DeeGeesLifeBlog ~ Life as Art ~ Or is it Heart?

The unencumbered politics of Jesus laid bare … Christian case for President Trump… Supreme Court hardly anything but…

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. ~ Isaiah 53: 4-5

Ben Voth, American Thinker: Tony Campolo is among the more famous evangelical leaders in the United States more affiliated with the political Left. His perhaps most famous book — Is Jesus a Democrat or a Republican? — tried to imagine a centrist view of Jesus. Despite his friendly demeanor and political interests, Campolo’s intuitive truism about mixing religion and politics is absolutely untrue as far as we might apply it to Christianity. It is therefore necessary and essential to understand the politics of Jesus even though many outside and inside his discipled circle abhor the thought. The compelling and necessary starting point of Christianity and politics is the shocking reality that Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is the most political event in human history. How can this be true?

********************

DGH: Mmmmm …. No getting away from active involvement in the business of Christianity which is spreading the gospel, helping the poor, defending the widows and orphans, seeking justice, remaining morally clean. Everything is politics, today. Food, water, air, climate, sex, family, entertainment, money, home, health. Can anyone name anything that hasn’t been politicized? We’ve no choice but to speak up.

********************

Ben Voth: Jesus was murdered by the State in a public execution and that political event was meant to send a conventional message understood throughout the ages and across cultures: shut up about any alternative to the present political order or be put to death in a humiliating public manner. The message is easy to understand whether you have ever even heard of Jesus and his message. The ugly truth of this was understood even by his skeptics. One of the great American skeptics was an academic by the name of E.O. Wilson. As an anthropologist, Wilson authored many books including The Social Conquest of the Earth. Though raised as a Southern Baptist, Wilson grew, like so many Christians, toward skepticism and unbelief as he encountered the wonders of academia.

********************

DGH: Loving our enemies and blessing those who curse us is very difficult for most of us since it goes totally against our  human nature. We are told to be the Light of the World, the salt of the Earth etal. I don’t recall the Bible talking about opting out. Instead, it tells us to be in the world, not of the world. Engaging politically is indeed being “in the world” while not being “of the world”. THAT!

********************

Ben Voth: That did not prevent him from anchoring in this book the ugly reality that what makes humans human is a love for killing one another. Across thousands of cultures, and thousands of years, anthropologists find the same deadly pattern. The faithful refusal of Christians to accept that killing and rather attest to Jesus’ resurrection is at the heart of a global human protest against unjust politics. Jesus understood as soon as he began to teach that politics would begin to unravel and attack his human form. When Peter named him as “the Christ” he told Peter and his disciples to tell no one because it was ‘not the time.’

The unencumbered politics of Jesus laid bare … Together with the likes of this gang & their mob governed by back-stabbing ingrates…

DGH: Indeed, indeed, Christianity today is a threat to all totalitarian governments because it teaches that God is to be worshiped, not man or the State. It is particularly a threat to Communist regimes – and the current revolution in the USA is a Communist revolution – because it insists on God as the foundation of reality. THAT!

********************

Ben Voth: Jesus understood the reality and danger of politics. Politics and meaningful religion cannot possibly be separated because of human nature. Christianity is especially incapable of this separation because it is aimed squarely at the unjust pattern of human politics: ostracism, isolation, ridicule, mockery, shame, abuse, and finally public execution. That is humanity’s political plan and that is undoubtedly why Christianity is the world’s most popular religion, to the chagrin of its reactionary and all too often well-ensconced critics. The American demand to separate Christianity from the State is consistently the prelude to unfettered injustice.

********************

DGH: In case you missed it, 2 + 2 never equals anything but 4, men and women are different sexes (not genders), and truth triumphs over lies. The Left’s war on Christian history, government, and on Christian people is conducted by forcing people to abandon reality, and to believe what they are told to believe. A true Christian cannot do that, and will resist. THAT!

********************

Ben Voth: One of the most popular secular mythologies in America — the separation of Church and State — is derived from an absolutely pathological and false interpretation of the First Amendment religion clauses. Perhaps the best attempt to rationalize the idea was Jefferson’s Treaty of Tripoli (1797) with the Barbary Pirates. The pirates were so poorly persuaded by Jefferson’s explanation that “the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion,” that they continued to abduct U.S. merchants on the high seas off the coast of Africa, believing they were in fact Christians from a Christian nation.

********************

DGH: As I recall, Jesus’ disciples were told to fast, pray, make disciples and spread the Word. I hardly call that “forfeiting the public sphere”. They were active, unlike too many present day Christians who think that politics has nothing to do with them. I don’t recall the Bible talking about opting out. Instead, it tells us to be in the world, not of the world. Engaging politically is being “in the world” while not being of the world. Again – THAT!

********************

Ben Voth: Not until Jefferson constituted the Marines to attack “the shores of Tripoli,” did the pirates seem to get the message of leaving our commerce in the Mediterranean alone. Of course, Jesus taught that his kingdom would not come by the sword — despite Peter’s desperate hope that it would. Nonetheless, Christianity is an intrinsic threat to the irrational threats of the sword that dominate human politics. Christianity is the necessary ingredient of politics because of the inevitable “manure” that human dominance has always been. Christians should not forfeit the public sphere in some sordid illusion that merely awaiting Jesus’ return is a satisfactory engagement with moral duty. Christians will be attacked in the public sphere but separation will never be possible even when her enemies promise to remain safely behind a wall. [end]

The unencumbered politics of Jesus laid bare and government ‘irrelevancy’ of God definitely not good…

DGH: Like many others, most of us (yours truly included) struggle with that very aspect of being a follower of Jesus Christ every single day. Loving our enemies, blessing those who curse us is polar opposite of what we humans instinctively want to do. But, we somehow struggle on with it while at the same time speaking out as much as possible against the dark forces of evil we see all around us, especially when the vile and abhorrent so blatantly come after the children. The unencumbered politics of Jesus laid bare. THAT!

Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. ~ Isaiah 53: 12

********************

• Ben Voth, American Thinker: The Politics of Jesus

********************

Soli Deo Gloria!

********************