Today I
finished re-reading Philip Yancey’s wonderful 1997 book ‘What’s So Amazing
About Grace?’ It had been a number of
years since I had read it, but as I was reading it struck me how much his
thinking has affected my own over the years, and how we both have lamented much
of the ‘un-grace’ that has characterized Christians and the Church in my
lifetime.
Near the end
of the book Yancey takes aim at political Christians, primarily conservatives,
who have sought to equate the Kingdom of God with the Kingdom of the United
States. Because we have sought to
legislate so much about what people can and cannot do with their lives, even as
we have been increasingly screaming about how much we want to get Big
Government out of our lives, much of the world looks at our witness as being
about small-minded moralistic fervor. Years
before the book came out called UnChristian that spoke of how young people look
at Christians as judgmental, hateful, and homophobic, Yancey related story
after story of the un-grace of Christians against Bill Clinton and others in
government and society; I’m sure if he was to update this book today he could
really dig into the Obama haters of the world.
One section
he wrote really is as relevant today as it was 16 years ago (just replace the
names of the ‘important’ issues then with what some are screaming about today):
Stephen
Carter offers good counsel about political activism: to be effective,
‘gracious’ Christians must be wise in the issues to support or oppose….
What about today? Are we choosing our battles wisely? Obviously, abortion, sexual issues, and the
definitions of life and death are issues worthy of our attention. Yet when I read the literature produced by
evangelicals in politics I also read about gun rights, abolishing the
Department of Education, the NAFTA trade agreements, the Panama Canal treaty,
and term limits for Congress. A few
years back I heard the president of the National Association of Evangelicals
include in his list of top ten concerns, ‘Repeal of the capital gains
tax.’ Too often the agenda of
conservative religious groups matches line for line the agenda of conservative
politics and does not base its priorities on a transcendent source. Like everyone else, evangelicals have a right
to present arguments on all the issues, by the moment we present them as part
of some ‘Christian’ platform we abandon our high moral ground….
All too often in their forays into
politics Christians have proved ‘wise as doves’ and ‘harmless as
serpents’—exactly the opposite of Jesus’ precept. If we expect society to take seriously our
contribution, then we must show more wisdom in our choices.
