A Couple Things About Politics

This is one thing I do not care to discuss publicly simply because I tire of politics. It's not that I do not enjoy politics, it's just overdone. Still, as someone who researches the intersection of American Christianity and politics in the Revolutionary period and the 20th Century, I do have some observations to offer.

#1 Candidates need to stop quoting Scripture in their speeches. It comes across as silly, patronizing, forced and out of context.

#2 Christians should be involved in the political process, but Christian ministers/leaders should stay away from marrying themselves to a particular party. Christian ministers do their best when we speak prophetically from Scripture. The most familiar (to me) example I can offer is the New Divinity Movement between 1776-1800, who spoke vehemently against slavery, even to Second Continental Congress (Samuel Hopkins) without pledging allegiance to party. That does not mean we, as ministers, do not vote, but our first allegiance is to a King and the Kingdom.

#3 Jesus did not die fighting social injustice. He fought sin and death, fulfilled the Law of God and secured redemption for his people. He would not be a Democrat. He would not be a Republican. His kingdom is not of any cultural system of which we can conceive.