Politics and the Bible

First off, a big fan of Jim Wallis’ God’s Politics: How the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It. But recently I had a conversation with a friend who claimed another friend was a staunch Republican and needed to find a follower of Christ who is a Democrat. I said, “I am.” His eyebrows shot up in amazement. Where I tend to congregate (not always in church, by the way) with other believers, those circles tend to be Republican. (And lately, the Republican party’s lack of an honor code or consistent values—law and order, sancrosanct family units, integrity, truth—have driven me further away.) But there’s hypocrisy on both sides so why do I tend to vote for Democratic candidates?

If there’s an issue on which Republicans and Democrats are most divided, it’s the immigration issue. I realize that’s broad, but a lot of political analysts can pretty much predict how you’re going to vote based on your stance on immigration. From a business perspective, I’m in favor. Increased population means a growing economy, a larger labor pool so that our businesses aren’t hindered by a shortage in the workforce. [Note: the economic growth of the US was aided by the Boomer generation entering the workforce and the decimation of the rest of the industrial world from WWII. By 1990, the Boomers had entered the workforce, followed by much smaller generations, and the rest of the first/second world nations had reindustrialized. Hence, we started to experience lower GDP growth; still a growing economy but at a slower rate.] Immigration is needed to fill all the job vacancy postings. In many, if not most of the US, we have more job openings than we have unemployed.

Second, the two commandments that Christ emphasized are based on love. Love is the directive He enjoins us with through most of the scriptures. I find the Democratic policy on immigration to be more consistent with ‘love your neighbor’ than the Republican policy. Christ’s parable of the Good Samaritan—a disliked foreigner who ‘immigrated’ to Jerusalem—was told when He was asked, “Who is my neighbor?” The answer is, “All in your midst” and we are called to be the good neighbor to all we meet whether they are in our group or not, we like them or not, we are in our own ‘neighborhood’ or not. Leviticus 19 follow up the ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ command with a command to ‘love the foreigners among you as yourself’. Why? Because ‘we’ were immigrants once and He is our LORD God—our ever-present Commander of Commanders, King of Kings...

On other issues, the worldview that divides the two parties are whether the societal problems are caused by individuals only (Republicans) or systems/governmental-corporate structures (Democrats). Therefore, Republicans think we need to ‘fix’ individuals and government is not the solution to any problem—generally the market is.  Democrats recognize the sinfulness of individuals and suggest that we ‘fix’ the systems, often through government regulation. Was the financial crisis caused by rogue people (Republicans) or loopholes that allowed investment banks and mortgage companies that allowed people to over-invest in real estate and overheat the housing market (Democrats)?

I believe all economic systems and polities would work if people were angels. Instead, we succumb to our devilish sides for economic and influential (aka power) gains and thus, no system or polity is perfect. Even though we “can’t legislate morality,” we need systems—government—to provide order as God seems to imply through scripture, even if the government is a corrupt Babylon or Assyria or Rome. When His people strayed, He ‘created’ a leader/prophet/judge to guide them.

How to Pray for the President...

...and any other politician you might disagree with, and competitors, and those neighbors you feel wronged by:

You may have heard that this past Sunday was declared Pray for the President Day, by Franklin Graham who has endorsed perhaps the most corrupt, misogynistic, racist, narcissistic, xenophobic President of the United States we’ve ever had. There are exhortations in scripture for us to pray for people in authority. President Trump, apparently to take advantage of this declaration, stopped in at a mega-church just outside of Washington DC, following a morning of recreation. He didn’t participate in this church’s services or any church’s services. He went up on stage to ask for the prayer.

In conversations, I find that praying for the President falls into a few categories:

1) bless the President to be successful on policies I agree with;
2) neutrally bless the President with divine wisdom to govern well;
3) change the President’s heart and mind;
4) perhaps all of the above.

We have a few examples of suggestions for how we should pray for those who oppose us or we simply disagree: Christ on the cross; disciples in the Samaritan village. There may be others we could include, but let’s start with these.

Christ asked that God forgive those who crucified Him. “They don’t know what they’re doing.” Just forgiveness for they were blind and deaf to the coming of His kingdom. Christ was asking that God forgive those who were hurting, persecuting Him. He was not asking for forgiveness for the persecution of others.

In an earlier incident, Christ and His disciples were traveling to Jerusalem passing through Samaria. A village didn’t show hospitality to them and the disciples wanted to call down heavenly fire on the village. Christ rebuked them. There was no call to pray for the Samaritans to change in heart or mind.

Christ also exhorts us to pray for and bless our enemies. So we might be left with option 2, as Paul seems to suggest in his epistles.

In my opinion, it was unacceptable to pray for the President on the stage because it implies an endorsement of his values, policies and behaviors. I don’t know if it happened in this case but I would have asked him, “Mr. President, what would you like prayer for?” This is much like the situation with Christ and the blind man by the side of the road; Christ asked him to state his request even though it was obvious the man was blind. Perhaps it’s important for God to know if we want to change, change our circumstances, change our hearts and minds so we might ‘do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with our God.’ If the President expresses a desire to decide and act in a way that intends to bring glory and honor to God, I could pray for that. If he just wanted to be blessed so that he would be successful...”Mr. President, I will pray for you but not publicly nor that your success is the expectation that God will grant. May God grant you the courage to do the right thing so that all people living in the United States could live in peace, in justice, in love and in joy.”

Spoiler Alert!?

Sometimes knowing the end of the story is helpful. And then there are times when other people hate it that you reveal the end of the story. I think the book of Job almost needs to be read backwards.

I presume you know the basics of the story: Job suffers, his friends challenge him with regard to what caused God to punish him, God shows up and responds to Job’s request for a hearing, God restores Job’s fortunes including a new family.

Knowing the end of the story is important, I believe, to how you should read the beginning and middle of the story.

After the LORD had finished speaking to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “I am angry with you and your two friends, for you have not spoken accurately about me, as my servant Job has. (42.7)

This can change how you read chapters 38-41 when God speaks to Job out of a whirlwind. It’s also to understand Job’s humble responses to God in these chapters. Especially when Job knows he will find justice from God—“Would He use His great power to argue with me? No, He would give me a fair hearing” (23.6)—God’s words at the end are in response to a request for a fair hearing. But here’s the main point for this lesson: if you want to selectively read the book of Job, focus on Job’s words and what he says about God. Here are a few of such points:

• God surrounds some people with difficulties (3.23)
• God sees you; God looks for you (7.8)
• God performs countless miracles, not just the awesome works of creation (9.5-13)
• He encourages and thwarts judges, counselors, kings (12.13-25)
• God ‘hates me and angrily tears me apart’ as if to show that I’ve sinned (16.7-14)
• We need a mediator, as between two friends, for us and God (16.21)

These are just a few, and there’s a lot more—some were skipped between chapters 3 and 16. Some of them are not easy to read depending on how you would describe God’s character. I think they’re worth wrestling with. You may decide, like a pastor-friend of mine, that Job is the least favorite book because of how God’s character is perceived.