“What does Christianity have to do with politics?”
I get asked this question a lot. Some people seem to think that Christians shouldn’t have anything to do with politics, or they should stick to one side of politics and therefore stay out of any debates or protests or discussions — the ‘dirty’ side of politics.
But we as Christians need to let our belief inform and influence every part of our lives, and that includes how we vote. Very simply, you can’t love your neighbor as yourself while voting for, or ignoring the opportunity to vote against, people with the authority to ruin their lives through public policy.
The current administration as of October 26, 2020, has effectively murdered almost a quarter-million people — through action or inaction — in response to the covid19 pandemic. If we don’t act to remove those murderers from office and replace them with people willing to act, to take steps to begin to save people’s lives, then you are basically saying you don’t care if your neighbor dies. Therefore you are not loving as Jesus commanded you to love.
THAT is what Christianity has to do with politics. And that is just one small example out of a thousand I could give you from the federal level on down to your local school board election.
And it’s not just Covid19 that is the issue. Someday this pandemic will pass. When it’s gone we’re still left with how our politicians, from the President to the City Council, work and act and legislate for ourselves and our neighbors on issues from everything from healthcare to same-sex marriage to equality issues to who has the right to drive a car after nightfall on a county road.
Everything is politics. Let me say that again. EVERYTHING IS POLITICS. One more time. EVERYTHING. IS. POLITICS. Whether you believe you can be ‘involved’ in it or not, it affects you and your neighbors and the people you go to church with and the kids your kids play with and so on. You can choose to be involved in the process or you can be swept along by it.
And as Christians, we have a responsibility to ACT. We are commanded to LOVE our neighbors as ourselves. Not in the passive sense, but in the ACTIVE. The example we were given by Christ was the Good Samaritan. He didn’t just patch up the injured guy's wounds and leave him on the road, he carried him to town, set him up with a room with his own money, and provided for his future care, again asking for the bill to be sent to him — all without even knowing the guy’s name.
THAT is the kind of ACTIVE LOVE we have to have for our neighbors, even — maybe even especially — the ones we don’t know. Act in every situation like you love your neighbor as yourself, maybe even more than yourself. That includes removing dangerous leadership by being active in the political process with your VOTE.
