Silly Season

This election year is the one that never ends.  Usually at this point in the cycle each party has a nominee and things settle to the back burner for a while.  They pick up a bit for the conventions in the summer then on to full speed post Labor Day.  But nothing of the kind this cycle.  Each week brings us another do or die contest, and with the prospect of a brokered convention, the talking heads just can't get enough.

And since actual voting only happens every so often, the newies have to fill in the gaps with analysis.  There are the speeches and endorsements and polls.  And polls.  And Polls.  And then the breakdowns of the polls.

Part of the breakdown inevitably is about how candidates are doing with the "Christian Vote".   This always confuses me.  I know a lot of Christians who have vastly different political views including the subject of to what extent their Christianity should effect their political activism.  So when they talk about Christians as a demographic, I'm not really sure what that means.

I will say this.  There is a major difference between principles and politics.  As Christians there should be a set of principles that guide our life.  First and foremost we need to show love in all that we do.  The Bible says that the fruit of the spirit is "Love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control".  It would seem that as Christians we should be selecting candidates and positions that emulate these same principles.  But as we don't all agree with what these principles look like, it all becomes that much harder.  

Politics is something different.  Politics is all about amassing and maintaining power.  We build alliances.  And maybe we don't completely agree with that other group but we will still work together.  We do that for a while, then their issues get mixed up with our issues.  After a while the issue becomes about winning or losing.  It becomes about us vs them.  We can't act on that right now because there is an election coming up and we might lose.  

When losing is worse than accomplishing nothing, We have left the world of principles and entered the world of politics.

And that's what was going on when Jesus came to town.  Jesus brought a message of hope and love to a land that was thick with ceremony and tradition.  Jesus represented a challenge to the authority of the day,  The religious leaders had power and position and Jesus represented an end to it all.  

So they killed him.

In politics, position and power is more important than anything else.  But as Christians we should have other priorities.

Watch this clip from Pastor Chris.

Jesus represented a threat to the leaders of His time.  It is no different today,  Christian principles should never take a back seat to winning or losing.