In a previous post entitled "Ameriolatry: Witnessing for the Wrong Kingdom," I noted the unhelpful/harmful "culture war" language and stance employed by many conservative evangelical Christians. Following are some quotations from Donald Miller, Searching for God Knows What (Nashville, TN: 2004), that address this very issue:
'Us versus them' war rhetoric against people is not the sort of communication that came out of the mouth of Jesus or the mouths of any of His followers.... The battle we are in is a battle against the principalities of darkness, not against people who are different from us. In a war you shoot the enemy, not the hostage....
I realize there are people reading this book who will automatically dismiss me as a theological liberal, but I do not believe a person can take two issues from Scripture, those being abortion and gay marriage, then neglect much of the rest and call himself a fundamentalist or even a conservative....The Christian who believes the sum of his morality involves gay marriage and abortion alone, and neglects the environment and loving his neighbor and feeding the poor is, by definition, a theological liberal, because he takes what he wants and ignores the rest.
The reason I bring this up is to plead with evangelicals to return to the sort of call Christ has given us, to obey Him and experience intimacy with Him through sharing our faith, loving our enemies, serving and feeding the poor and hungry directly, and to stop showing off about how moral we are and how that makes us better than other people. I assure you, once we leave the fight over our country's future and enter the spiritual battle for the hearts and souls of the lost, the church will flourish, and the kingdom of God will grow. God is not in the business of brokering for power over a nation; He is in the business of loving the unloved and pulling sheep out of crags and bushes [cf. Ps. 23].
The greatest comfort I can feel in the middle of this is that Jesus did not lend Himself to war causes, to tax issues or political campaigns. For that matter, He did not lend Himself to raising money for education or stumping for affirmative action. It was as if He did not trust us to build a utopia. He kept it very simple, in fact. Follow Me, He said. I have no opinion about what color the paint should be in this prison. Follow Me (190-94).
.jpg)
