Jesus Creed
From Qideas, where you can read the whole piece:
The political “left” and “right,” Dems and GOPers, Progressives and Conservatives claim to stand on fixed points of impervious truth on a linear spectrum that stretches across a horizontal plane from pole to pole. The spectrum’s fixed middle marks the permanent philosophical and political “center.” And, politicians conveniently cry that political party is synonymous with political philosophy. It does not work this way and has never worked this way. Rather politics’ center point is mercurial and its far left and right philosophical boundaries move with the ages. Parties and platforms flip philosophies and shape-shift to match the ethos of the age….
So, I reject the moniker “Christian Left”. It is a moniker drawn in hasty response to the “Religious Right” a political movement (not a theological one). I do not set the standards of my political engagement in response to some random political point on a line. No. Rather than anchoring my politics on the shifting sand of a linear continuum, I ask a higher question: “What is my axis?” What does my political engagement revolve around? Is it political ideology? Is it political party? Is it biblical theology? I choose the later.
I am a Kingdom Christian, not a leftist Christian, a conservative Christian, nor any other political brand of Christian. I have even moved away from the term progressive Christian. It is too closely associated with that linear political spectrum. No. I am called to be a prophetic Christian. The axis of my political engagement is scripture and the biblical theology of shalom: It sets the standards of my political engagement.
Shalom is what the reign of God smells like. It is what the Kingdom of God looks like. Grounded in the story of creation in Genesis 1-14 and woven through every book of the Bible, the concept of shalom teaches us that we were created in relationship with God, with our selves, with each other, with the rest of creation, and with the systems that govern us. What it means to be one who lives under the reign of God is to be connected with a forceful bond of love in all these relationships. Genesis 3 offers a picture of the consequences of humanity’s grab at its own peace, in its own way (not the Jesus way). When we say to God “You don’t know what you’re talking about” or “Your word is good for church, but not for real life” or “You are not out for my good” and we take matters into our own hands, then shalom is shattered. Every relationship in creation is broken.
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