The gospel of anything but the gospel

Yesterday at lunch we talked about political parties. My position is that a two-party system is lousy, because it creates potential polarity. We've done okay for a couple of hundred years, but now the polarity has become actual. "If we disagree, and I'm right, then that must make you . . . " If I label myself a Republican, then naturally all Democrats are wrong. (This is why I'm registered as an independent. We're all wrong someplace, but if we have to stick to a party platform, then suddenly my party is right and everyone else is wrong.)

In the biggest scheme, that may not be very consequential. What is consequential to me is the fact that Christians are attacking each other because the other belongs to another political party. Right now the Evangelical polarizers are abortion and gay marriage. Obviously, the Republicans are "against" that (or not), so the Republicans are godly and right. Which means the Democrats are evil. (I've heard this logic spoken in my workplace.) What would happen if we realized that the Republicans were pro-life for unborn babies, whereas the Democrats are pro-life for basically everyone else, including innocent Iraqis, American soldiers, the poor, etc.? If we had a single party that was consistently pro-life, I might become partisan.

However, I think I'll have to take my religious convictions and find the best middle way possible. I don't see a third party coming in to destabilize this inhuman behemoth that many have touted as the glorious Two-Party System. This leads me to my actual point, which is how Christians have sold out by making politics the important thing rather than engaging themselves as actors in the biblical story. I've started a class called "Reconciliation and the Healing of Persons," which is Systematic Theology 2 in a much more palatable form. I read a quote in one of the required books that answered the question at the lunch table yesterday: Shouldn't Christians take a stand for the appropriate party?

"I am concerned that the gap between theology and the church has become so great that most Christians actually know more about sports, hobbies, and national politics than they know about Christian doctrine. As a result, Christians often explain their faith in terms of their own experiences or political stances that they hold as Christians. They don’t know much about the gospel, and their knowledge of the gospel isn’t nearly as profound as their knowledge of other areas of life" (Jonathan R. Wilson, God So Loved the World, p 13).

We worry ourselves about many things, which are fine pursuits in themselves, but when sports or politics or some other gospel becomes the controlling metanarrative rather than the gospel of Jesus, I guarantee you'll end up with today's America.