Dejected, downcast and angry, conservatives have begun attacking the media and other Christians for not signing on to the anti-Obama campaign, maintaining that Obama’s re-election proves that America is experiencing moral breakdown. Family Research Council head Tony Perkins told talk show host Janet Mefferd that the election results reveal “symptoms of a deeper moral and spiritual problem that we’re facing in our nation,” and beseeched Christians not to just “go on the mountaintop and just wait for the Rapture.”
Among the interesting aspects of the recriminations and Sturm und Drang rising from the ashes of Tuesday’s election are the reactions of those in the Rabid Religious Right. I suppose if you proceed from the assumption that God’s a Republican, then Barack Obama’s re-election probably looks and feels like a humiliating defeat. Here’s the problem, though: WAY too many on the Far Right are far too quick to claim the imprimatur of the Almighty. My Sunday School days may be far behind me, but I don’t recall being taught that God is a partisan Republican. In fact, if you look at the things His Son did as related in the Bible, one could make a convincing argument that Jesus Christ is a Liberal with a strong commitment to the social contract.
The fact of the matter is that nowhere in the Bible does God make a commitment to a specific political ideology. This truth hasn’t stopped Socially Conservative Christians from claiming God as their own. The idea that Christians are REQUIRED to vote for a Conservative candidate is absurd on its face, yet there are many ready, willing, and eager to defend that position. They’ll argue that Christians who voted for Barack Obama were somehow derelict in their duty to God, and that they’re disobeying His will.
I know that the Lord secures justice for the poor and and upholds the cause of the needy.
- Psalms 140:12
The truth of the matter is that Christians cover all aspects of the political spectrum. No one ideological group can claim to be the true representative of God’s will. There are Christians on the Far Right and Christians on the Left. Do those on the Far Right REALLY think they are the only ones authorized to channel God’s will and do His work? How can people like Tony Perkins, Bryan Fischer, Mike Huckabee, Pat Robertson, etc., claim to hold a monopoly on the One True Faith…except out of pure, unadulterated arrogance?
I don’t recall hypocrisy and intolerance being part and parcel of Christianity, but the Rabid Religious Right seems to have cornered the market.
God is not a Republican. Nor is he a Democrat. If I believed in God, I’d launch into a much different argument, but suffice it to say that most Christians understand that God is neither Liberal nor Conservative. For those who believe, He just is. And that’s what the haters on the Far Right refuse to grasp.
Until and unless you hear the follow message at the end of political ads, you can rest assured that Almighty God isn’t in the business of endorsing candidates:
I’M ALMIGHTY GOD, AND I APPROVED THIS MESSAGE.
