It’s Not About Scoring Points

It’s no secret that we live in a divided, contentious and litigious society, and that the divisions touch pretty much all aspects of life.

What may be less known is that the divisions are just as discernable among believers. My own Catholic faith provides ample evidence. Bishops, priests and laity are divided mostly along “liberal” and “conservative” lines.

But major Protestant denominations, including Episcopalians, Methodists and Baptists, are undergoing serious crises over issues that are also often categorized by “liberal” and “conservative” tags.

This shouldn’t be surprising. We’re all human, after all, and humans aren’t known for unanimity of opinions. The ancient Christian church wasn’t immune from such divisions. Church leaders had to call a meeting in Jerusalem – sometimes called the Council of Jerusalem – around 50 A.D. to resolve a serious dispute about whether newly converted Gentiles should be required to observe the Jewish Mosaic law. (They basically agreed that they should follow only its minimum requirements.)

People Want to Know

Nowadays, in church and out, many people want to know your “political” affiliation, whether Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, to make an instant judgment about where you stand on a range of issues. And even whether you’re a “good person.”

But people searching for God, at least in the Christian tradition, should understand that following the teachings of Jesus and Church is not a “political” choice and doesn’t require, or even tolerate, the need to score points against the other side. Unfortunately, you would never know that from following social or other kinds of media.

That’s why it was so refreshing to read a recent column in the New York Times by Tish Harrison Warren, an Episcopal priest. She wrote about the passing of a friend, Tim Keller, whom she describes as “an orthodox, evangelical Presbyterian pastor” in New York, who “refused to be politically captive to either party.

“While believers can register under a party affiliation and be active in politics,” wrote Keller for an article in the same newspaper, “they should not identify the Christian church or faith with a political party.. (making it) one more voting bloc aiming for power.

Don’t Fit into Political Alignments

“For example,” Keller wrote, “following both the Bible and the early church, Christians should be committed to racial justice and the poor, but also to the understanding that sex is only for marriage and for nurturing family. One of those views seems liberal and the other looks oppressively conservative. The historical Christian positions on social issues do not fit into contemporary political alignments.”

This makes it hard for people searching for God who put party and a liberal or conservative label ahead of the requirements of their faith.

Wrote Harrison Warren: “Some Christian critics say that the ‘Tim Keller model’ of engagement, his winsome, gentle approach to those with whom he disagreed, is outdated. They say that increased secularization and progressive hostility toward traditional Christianity requires the faithful to hit back, respond in kind, dominate or humiliate those who oppose us.

“But Tim wasn’t kind, gentle and loving to others as some sort of strategy to win the culture wars, grow his church or achieve a particular result. Tim loved his neighbors, even across deep differences, simply because he was a man who had been transformed by the grace of Jesus.”

Strong Opinions

None of this is meant to say that politics, or competing interpretations of what it means to search for God, are unimportant. I’m sure that the early Christians who met in Jerusalem had strong opinions about the issues they had to resolve. But I’m also sure that the spirit of Jesus – the model of someone who had firm moral values that didn’t require condemnation of others (the woman at the well; the woman caught in adultery) – prevailed.

“The Christian Scriptures,” writes Harrison Warren, “describe ‘“the fruit of the Spirit’ — what grows in us as we walk with God — as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Tim’s life was marked by these things.

“And these dispositions are not a political strategy. They are not a part of a brand. They are not a way to sell books, gain power, win culture wars or ‘take back America for Christ.’ Tim inhabited these ways of being, not as a means to any end, but as a response to his relationship with God and love for his neighbor.”