The Blind Beggar

As a result of the U.S. healthcare debate and vote, there has been a lot of Jesus follower jumping in on one side or the other of the issue. Although I disagree with Greg Boyd on a number of topics, I believe he captures the heart of what our view towards politics and political positions should be.

The political system will always try to lure us into believing that our particular way of doing politics is the ‘Christian’ way and tempt us into placing our trust in (what we think is) the wisdom and righteousness of our political positions rather than in the power of self-sacrificial love.

When Christians begin to think this way, it inevitably divides the church, since the ambiguity of politics is such that on most issues, good and decent people can and do disagree. If I naively pronounce that my views are the ‘Christian’ views, then your views must be judged to be ‘un-Christian’ if they disagree with me. This is arrogant and naive. It’s also unbiblical. Jesus called both Matthew, a tax collector, and Simon, a Zealot, to be his disciples. Tax collectors and zealots were at opposite sides of the political spectrum in the first century. Yet we don’t read a word in the Gospels about whose views Jesus thought were most correct, for the Kingdom he came to establish is “not of this world” (Jn. 18:36).

Even more importantly, when followers of Jesus get co-opted by the political system it distracts us from the Kingdom work we’re called to do. To the extent that we place our trust in exercising power over others, we stop trusting our mandate to exercise power under others through sacrificial service. Paul warns us not to get too involved in the affairs of the world, including its politics, but to always focus on pleasing our commander (2 Tim. 2:4)…. We who follow Jesus must always remember we belong to a radically different country with a radically different King who offers radically different solutions to the problems of life. We are missionaries in whatever earthly kingdom we happen to find ourselves in. We are citizens of heaven before we’re citizens of any earthly kingdom (Phil. 3:20).

My prayer is that as followers of Jesus our discussion around the healthcare issue or any political dialogue will be tempered by what Mr. Boyd shares.