Purpose Driven Politics

This falls into the Life Going On category, that place where I shove the vagaries of life that, for whatever reason, I happen to be remarking upon. This political cycle, lasting, as it has, for what feels like a decade, is turning out to be part of the fabric of our ordinary lives. We do school, we go to church, we clean the house, we scream and rage about the puppy, we watch, read, and talk politics.

It’s kind of too bad. I would really like to replace ‘watch, read, and talk politics’ with ‘read books quietly and not talk at all’. Unfortunately, nobody around here agrees with me.

Last night, puppy tethered to arm, we watched more desultory news coverage of more primary returns followed by more speeches. All the time Alouicious snarked in my ear. He’s getting pretty snappy and cutting on the come back. Somehow he, and Elphine, and I can’t imagine how this happened, don’t believe anything that anybody running for president is saying. It seemed fitting that the four littler kids played a game of wolves in the background–roving back and forth over the house in a pack, howling and howling.

Of all the quiet sarcasm going on in my ear, the thing that startled me the most was that my two oldest children understand, tragically I think, that to be in the political arena, you have to say a lot of things, and none of them really have to be true. They could be true, or they could not be, it depends. But if you listen closely, the candidate will occasionally let slip real heart felt belief. You just have to be on your toes and pay attention.

So, as the candidates roiled on and the crowds shouted, when Mr. Kasich said, and I don’t think it was accidental, that America’s role, or purpose, is to “heal the world” the snort in my ear of my child did not throw me off my gut feeling that he, Mr. Kasich, really believes it.

And this is why I’m so depressed about “evangelicalism”. Mr. Kasich is an Anglican. He belongs to the same tiny denomination that I do. And I recognized in his language not only the Purpose Driven movement, but also some Spirit Led stuff, and, to my ears, the jumbled, not very clear theological world view that IS the Protestant way right now. Everybody is having God lead them–absolutely everybody. Rubio, Kasich, Fallwell, probably Cruz except I haven’t been paying attention, and ordinary people wandering around Walmart trying to decide what to buy for dinner. The only one who escapes this trap is Trump because he doesn’t know very much jargon (mercifully) and just falls back on talking about Christianity the way he does everything else (also problematic, but never mind).

I am so so deeply uncomfortable with the conflating of God’s Will with the individual’s ability to discern God’s voice, and then taking that particular brand of American-ish Christianity and projecting it into the world. Heal the world? I don’t think the world is looking to be healed. That’s a thing that Christians should really say about Jesus. Jesus came to heal the world. Furthermore, we are not on track with The Will of God. If we wanted to know God’s Will we would have to look in the bible. There we would easily discover that we are not the ones we’ve been waiting for, that our hands are covered with blood, that our lying lips are an abomination, that our theft both of the rich and the poor is only a source of wrath, that our racial distinctions are hideous in God’s eyes. We need to repent, turn around, cry out for mercy. The church itself needs a plentiful dose of healing, and only after that could any Christian turn his repentant gaze to the culture this country is perishing in. I’m not looking for a “Christian” nation. I’m really wishing the true Christians running for president would be a lot more careful about how they talk.

More also, I don’t love the idea that we could somehow find our purpose and Be God’s Will. I get that that is every sermon in many churches across this great YUGE land, and that is problem enough. But to have it come out of the mouths of presidential candidates makes me shudder. And, I have to wonder if just not talking like that is one reason why so many “evangelicals” are flocking to Trump. He’s just talking about the practicalities of the economy and the world. And he certainly often sounds crazy, but he doesn’t sound Christian Crazy.

As per usual, let me just get in a final plug for SMOD 2016!!!