I will admit that I have gone completely the opposite way of Winston Churchill. You may remember his famous quote:
“Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains.”
Labels bother me though. When I was younger, I was naïve and I bought into the whole Christian-conservative-family-values-war-hawk front. I was never right-wing, mind you, because I always had enough in me to question everything. However, I do not think I wear the word “liberal” well either. It, too, has many troubling aspects.
I want to be a Christian. How that forms my thinking and forces me to interact with the world is a result of Scripture and my relationship with Jesus.
For instance, in my Bible reading lately, I have been really wrestling with Mark 8:34-36. The same kind of Jesus’ ideology can be found in other gospels too, but let’s just look at what Mark recorded:
34Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?
Crazy challenging words, and I think we have come to think that Jesus was being figurative – but I suspect that He was being quite literal and thorough actually. Remember that many of His listeners died for their faith – as did He – and there is something very deep and profound here for us.
One of the arguments that I hear against promoting peace around the world is that it would expose us to danger at home. Our foremost concern seems to be protecting not only our lives, but our WAY of life here in America. We are motivated by fear, yes? And for some insane reason, we believe that WAR brings about PEACE.
Now apply the words of Jesus to our thinking. What if being vulnerable and promoting peace (i.e. less money on weapons, less emphasis on posturing, more on education, food, clean water) does in fact open us up to danger but is indeed the way of Jesus anyway? What if He is telling us that defending our way of life by any means necessary is an ultimate forfeit of our souls?
I do not have answers. I’m just thinking.
“Show me a young Conservative and I'll show you someone with no heart. Show me an old Liberal and I'll show you someone with no brains.”
Labels bother me though. When I was younger, I was naïve and I bought into the whole Christian-conservative-family-values-war-hawk front. I was never right-wing, mind you, because I always had enough in me to question everything. However, I do not think I wear the word “liberal” well either. It, too, has many troubling aspects.
I want to be a Christian. How that forms my thinking and forces me to interact with the world is a result of Scripture and my relationship with Jesus.
For instance, in my Bible reading lately, I have been really wrestling with Mark 8:34-36. The same kind of Jesus’ ideology can be found in other gospels too, but let’s just look at what Mark recorded:
34Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?
Crazy challenging words, and I think we have come to think that Jesus was being figurative – but I suspect that He was being quite literal and thorough actually. Remember that many of His listeners died for their faith – as did He – and there is something very deep and profound here for us.
One of the arguments that I hear against promoting peace around the world is that it would expose us to danger at home. Our foremost concern seems to be protecting not only our lives, but our WAY of life here in America. We are motivated by fear, yes? And for some insane reason, we believe that WAR brings about PEACE.
Now apply the words of Jesus to our thinking. What if being vulnerable and promoting peace (i.e. less money on weapons, less emphasis on posturing, more on education, food, clean water) does in fact open us up to danger but is indeed the way of Jesus anyway? What if He is telling us that defending our way of life by any means necessary is an ultimate forfeit of our souls?
I do not have answers. I’m just thinking.
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