It should come to no shock to any of my handful of readers that a massive “Health Care” Reform Bill was passed earlier this week. For those who have followed me for a while, it will also come as no shock that I generally do not fall in line with the typical conservative Christian. Despite what most typical conservative Christian’s think, that does not make me a) a liberal, b) a democrat, or c) a bad person. If I had to give a political statement of where I fit, I am an apolitical moderate who would prefer a complete governmental overhaul, thus since “moderate” isn’t a party, I am much more in line with the governmental ideas of Libertarian’s than anyone else. In other words, despite a brief reintroduction into the political realm during the last presidential elections, I prefer to focus my attention on things other than politics.
As a moderate-libertarian, there are things I like and don’t like about the new bill… As an apolitical individual, I don’t care all that much honestly. For some of you, that is almost worse than being moderate and/or democrat… But that’s not what I want to talk about… Instead, lets look at a few after-effects of the recent days’ activities and see if we can redeem any of it…
A few that must be considered (swarming with pithyness, of course), before getting to the meat of redemption:
First, as of the writing of this post, 917,249 people, several of which are my friends, have joined the facebook group “I bet we can find 1,000,000+ People Who Disapprove of the Health Care Bill.” By the time most of you read this, the group may be well over 1mil. Congratulations, you have effectively socialized your attempts to disapprove of socialized healthcare.
Second, as most of my friends are conservatives, there has been an onslaught of tweets, status updates, conversations, and sarcastic diatribes blasting our government, our president, and the new health care bill. Congratulations, your voice has been heard by and you’ve successfully high fived, fist bumped, and man-hugged all of your conservative friends.
Third, as noted in serveral places in the websphere, conservative Republicans in Washington, based on the outcry from their states, chose to look for no compromise on anything submitted by this administration. There was no middle ground. This is not surprising considering the state of American politics. Congratulations, Representatives, you set idly by and the bill you hoped to kill through inaction has swept the country into a tizzy.
Sarcasm aside… there are things that we, as Christians, can learn from this whole ordeal, using the above somewhat tongue-in-cheek observations as a launching pad. Everything from here forward is no longer political, please do not take it as such:
First, we need to differentiate between real action and “Facebook action.” Social networking is great, it’s fun, and there are some pretty cool things that can happen through the various avenues for businesses, individuals, and even some level of evangelism and/or ministry. But in the end we must recognize the importance of making a difference in people’s lives through personal interaction and life-changing encounters in which Jesus shows up. Sometimes it’s as simple as helping pay for someones groceries, other times we travel half way across the world and land smack in middle of the Mid East, or it’s in our everyday lives at work, all the while allowing Christ’s light to shine through us in a real and tangible way.
I think of our church’s Servant Evangelism team. I know the heart of our pastor and the heart of our SE leader… they want to see people in our church understand what it means to live every day as if we have an opportunity to show the unique Love that Christ has to offer… it doesn’t have to be an “every 3rd Saturday thing” or only when your church offers you the opportunity. We need to be the hands and feet outside of the websphere, outside of the social networks, and get our hands and feet dirty in the real world.
Second, we need to differentiate between talk and walk. We all know this and there are great people doing great things for Christ but I still contend wholeheartedly that if the Church body was doing what the Church body is called to do, our faith would not be drowning in the socio-political US culture. I love what I see in so many of those around us, but to think that we are in large part doing what we are called to do is unfortunate naiveté. All we need to do is look at the fruit of this culture… and the stark contrast between who Jesus attracted and who we attract. Philip Yancey says it best in his book “The Jesus I Never Knew”… (paraphrasing) In Jesus’ day, he offended the so-called religious people and attracted the sinners, outcasts, and broken… Today, the church attracts the so-called religious and offends the sinners, outcasts, and broken. I think 1) he is dead on, but 2) things ARE slowly changing for the good… But perhaps this paints a picture of how this sometimes plays out in even the most grace-field lives: When Supermodels and Cafeteria Workers Fall (thanks Gabe).
Finally, we cannot sit idly by and hope that things work out for the best… I believe strongly that as Christians, we must stop thinking politically. The same people who say that the government shouldn’t be the avenue in which the needy and poor are helped, rather the church should take the initiative (which, I completely agree with) are the same ones who fight hard in the political realm against issues of sin such as homosexuality and abortion. You cannot have it both ways… if you do not want the government to do the work of the church, then we need to stop focusing so much of our energy and opinions on politics and instead refocus on rebuilding broken lives. You have to ask yourself, what fights do you want to pick? Those against flesh and blood? or those against the powers of darkness? You cannot fight both, and btw, one is loosing battle every single time.
(Check out Bob Hyatt’s take here, and Dave Burchett’s here… I appreciate both of their insights).
My intentions here are not to frustrate or take a political stance on the Health Care Bill… My hope is that we can move away from such divisive vices (as politics obviously has become), and recognize that as Christians, our citizenship is not primarily American.
Lets make sure that our walk outshines our talk, and walk much more than a mile… let us focus our attention on the Kingdom that is both here and not yet, of which we find our true citizenship…
