A lot of people seem to want to invoke God or Jesus in political debates these days.
It’s not a partisan thing. You can find it on the left, on the right, and in the center. Lots of people are convinced that they know exactly where God stands on the political issues of the day. Coincidentally, those people always seem to discover that God agrees with them.
I have nothing against people having their religious views inform their political opinions. We should do that. If our religious faith really means something to us, it should have an impact on every aspect of our lives. That certainly includes politics, especially in an era when the political realm impacts so much of society.
It’s one thing, though, to have your religious views inform your political opinions. It’s another thing entirely to claim that God agrees with you on a particular political issue, and to use that claim as a way to try to discredit and silence those who disagree.
For one thing, the Bible rarely speaks directly about current political issues. That’s not to say that the Bible has nothing to say about those issues; however, what the Bible does say is rarely as clear-cut as many people would have us believe. There’s a simple reason for that. The Bible is not a political document. It was never intended to be. Again, there are things in it we can use to inform our political opinions, but the Bible was not written as a political platform, and using it as one is using it that way is using it for a purpose for which it was not really intended.
There’s another reason this is dangerous, though. If I say that God agrees with me on a political issue, then I’m not really going to be willing to listen to what someone who disagrees with me has to say. After all, if my position is God’s position, then any other position is, by definition, ungodly. It’s disagreeing with God. I would have no reason to give a fair hearing to someone who disagrees with God. I’d have no reason to even pay attention to what such a person has to say, much less consider his or her reasoning with an open mind. I certainly would have no reason to want to compromise with such a person; if I did, I would, again by definition, be compromising God’s position. Why would I ever do that?
Claiming to speak for God is a very tricky thing. It needs to be done very carefully. Again, our religious views should inform our political opinions. On the other hand, people with very deep and sincere Christian beliefs can have profound disagreements about political issues. Rather than invoking the name of God as a way of clinching an argument, let’s rely on God’s principles of love and caring and listen to each other’s opinions with open minds and with respect.
Who knows? We just might all learn from each other.
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