Putting Faith before Politics

“When politics undermines our theology, we must examine that politics. The church’s role is to change the world through the life and love of Jesus Christ. The government’s role is to serve the common good by protecting justice and peace, rewarding good behavior while restraining bad behavior (Romans 13). When that role is undermined by political leadership, faith leaders must stand up and speak out. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state.'” — Reclaiming Jesus

During the 2018 Easter season, the Most Rev. Michael Curry, the presiding bishop and primate of the Episcopal Church, and Jim Wallis, a progressive evangelical leader, along with a diverse group of additional Christian church leaders, banded together to fight for the soul of the nation by issuing a declaration called “Reclaiming Jesus: A Confession of Faith in a Time of Crisis.”

We are living through perilous and polarizing times as a nation, with a dangerous crisis of moral and political leadership at the highest levels of our government and in our churches. We believe the soul of the nation and the integrity of faith are now at stake.

It is time to be followers of Jesus before anything else—nationality, political party, race, ethnicity, gender, geography—our identity in Christ precedes every other identity.

The declaration includes “six affirmations of what we believe, and the resulting rejections of practices and policies by political leaders which dangerously corrode the soul of the nation and deeply threaten the public integrity of our faith.”

The affirmations include beliefs that “each human being is made in God’s image and likeness,” that “we are one body,” and that “how we treat the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the stranger, the sick, and the prisoner is how we treat Christ.” These Christian beliefs require us to reject “white nationalism and racism,” “misogyny,” “attacks on immigrants and refugees,” and “cutting services and programs for the poor.”

Also included are beliefs that “truth is morally central to our personal and public lives,” that “Christ’s way of leadership is servanthood, not domination,” and that Jesus said “to go into all nations making disciples.” These beliefs require us to reject “the practice and pattern of lying that is invading our political and civil life,” to resist “any moves toward autocratic political leadership and authoritarian rule,”and to “reject “America first” as a theological heresy.”

The Latter-day Saints have made our own move toward “Reclaiming Jesus” in our recent re-emphasis on the use of the full name of the Church. Let us hope that our renewed focus on taking upon ourselves the name of Jesus Christ will also lead us to more fully adopt and live His teachings in both our daily lives AND our political lives.

Sources: “Reclaiming Jesus: A Confession of Faith in a Time of Crisis,” (Online) http://www.reclaimingjesus.org/.
“Christian leaders call out the heresy of Trumpism,” E.J. Dionne, Jr., The Washington Post, May 23, 2018.