Where does the line between
faith spirituality and political nationalism?
Jesus for President
Thoughts #3

According to an article in the paper today (Conservatives push for political sermons) conservatives legal advocates are recruiting pastors nationwide to defy an IRS ban on preaching about politicians in worship services. The ban is not meant to be a 'big-brother' action, but rather stipulates and holds Churches, which exist as non-profit 501c3s, to not endorse a specific candidate (although they can do lot's of other things such as hold forums and distribute voter guides) in order to maintain their non-taxable non-profit status. The idea then is to overturn this IRS ban in order to liberate faith communities to preach political appartenance and how to vote without restriction.

It makes me wonder where is the line between our faith spirituality and our political nationalism? Why is it that there has been so much vocal uproar about Rev. Jeremiah Wright's comments intended to challenge what he considers to be blind, ego-centric nationalism, and none about the efforts of the Alliance Defense Fund to act so that churches can become press release outposts for specific political candidates? Why is the church so often so quick to get into bed with politicians and political machinery in order to scratch their back? They is the community of 'believers' so quick to polarize itself, pointing fingers at the opposing side in terms of politics while forgetting that the New Testament writes (in Hebrews) of our call to be sojourners, to be resident aliens, recognizing that our home kingdom is of another world, not so that we live in a reclusionary, escapist way, but rather that we engage our world in a subversive, prophetically challenging way.

I'm a huge Obama fan, believing that he alone is the candidate that can address and motivate our national community in the ways and areas that need to emerge in the next few years, but I'm not going to preach that in church. My identity as a follower of Jesus is much more important than my passport, or my membership in a political party. Why is it that in our efforts to integrate faith and spirituality into all aspects of our lives, we tend to do so at the expense of our faith and spirituality? Are we incapable as human beings of true integration?