First, a request. I did not know Pastor John Powell. He died tragically over the weekend. Pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in the Houston area, John stopped to help a stranded motorist on Saturday night and was killed by an 18 wheeler. He leaves behind his wife, four children, and a congregation in mourning.
Erick, There is no political Jesus. There is no God of free trade or a God of nationalism or a God of EU-socialist-democracy. Many political concepts are both independent of God and yet connected to him. For example, it is not casting aside Father-God for Daddy-Political to believe strongly in the need to support certain political policies and to oppose others just as it is not daddy-Modern-Medicine to believe that Father-God is not by his nature anti-Modern-Medicine. Although Father-God insists on his supremacy (Exodus 20:3). he created a world where he coexists with very many other activities. For example, people may choose to focus their time and efforts on sports, their work, their vacations, their food, their cell phone, or their pleasures in ways that are both pro-God and anti-God. Focusing one’s time and efforts on political issues is conceptually no different. The game one chooses to play isn’t as important as the how and why one chooses to play that game.
Wow. There is so much here. I'm going to be thinking about all of your points, all of the nuance, for a long time, writing comments in my head that will never get passed on.
A few things though. Don't people often treat God, as they might their own fathers, as an ATM? Put in this behavior or these many prayers, and out comes the response or result we want. But like a father, God withholds because it's to our benefit. Or because what we're asking for doesn't really matter in the long run.
Something you wrote -- don't know what -- started me thinking about the whole slippery slope concept. Maybe it's responsible for a lot of what's wrong now. For both parties. The idea that you question this particular belief and somehow that sends you down the slope into unbelief in what those parties stand for. Hence cancel culture. Hence people freaking out because we say, "You know, the other side has a point on this." The idea that because George Will won't vote for the President that he's magically become a Democrat. (Ha. But I bet he gained a lot of left-wing followers who will be very upset at some point in the future.)
Ultimately, there is only God to guide us. Because we mess it up.
Erick, There is no political Jesus. There is no God of free trade or a God of nationalism or a God of EU-socialist-democracy. Many political concepts are both independent of God and yet connected to him. For example, it is not casting aside Father-God for Daddy-Political to believe strongly in the need to support certain political policies and to oppose others just as it is not daddy-Modern-Medicine to believe that Father-God is not by his nature anti-Modern-Medicine. Although Father-God insists on his supremacy (Exodus 20:3). he created a world where he coexists with very many other activities. For example, people may choose to focus their time and efforts on sports, their work, their vacations, their food, their cell phone, or their pleasures in ways that are both pro-God and anti-God. Focusing one’s time and efforts on political issues is conceptually no different. The game one chooses to play isn’t as important as the how and why one chooses to play that game.
Wow. There is so much here. I'm going to be thinking about all of your points, all of the nuance, for a long time, writing comments in my head that will never get passed on.
A few things though. Don't people often treat God, as they might their own fathers, as an ATM? Put in this behavior or these many prayers, and out comes the response or result we want. But like a father, God withholds because it's to our benefit. Or because what we're asking for doesn't really matter in the long run.
Something you wrote -- don't know what -- started me thinking about the whole slippery slope concept. Maybe it's responsible for a lot of what's wrong now. For both parties. The idea that you question this particular belief and somehow that sends you down the slope into unbelief in what those parties stand for. Hence cancel culture. Hence people freaking out because we say, "You know, the other side has a point on this." The idea that because George Will won't vote for the President that he's magically become a Democrat. (Ha. But I bet he gained a lot of left-wing followers who will be very upset at some point in the future.)
Ultimately, there is only God to guide us. Because we mess it up.
Look forward to meeting Pastor Powell one day. Thanks for briefly sharing his story.