Elections and God

The election here in the US just finished on Tuesday, and now all that serious, crazy stuff feels very distant. However, I put a lot of serious thought into my voting this year and seriously considered who I thought would better run my country - putting into account things I think are important from my faith, my past experiences, and my current life.

There were doomsday predictions from both sides as to what would happen if the other party gained (or kept) power. Our economy will collapse, we'll lose all our values and liberties, we'll pay astronomical taxes... whatever. A lot of more conservative Christians were talking about how life would become more difficult for Christ followers.

Back to politics in a second. Today I started reading my book for my class on The History of Christianity. I learned about the Christians and Jews of the 1st and 2nd c. AD (or CE if you like that better). There were pluralistic beliefs all around them, and they got in so much hot water because they insisted that there was ONLY one God. They were so stubborn about it that it frustrated the famously tolerant Roman empire. In fact, the Jews screamed bloody murder when Herod even tried to simply put a Roman eagle statue on the temple. They would have NONE of it. They had their lines drawn and knew where they stood.

Ok, politics again. I came to the conclusion on Monday night/Tuesday morning of this week that I could not get hugely invested in who would win the presidential race. I voted the way I thought was best for the country, but I finally realized that my government cannot be my faith, nor do the work of my faith for me.

My government is not in charge of saving babies for me, saving the environment, saving the poor, or anything else. The commands to care for the earth, for all of God's creation, were given to people, not governments. It is my responsibility to care for poor and the oppressed. It is also my responsibility to understand what God commands me to do.

While I have commands that say to respect the government, it also says that where there is a conflict, God's law comes first. When and if the government mandates something against my faith (and it's bound to happen sometime), I need to have the courage to know that I belong to the kingdom of God first and the government of the United States second. I need to know my lines, as the Jews and early Christians did, and stand by them.

These are convictions that have been forming for only the past few weeks, but I'm beginning to understand the importance of knowing my Bible well and being convinced of the truths of the Bible, and comparing all other "truths" to what God told us first.