The White Whole Theory

When Christians get involved in politics or think about voting in an election the thing that seems to be the highest priority is the moral standards of the politicians and political parties.  Yet this is at odds with the message of the Gospel.  The message of the gospel is that Jesus had to die on the cross because we were unable to meet the standard that the law required to know God and be like him.  Jesus’ message was one of grace and love for the sinner and open opposition to the Legalistic teachings of the religious leaders.  So if we were to create a political movement based on love what would it look like?

¹If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ²If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

⁴Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

1 Corinthians 13: 1-7

¹³ And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13:13

 So what does this well-known scripture tell us about how we should be involved in politics?

1. If we don’t do it in love then it is meaningless and has no eternal value.  All we do is make a loud noise but have no lasting effect.
2. Our involvement must be done with patience and an understanding that not everyone will listen.  We must wait for the opportunities that allow us to get our message across to the public.
3. Our policies need to be kind, we should not support policies that treat people harshly like the current border protection policies of both major parties.  Compassion needs to be a major component of any policies we support.
4. We should not boast about our achievements but let our actions and the results speak for themselves.  The media will want to know about our policies and platform and will provide ample opportunity for us to put forward our position and critique the policies of the other parties.
5. We should not be proud of what we achieve but recognise that anything we do achieve is through God’s grace.
6. We should not be part of the standard political manipulation that tries to shade the truth to match our political goals and thus bring dishonour to us and our opponents.
7. We are not there for our own needs, but to represent the needs of the constituent that elected us.
8. We should be calm and measured in our responses and avoid political grandstanding, i.e. Question Time in the Australian Federal Parliament and the great American filibuster are examples of the kind of behaviour to avoid.  
9. We should not seek revenge when opposing parties manipulate the truth and lie about what we say but depend on God to bring the truth about their behaviour into the light.
10. We need to uphold sound moral standards but we also need to remember that Jesus only gave us two laws under the New Covenant, love God and love your Neighbour.
11. We should support policies that protect and support the disadvantaged in our society and provide them with the opportunities to overcome their circumstances.
12. We need to trust the advice of professionals and academics where it does not disagree with our faith.  This means that we need to have a very good reason to support policies that are against mainstream academic and professional opinion.
13. Our policies need to provide hope and avoid personal attacks.
14. We need to persevere and not react to every wind that blows in the news cycle.

And remember our purpose in being involved in politics is not to achieve power and become the government but to show through our words and actions that Jesus is alive.

Yes, that is a newspaper headline but I also think that it happens to be true and I hope that you will allow me to explain why I think that Christian political lobby groups are a misrepresentation of the Gospel.

In John 4:1-38 and John 8:1-11 Jesus confronts two women who have obviously not been living up to the standards held in Jewish law, yet in neither case does Jesus accuse them of being sinners.  Instead his goal is redemption and in the case of John 4 many Samaritans end up believing. 

In a number of places in the Gospels Jesus said,Your sins are forgiven,in a way that suggested that sin was no longer really a problem.  This was something that the religious leaders had a very big issue with as there whole system of worship and sacrifices was built around the fact of atoning for sin.

If we then contrast Jesus attitude towards sin and sinners with Christian lobby groups like Festival of Light and others we see a big difference.  Most of what Christian lobby groups do is focus on the sin and try and get sinners to obey the law when it is not in there nature to do so.  Essentially the message that Christian lobby groups preach boils down to 'you are a sinner and you sin'.  It is nothing more than a moral religious crusade design to impose our moral standards on all non-christians.

The significant issue with this is that this is not the Gospel, Christianity is not a moral crusade.  Christianity is about redemption and transformation. 

But this is the new covenant I will make   with the people of Israel on that day, says the LORD: I will put my laws in their minds,   and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people(NLT).

When we become Christians God writes his laws on our hearts.  What Christian political lobby groups are trying to accomplish, but never can, is already occurring in churches all around the world every day, when people choose to follow Jesus.  Political lobbying reduces Christianity to a moral crusade making Christianity like every other religion, nothing more than a system of rules and regulations that robs it of its true power. 

The only way to accomplish what Christian political lobby groups want is to change the hearts of the people through salvation.  Once this is done the laws of the country will take care of themselves.

There are no short cuts to the Great Commision.