No Chains on Me…

Was a big fan of this article from one of my frequent sites of insight (no pun) Mars Hill Grad School’s: The Other Journal

A very insightful look at the Christian ideals at stake in the political process, specifically voting, a process/privilege/right/duty I think we take way too seriously. Favorite quote to point this out is out of the opening of the article:

In the 2004 senatorial race for Illinois, Republican candidate Allen Keyes claimed, “Christ would not vote for Barack Obama, because Barack has voted to behave in a way that it is inconceivable for Christ to have behaved.”¹ Keyes specifically had in mind Obama’s refusal to support a bill that would protect infants who are born alive after botched abortions. While I am confident that Jesus would not support abortion-on-demand, I am less confident that his followers should make pronouncements about how Jesus would vote. In fact, it is quite possible that Jesus would not vote at all. Not every situation lends an answer to the evangelical question “What would Jesus do?”

I am increasingly convinced that to live as Jesus did in regards to the government is an attitude of disregard wherever it is possible. Not in the sense that we don’t pay taxes or don’t obey its laws, as long as it does not defy the law of holiness, but rather that we avoid entanglement with the power that so easily corrupts and and to do so:

in order to listen again to the voice of the One in whose name we speak. By extending our roots more deeply into our theological soil, we can prepare ourselves to present in truth and in unity the hope that the gospel brings to existing social structures.

Call that what you will.