We Should See Other Blogs

I recently read a screed by some American evangelical group harping on “Obamania”. Their central premise was that we’re expecting too much from this man; politics never saved anyone, and the system isn’t going to start now.

And you know what? They’re absolutely, 100% correct. Obama as a person and as a politician will end up disappointing us, compromising, letting us down, all the things that every politician has done and will do.

But this begs us answer the question: why is it wrong for the left to look up to Obama as a tranformative man, as a way to change things for the better, but it’s okay for the religious right to look at a certain policy or a certain civil servant or a certain elected leader and expect a proposition or a powerful evangelical lobbyist or a political party to bring the change they want to see? Why is that okay?

There are so many churches who have embedded themselves in the Republican Party, wrapped themselves in the flag, and sold their souls to the political process. I personally think they’ve forgotten their real mission, and forgotten what real change looks like. If we’re going to talk about how politics can’t save anyone, let’s not be pointing fingers at the left (who after all this time deserve to have a hero), but instead starting the sticky task of re-evaluating what the church is supposed to be doing.

Let’s start asking questions about how much allegiance one can have for a flag when ones allegiance is supposed to be to Christ; let’s start talking about why Christians favour this party over that party; let’s start at least asking whether or not we’ve forgotten how to be strangers in a strange land.