Happy Valentine's Day!
As we focus on LOVE, let's remember the connection between faith and love. Where there is no faith, love cannot flourish. Love, like faith, demands confidence without assurance. As with all spiritual reality, certainty is not the point; rather faith goes beyond reason and evidence, and Scripture states that love is even above these (1 Cor. 13).
For those who need them, there are many simple proofs that love exists. In our daily lives we notice how a seed planted in the earthy soil grows into a colorful, fragrant flower. We touch or are touched by someone and new strength emerges. Tears are wiped away and smiles return with a sparkle in the eye. These are small examples of the miraculous power of love.
It takes faith to accept and become comfortable with the reality of love deep within our heart. A faith-full love is our experience of releasing the questioning about love's existence, and ceasing to require validation. Pascal stated: "Faith is different from proof; the latter is human, the former is from God."
May our hearts be faithful in continually accepting God's gift of love!
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Christians and Politics
On July 10, 1822 James Madison wrote in a letter to Edward Livingston: "I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together."
The majority of Christians in America have traditionally agreed with James Madison and stood in staunch support of "the separation of church and state." The resistance to comingling religious and political power comes not only from a commonly shared American heritage but more importantly, from our shared Biblical tradition. In recent times, certain branches of Christianity have departed from this view. Christian leaders have become more political in their publically stated views. Recently, James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, a well-known and respected family-values group said he will abstain from voting if Senator John McCain is the Republican nominee.
The relationship between religion and politics in the Bible is marked by skepticism, challenge, and at times down-right opposition. In the Book of Judges, for instance, there is a humorous parable of a group of trees who go out seeking someone to rule over them (Judges 9:8-15). They approach an olive tree, a fig tree and a grape vine, asking each in turn to serve as their king. All decline the proposition, explaining that they're too busy producing oil, figs, and wine to concern themselves with kingship. Then the trees approach a thorny bramble bush. The bramble, which produces nothing of value, is only too happy to rule over them! This parable takes a jab at political leaders, suggesting that if they had anything better to do, they wouldn't seek positions of governmental authority.
There was a period in Israel's history when the people were so skeptical about human political power that for about 200 years, they chose no king at all. God alone was thought to be sovereign. It was cause of much anguish to the faithful prophet Samuel when the pressure of surrounding nations moved the people to request a human leader to act as king.
It's true the biblical prophets were not always adversaries of the state. The prophet Nathan, for instance, served as a close friend and advisor to King David during his reign. However, this same prophet is responsible for one of the harshest criticisms of David in the entire Bible.
In the New Testament, we see that Jesus' relationship with the state is clearly not a comfortable one. And Paul repeatedly goes to prison for his beliefs and is eventually executed by the very government about which he writes in Romans 13.
What is the prudent path of political participation for today's Christian? We would do well to follow Jesus Christ's admonition to "Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's" (See Matthew 22:16-22).
The bottom line is, when we give the emperor what properly belongs to God, we must bear in mind that the emperor will always seek to use his enhanced power to play God. American Christians, having escaped the tyranny of medieval Europe, have always found it far better to err on the side of safeguarding religious freedom than to err on the side of empowering the emperor.
The wall of separation between church and state protects the church more than it does the state. Let us be politically involved, without allowing politics to distract us from "being about our Father's business."
The majority of Christians in America have traditionally agreed with James Madison and stood in staunch support of "the separation of church and state." The resistance to comingling religious and political power comes not only from a commonly shared American heritage but more importantly, from our shared Biblical tradition. In recent times, certain branches of Christianity have departed from this view. Christian leaders have become more political in their publically stated views. Recently, James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, a well-known and respected family-values group said he will abstain from voting if Senator John McCain is the Republican nominee.
The relationship between religion and politics in the Bible is marked by skepticism, challenge, and at times down-right opposition. In the Book of Judges, for instance, there is a humorous parable of a group of trees who go out seeking someone to rule over them (Judges 9:8-15). They approach an olive tree, a fig tree and a grape vine, asking each in turn to serve as their king. All decline the proposition, explaining that they're too busy producing oil, figs, and wine to concern themselves with kingship. Then the trees approach a thorny bramble bush. The bramble, which produces nothing of value, is only too happy to rule over them! This parable takes a jab at political leaders, suggesting that if they had anything better to do, they wouldn't seek positions of governmental authority.
There was a period in Israel's history when the people were so skeptical about human political power that for about 200 years, they chose no king at all. God alone was thought to be sovereign. It was cause of much anguish to the faithful prophet Samuel when the pressure of surrounding nations moved the people to request a human leader to act as king.
It's true the biblical prophets were not always adversaries of the state. The prophet Nathan, for instance, served as a close friend and advisor to King David during his reign. However, this same prophet is responsible for one of the harshest criticisms of David in the entire Bible.
In the New Testament, we see that Jesus' relationship with the state is clearly not a comfortable one. And Paul repeatedly goes to prison for his beliefs and is eventually executed by the very government about which he writes in Romans 13.
What is the prudent path of political participation for today's Christian? We would do well to follow Jesus Christ's admonition to "Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's" (See Matthew 22:16-22).
The bottom line is, when we give the emperor what properly belongs to God, we must bear in mind that the emperor will always seek to use his enhanced power to play God. American Christians, having escaped the tyranny of medieval Europe, have always found it far better to err on the side of safeguarding religious freedom than to err on the side of empowering the emperor.
The wall of separation between church and state protects the church more than it does the state. Let us be politically involved, without allowing politics to distract us from "being about our Father's business."
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