Mark Daniels has an insightful post on faith & politics that I've just now gotten around to reading. I can't recommend highly enough the importance of reading the whole thing, but here's a few blurbs that stood out for me.

Two factors have made Mitt Romney's Mormon affiliation significant this year. One is the importance of the Religious Right in the Republican coalition. Frankly, I dislike the Religious Right. (And the Religious Left, for that matter.) There is simply no way to draw a straight line from faith in Jesus Christ or the Bible as the Word of God to a consistent political philosophy. As a Christian leader, it deeply disturbs me when pastors or other Christian leaders presume to say that Jesus is a Republican or a Democrat. Or that God is a liberal or a conservative. Christians who make such claims subordinate the Deity, the One I believe to be Lord and Creator of heaven and earth, to temporary, temporal philosophies and preferences. In effect, they shove God aside and instead, worship their parties or platforms. Nonetheless, the Religious Right has put a premium on candidates conforming not just to their political views, but also their claimed religious doctrines.

Like Daniels, I'm among those put off by both the Christian left and right. I've followed the latter since the mid-80s and explored the former only recently, primarily via Jim Wallis' "God's Politics" and Sojourner's magazine. I still read actively from both viewpoints, but primarily because I share Mark Daniel's affliction as a political junkie.

Still, the degree to which both views seem to appropriate God's word for that of a limited political viewpoint strikes me as entirely missing the point about what it means to be a Christian. That, to me, is the essence of what I've probably been avoiding writing about here. You can't help but go to a large evangelical church like Lakewood (or any other, for that matter) and not run into a segment of people who would argue the infallibility of one political viewpoint or another ... in Jesus' name. And every time I hear it, I remain even more convinced that there's something incredibly wrong with that. In the prophetic words of Derek Bell's "A King and a Kingdom:"

there are two great lies that i've heard:
"the day you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will not surely die"
and that Jesus Christ was a white, middle-class republican
and if you wanna be saved you have to learn to be like Him

Both lies, however, are persistent.

Romney, in his "Faith in America" speech, delivered at the presidential library of George H.W. Bush, seemed, in part, to deliver such a message. But then, he said that freedom needs religion and religion needs freedom. While I personally believe that the Judeo-Christian tradition fosters the kind of civility and respect for neighbor that allows for the functioning of democracy, Christian faith, in particular, hasn't needed freedom of religion to grow. Indeed, it seems to grow best and strongest when its natural inclination for subversiveness is given full vent. Historically, Christian faith has always grown strongest under the threat and persecution of repressive regimes. Freedom, then, isn't a necessary prerequisite for religious belief. Nor is it impossible for freedom to develop without religion.

Another lie that seems to permeate American Christianity - and one I don't seem to have picked up on as having been written about a lot - is the sentiment that Romney introduced in his speech. Before I go too far down this road, I'll say this for myself: Much like Lee Greenwood, I'm proud to be an American. And as a native Texan, I'm even more proud of that heritage. But they both pale when it comes to being a Christian. And the corollary of the lie that Christianity requires freedom seems to be that sometimes, the greatest lie that we've been sold on is that we, as Christians, have won ... and that it's our duty to enforce a presumably selective reading of, at best - a first century legalistic Christianity encoded into law; and at worst - a selectively chosen Old Testament law to live by. We've already won - Christians are in the majority - so what's to hold us back from manifesting Christianity through coercive government.

That the words "Jesus" and "Christ" do not seem to answer that for more people is a telling indicator that, in fact, we've not won anything.

I've written before that I appreciate most of the arguments put forth by Greg Boyd on the role of religion and politics. Boyd retouches on a few thoughts from "Myth of a Christian Nation" in his blog post about Mark Lilla's "A Stillborn God." Again, read the whole thing. But if this isn't provocative enough reading to kick off the new year with, then I don't know what else I might cut and paste to accomplish that with:

The secular concept of political freedom has only been around for several hundred years and the verdict is still out as to whether it will survive. The political theology of Nazism demonstrates how easy it is even for modern western people to slip back into theologically-based politics, and how harmful this can be when it happens.

I think Lilla is profoundly right about this as well. It's part of what concerns me when right or left wing Christians declare their political opinions to be the "Christian" position or to represent the politics of God.

I suspect many Christians would read Lilla's book as a slam on the Christian religion and a defense of full blown secularism. In a sense, it is. But I don't see this as a bad thing, for the movement Jesus came to establish -- the Kingdom of God -- can't be identified with the Christian religion. In fact, insofar as the Christian religion hasn't looked like Jesus Christ loving, serving and dying for his enemies (and let's be honest, if often hasn't), it contrasts with the Kingdom of God. It's in the interest of all Kingdom people to passionately point this sharp contrast out to people.

I've had to read and re-read that last paragraph several times over to really appreciate it. I'd be remiss to not recommend a closer reading of it to anyone else. It's worth arguing with, but I'd also recommend a little familiarity with Boyd before going too deeply down that road. When he's on a roll, he's not for the faint of heart.

I'm presently in a very slow-starting read through a great trilogy of books by Taylor Branch on the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s. My aim was twofold. One, it's a seriously great read. But two ... as one of the more impressive displays of massive political resistance in recent American history, I expect it to push and challenge Boyd's thesis somewhat. Enough, I hope, that I feel I've gotten any lingering questions about it answered in my own mind.

In particular, there is what seems to be a paradox between the points I accept by Boyd and those by Joel Hunter - another pastor I greatly enjoy reading and listening to. Hunter actively participates in political discussions, Boyd does not. There seems, to me, some points where Boyd suggests that we should let our faith inform our decisions on how to vote, but the point seems not entirely well defined for those of us who reside in that intersection of faith and politics for whatever reasons (and my own includes reasons of my professional work).

Hunter, more emphatically, points out that we should have a worldview defined by, and informed by a Christian perspective. Hunter has noted his conservative political views. Boyd, I like to think, borrows from Jesus' own practice of simply not answering the political question before him. But his expressed views are at least heartening to some range of people who reside, politically, in the center-left realm. To my way of thinking, there's an area where both men haven't fleshed out enough between their views (talk about your niche marketing!).

I'm picking up Joel Hunter's "A New Kind of Conservative" and I'm bound and determined to find some way to fit it into my schedule. I consider myself predisposed to liking it, even if I don't necessarily share his broader political viewpoint. For better or worse, I'm sure to be writing a little more about the topic.

After Hunter, my book of choice will be Amy Sullivan's "The Party Faithful: How and Why Democrats Are Closing the God Gap." Amy currently is an editor at Time magazine, but I've followed her since her days as a mere blogger, working her way through grad school. I've always loved her take on matters of faith and politics and likely share far more of her political views than those of Hunter. I'm going in presuming the book to be more about the political than Christian side of the street, so I'm not sure how the book fits into the line of examination that I'm about to get into. But I also consider Amy a friend of sorts (thanks email!), so to suggest that I'm partial on this book is a huge understatement. I'm more than confident that it'll add to the discussion.