active in carrying out this duty.

Kuo discussed the issues raised by his book with Chuck Colson this morning on the Laura Ingraham show.  Colson pointed out that the earliest letters recovered are letters from Christian leaders to the Roman emperor appealing for justice, so influencing the culture and politics for justice sake has been a model of the church from the beginning.  Kuo is concerned that in an effort to stay politically-connected, evangelical leaders will sacrifice their values.  There is that danger and that would abandon the purpose of being politically engaged.  But Colson also pointed out that the church must be involved in issues of justice, which are often time by nature political.  And to leave the political realm is to abandon these vital issues of responsibility that the church should be known by.

Christians should not "fast" from politics because it is an abandonment of our duties as Christians to be "salt and light" and it's shirking our duties as citizens to participate in the important discussions and decisions taking place in our country.

Comments

[Dave Pierre]

Great comments, Melinda. I also heard the Kuo-Colson exhange on Ingraham this morning. Colson was very sharp and informative.

[Joel Bain]

Agreed, good comments. David Kuo seems to forget that the Right (whether Christian or not) are not socialists, rather, as in the case of the Christian right, they believe it is their own responsibility as a church to provide for the poor (although there are likely many who just don't care about the poor, but this is a poor generalization about all of the Christian right). However, the non-Christian right, commonly adopt to the ideal of Noblesse oblige.

I'm surprised at Kuo's comments on this matter.

[John K. Larson Jr.]

Thanks Melinda for reminding us that it is our involvement/engagement in the culture that will effect the changes that are needed. Afterall, hasn't most of our societal problems been a result of the church's history of circling the wagons rather than getting out of into world?

[alan aronson]

"It seemed to me that Kuo directed his comments at the 'religious right.' Is the religious left immune to the dangers he warns of?"

This is a good point and is quite correct. It happens that these things cycle and the period on the religious left that best corresponds to the present state of the religious right would be the 1930s and 40s when many on the religious left embraced the Stalinist Soviet Union and CPUSA because of the poverty and racial injustice in much of the United states.

Many well meaning folks closed their eyes to the truth and chose to become fellow travelers for a higher good. They chose to believe that the confessions in open court that they heard during the show trials were evidence of guilt so perhaps it was justified that Comerade Stalin was a little harsh. Of course, we know now that those "confessions" were obtained by torture, using the very same methods that were signed into law today here in the United States.

The religious left needed a fast from politics back then and the religious right nees one now.

[Puzzled]

As has been noted elsewhere, this call for a pietistic withdrawl from the civil process comes a mere three weeks before a general election.

I would guess it has the same motivation as Moyer's "Is God Green" which he openly acknowledged was an attempt to divide the vote of the Culture of Life, so that Democrats would take over Congress.

[alan aronson]

Puzzled, this is why the Democrats need to take over the Congress: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/opinion/17stein.html?ex=1318737600&en=c5709a9fc1e31b3f&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

[Lee Lauridsen]

If political activity is required for Christians to be salt & light (and I agree that in some cases it is), may I respectfully suggest that we Christians engage in policits in a more discerning, selective, non-partisan, and Christ-exalting way? We must engage culture on issues like abortion, where Scripture is clear. But when "Christian" political groups and "Christian" voting guides purport to tell the whole world that the entire secular agenda of the Republican party -- down to the most arcane tax or fiscal policy -- is synonomous with Christianity, then I suggest we're not being salt and light. Rather, we're confusing the gospel.

I frankly think we that are so accustomed to thinking that "good Christians" most vote Republican, we don't even consider whether that some Republican policies and actions may be -- dare I say it -- immoral and ungodly. (If you can't even think of any examples, you've not been paying attention and are proving my point.) I wonder, for example, if more Christians would be speaking out against torture if a Democratic President claimed the sole right to define it, to engage in it secretly, etc.

When I have to try to convince my non-believing parents that they don't have to convert to the Republican Party before they can consider attending church or considering the gospel message, something is dramatically wrong. The fact that so many Christians immediately condemn Kuo, without being able to deny his recitation of what he saw while in the Bush White House, should be ringing alarm bells in our minds about the extent to which we're confused about who our "team" really is (hint: it's not a secular political party) and the extent to which we're more concerned about advancing the Republican Party than we are the truth of the gospel and the glory of Christ.

[Ramsey Wilson]

Lee wrote:

"when 'Christian' political groups and 'Christian' voting guides purport to tell the whole world that the entire secular agenda of the Republican party -- down to the most arcane tax or fiscal policy -- is synonomous with Christianity, then I suggest we're not being salt and light."

I agree and am reminded of what Os Guinness, in his book The Call, had to say about the error of "particularlism."

"[W]here God has not spoken definitively, we can legitimately say, 'This practice (political decision, lifestyle, or whatever) is not Christian' – if it contradicts the teaching of the Bible. But we cannot legitimately go on to say, 'This practice alone is Christian.' . . . This point means that there is no one Christian form of politics any more than there is one Christian form of poetry, raising a family, running an economy, or planning a retirement. Many ways are definitely not Christian, but no one way alone is."