Love in Politics


I’ll save you some time judging me: I’m a Christian liberal. 

What's more, I believe with all my heart that church and state, religion and government, should be separated by a strong wall.

That’s right. It’s something that’s been germinating for years, and when I hit my forties, blossomed and fruited. When I researched and wrote my books, it ripened. I make no excuse for this liberalism because I believe that Jesus was a liberal.

“What??” you may gasp. “Jesus didn’t endorse a political party.”

Correct-a-mundo. His kingdom is not of this world. But he did command us (who are in this world) to love one another, and out of that godly love to help the helpless, feed the hungry, be light in the world, and to love mercy, justice, and humility.

As you’ll see in these articles, written from about 2004 to the present, I believe in the liberality of God, who gave us a choice: be liberal and enjoy his kingdom, or be stingy, rapacious, and inhospitable like the citizens of Sodom, and be destroyed.

I’m not telling you to follow my political ideology (which is Independent, and not recognized as a party). You’re free to make your own choices. But I’m not ashamed to be called a liberal if that means emulating Jesus, and obeying his commands.

“…We carry the offering, which we administer in order to honor the Lord himself and to show our eagerness to help. We want to avoid any criticism of the way we administer this liberal gift. For we are taking pains to do what is right, not only in the eyes of the Lord but also in the eyes of man.2 Cor. 8:19-21

And when you release them [slaves, indentured servants, employees], do not send them away empty-handed. Supply them liberally from your flock, your threshing floor and your winepress. Give to them as the Lord your God has blessed you. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you. That is why I give you this command today.Deut. 15:13-15

“Good will come to those who are generous and lend freely, who conduct their affairs with justice.” Ps. 110:5

I hope you’ll be blessed by these articles, and that you’ll be moved to generosity and liberality with the citizens of this world, regardless of whether they “deserve” your gifts. We give as unto the Lord.

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Click the color text (hyperlinks) to zoom to the articles.

He's done it again. The man who is known for his career as a world-famous neurosurgeon and advocate for education has said that electing a terrible person to office means laying aside your Christian principles for a time. It hasn't even been six months since he said that being nice gets you nowhere.

Following a week of controversy surrounding Donald Trump's admission of grabbing women's genitals, and a steady stream of women coming forward to say they'd been groped or assaulted or leered at while in a changing room, Dr. Ben Carson, who has defended...
Laid Bare: Bathroom-bedroom police are after your money     
When the American Family Association boycott of Target began in May 2016, it was not about who uses which restrooms (because Target has locking restrooms for baby changing and disability access), it was about *FUNDRAISING* for the AFA. It's not about transgender people threatening your vulnerable daughters in a public restroom, or exposing their genitalia to impressionable children, somehow twisting children to an inevitable fate of gender reassignment.

The kingdom of God is within you.
My friends are from all over the world. And the best friends of all don’t even belong to this world! We are aliens. We’re not green and tentacled, but we don’t fit in with most other earthlings. We belong to the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven is not a pie-in-the-sky futuristic kingdom that we’ll see shortly after Jesus’ Second Coming. It’s now, and it’s been here since we accepted salvation or “got saved.”  

Christians should not support a candidate like this.

With all the poo being flung in the name of Christianity, from Christians right and Christians left, from atheists at Christians, and Christians at nonChristians, let's just stop and contemplate this lovely bit of wisdom from the New Testament.

Some Christians, perhaps many Christians, will be offended at this meme of Jesus meeting a man who is begging for healing. "Sacrilege!" they'll huff, and turn away in disgust, just like the Pharisaical lawyer and the Levite priest turned away from the beat-up, nearly dead traveler on the Jericho road.

Surely you've read the Parable of the Rich Fool numerous times, and you probably learned, as I did, that we should never say, "I worked for this or gained this all by myself," and leave God, the Provider, out of the statement. We should always give thanks that God has blessed in his provision. But you may have missed a very important concept that appears twice in Jesus' words.

Nothing changes in 2,000 years. As the United Kingdom is in their few weeks of campaign season, and America is in it for 18 months, I looked up a delightful page called Random Political Rhetoric Generator. On the third push of the button, the generator supplied this: "My opponent is conspiring with sex workers, socialists and smelly hippies."

On a vacation in September 2006, I lived in the past, visiting cathedrals, parish churches, national parks, archaeology sites, castles, and farmhouses in England, Wales, and Paris. This was my third pilgrimage to where my ancestors lived, worked, and worshiped. 


Baptist persecution and religious liberty in early-colonial America


Mary Barrett Dyer, 1611-1660, deliberately gave her life for "liberty of conscience," which is the freedom to practice and believe as your conscience dictates without government interference. The attempted blending of church-state functions continues in state legislatures across America even today.

On June 1, 1660, our constitutional right to religious liberty began with the execution of Mary Dyer in Boston. The result of her civil disobedience was a royal charter of liberties granted to Rhode Island, which was a model for the United States Constitution’s Bill of Rights. There were many factors along the way, of course …

In 1636, the first rumblings of religious schism were vibrating in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Anne Hutchinson was holding women’s religious meetings in her home that eventually included some men, including the young governor of the colony, Sir Henry Vane. They discussed the sermons on the “Covenant of Grace” …

The Calvinist Puritans of colonial America believed that one could never know if God would award salvation and eternal life.

 

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