The question becomes not just how to accumulate more, but how to covet less.
There are folks who burn the Koran and hold signs saying, “God hates fags” and all sorts of sick things – and they often hijack the headlines with hatred. We know that is not what Christ was like.
Jesus did not send us into the world to make believers but to make disciples.
We have to use our discontentment to engage rather than disengage – our hope has to be more powerful than our cynicism.
Money has power. And so withholding money has power too, especially when a bunch of people do it together.
The true atheist is the one who refuses to see God’s image in the face of their neighbour.
Discontentment is a gift. It’s the stuff that changes the world.
What is the point in calling anything God if it does not also hold sway in every part of one’s life – especially one’s politics?
But as I pursued that dream of upward mobility preparing for college, things just didn’t fit together. As I read Scriptures about how the last will be first, I started wondering why I was working so hard to be first.
And since we are people of expectation, we are so convinced that another world is coming that we start living as if it were already here.
We should refuse to get sucked into political camps and insist on pulling the best out of all of them. That’s what Jesus did – challenge the worst of each camp and pull out the best of each.
When we truly discover how to love our neighbor as our self, Capitalism will not be possible and Marxism will not be necessary.
To be nonpartisan doesn’t mean we’re nonpolitical.
The early Christians felt a deep collision with the empire in which they lived, and with politics as usual. They carelessly crossed party lines and built subversive friendships. And we should do that too.
There are some Christians who totally disengage from politics and set their minds on heaven so much that their faith is so heavenly minded that it is no earthly good.
The question for me is not are we political, but how are we political? We need to be politically engaged, but peculiar in how we engage.
One of the great dangers in political engagement is misplaced hope.
Governments can do lots of things, but there are a lot of things they cannot do. A government can provide good housing, but folks can have a house without having a home. We can keep people breathing with good health care, but they still may not really be alive.
In fact, the Gospel shows us change comes from the bottom rather than the top, from an old rugged cross rather than a gold royal throne.
We’re remembering each other’s heroes, too. We are learning each other’s songs. We are reminding ourselves that we are a global family praying together. We’re all trying to live in the light of the history that shines through the biblical narrative.