I vividly remember my early days as a Christian. Every chance I got I would listen to Christian preaching on the radio. And when I wasn’t doing that I was absorbing my Bible and other good Christian books. I feel like at this time I had an unblemished view of the Kingdom, and Christian values. I believe my instincts were good, and I could see everything from an untarnished Christian point of view. But that all changed one day when I picked up a book by Rush Limbaugh. That would forever change my perception of God’s kingdom with the infusion of partisan politics into my faith. According to some Christian leaders, this was okay, and Limbaugh’s words were gospel truth.
James Dobson whom I deeply respect, and whom I listened to religiously helped me to make sense of my faith, culture, and politics from a conservative Christian point of view. To round out my worldview though, I leaned heavily into books by the late Chuck Colson. Colson is probably the most influential Christian philosopher (of sorts) of our modern era. I still cherish what I learned from these people. Much of what I learned is still the foundation for everything I believe today. But I found myself getting very angry. Angry at how the system duped me, and how it was duping others. Democrats were my favorite target, and I saw them as the clear enemy bent on doing evil. The anger only got worse over time. The question I kept asking myself was: why didn’t I have this sort of animosity before when I was just consuming my bible and Christian content without the influence of the religious-right in my life?
Some of these things haven’t changed, but now I see things in a much more nuanced way. No party has a monopoly on the truth. I’ve realized that while politics matters, it makes a poor foundation for a soul. The truth is the Kingdom of God isn’t found on a ballot; it’s found in how we treat the ‘enemy’ we’ve been told to hate.
It’s very easy to let politics become your religion, and sometimes the two are barely distinguishable from one another. There is a software design principle known as Separation of Concerns (SoC). In simple terms, it’s the strategy of doing one thing and doing it well without letting different parts of the code overlap and interfere with one another. My newfound politics was interfering with my faith, giving me what I believe was a toxic faith. To get to the truth, we sometimes need to separate the Gospel from all of our cultural influences. I want see everything through pure unadulterated Gospel eyes not necessarily through someone else’s background and experiences. Of course, we need to apply the Gospel truth to our modern lives, but that’s another topic for another day.
I’m no longer looking for a party to tell me the truth; I’m looking for the truth to tell me how to engage with the world. If your faith makes you more angry than it makes you loving, it might be time to check which ‘kingdom’ you’re actually serving.