Politics of Good News
In his book, The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus: What’s So Good About the Good News, Rev. Dr. Peter Gomes notes that good news for some is often bad news for others (my paraphrase). How do ministers preach and live as followers of Jesus, and encourage their parishioners and communities to go and do likewise, in a political and civic religion climate that is a mashup of characters from “Gangs of New York”, the Civil War, and the Civil Rights eras. Christendom in the United States is having a crisis of conscious and a crisis of theology. Some want to revise history and our Constitution so that America is a ‘christian’ Nation to battle the non-christian Nation States. Have they seen the movie, “Kingdom of Heaven”? Others reaching for Bonhoeffer books. Others embracing a tolerant and accepting diversity willing to work with others without requiring them to believe exactly as they do. Sometimes this perspective feels a bit like moral relativism.
Beliefs have become more normative than ideas, facts, and consistency. Christendom is having a crisis of conscious and crisis of theology as it seeks a moral compass devoid of specific political identity in a time of hyper-political us and them. Evangelicals of all kinds embraced the authoritarian Pres-Elect? Why? From my listening some feel as if they are District 12 fighting the Capitol. What do some want? To install a President in hopes of legislating discrimination from their theology about abortion, who can marry whom, their narrative of a christian Nation, and desire to reign and call it governing. Had the south had different language during the Civil War some may have argued that slavery was a religious liberty issue for which Christians in the south were being discriminated against when these United States emancipated slaves.
An article on The Christian Century website provides some insight into the struggle of those called to minister and specifically ‘preach’ each week.
“Why I worry about the pastors of politically divided churches.”
by M. Craig Barnes, Dec 20, 2016I spent ten years as the pastor of a large congregation in Washington, D.C., and learned how to speak on issues that divide the nation. “The goal,” I now tell my students at the seminary, “is to preach into the cultural divisions in a way that transcends the competing political platforms.” I still believe that. Click here to read more.