Yes. Love is a Political Stance.

“Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.” John 13:34-35

I spent a lot of my life in church. And in church, I heard about my sin, my shame, and the inevitable uselessness of my effort to do anything good. How often the words “amazing grace! How sweet the sound, That saved a wretch like me” churned through my mind. And not in a good way. Jesus died because I was a sinner. I put him up on that cross. I had to accept this fact, pledge alliance to the evangelical doctrine, and put my money in the plate. The southern Gospel in summation. 

For a young southern evangelical the only path in life is creating more evangelical believers. This is what life is. Accept Jesus as Lord and savior, then convince more people to accept Him Lord and savior. Everything else is a waste. How dare you enjoy life, or refuse to live in constant state of tension with non-believers? Don’t they know they’re going to hell?!?!? 

Even after my unique experience with Jesus in my early 20′s- which did not happen in church- I could not shake a need to be “something big” for God. I had to change the world and get people saved and heal the sick and cast out demons and prophecy to the masses and and and and and and…. This need to prove myself, to live up to the calling of God on every Christian life, led to some serious battles with suicide and depression. 

After failing to amount to anything as a Christian, I did something radical in my mid 20′s. I began to read the Bible. For myself. It was eye opening. You might be able to predict what happened next.

By my late 20′s I stopped going to church. I did not have the capacity to sit through sermons about holiness or morality or getting people saved for the sake of getting people saved. What about love? What about forgiveness? People are hurting and all you care about is their sin. Jesus wants our hearts, not perfection. 

Then the election of 2008 happened.

I possess a memory from that time of a prominent minister in which he used the imagery of Gandalf the Grey’s battle with Balrog on the Bridge of Khazad Dum to illustrate his call to fight the passage of Obamacare. To clarify, in this memory, the minister is Gandalf and Obamacare is a fiery demon. I’ll never forget when the minister said- in all seriousness- “we need to say ‘YOU!! SHALL NOT PASS!’” I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. 

Is this what church is? A battleground for political issues? I’ve read the Bible. Anyone can justify any number of economic and political systems according to scripture. Did you know in Leviticus 25 the Lord our God says the land is His and we humans are just tenants?! This flies directly in the face of the modern Western ideal of property rights. But you won’t hear that preached in church. 

As I wrote above, by my mid 20′s I decided to pursue Jesus on my own. I no longer trusted the leaders I knew. And I decided Jesus would settle all Biblical disputes, starting with what’s important and how to live. 

So what did Jesus say is important? The most important? This is not hard. It’s love. (I would also accept Jesus’ affirmation he is the Christ, but that’s circular.) 

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and spirit. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you. 

This is not the Golden Rule, by the way. Jesus commanded us to love, to be patient and kind. To never give up. To rejoice in the flowering of truth. To put up with anything. Trust God always. Always looks for the best. Never look back, and keep going to the end. When we read the Gospels we see Jesus literally walking this out day after day. 

The love Jesus exhorts us to function from is something we cannot manufacture on our own. It comes as an outpouring of His presence in our hearts. 

As a result of Jesus’ work on my heart, I’ve had somewhat of a softening toward church and evangelical church leaders. They are people too. Most of them are trying their best and are simply blind in some areas. The main reason for this softened stance is in John 13. 

Jesus, oddly, gave His disciples a new commandment in John 13- to love each other in the way He loved them. Then Jesus added an encouragement that people would know “you are my disciples by how you love one another.” Holy. Crap. Unless I’m wrong- and I could be- in no other place in scripture do we see this type of promise. Not healing people. Not raising the dead. How we love each other. That’s how the world we will know who we are. 

In this age of constantly trying to one up each other and tribalism, I’m gonna attempt to stand on love. I don’t want to be part of a party or wing or -ist, ism. I just want to love Jesus and people. Love for gays, trans, and immigrants. Love for the elderly, the wealthy, and racists. Love for the angry Antifa members and Trump voters. Love for the Muslims, Atheists, and southern Baptists. Love for those who hate me, and my especially my momma. Love first and always. That’s my stance for 2020 and beyond.

I refuse to turn people into enemies regardless of how that treat me. 

 Yes, political issues including but not limited to Black Lives Matter, healthcare, the environment, COVID-19, sex trafficking, etc are social problems to be address in practical ways, by all of us. But without love and grace, we will devolve into a legalistic society hell bent on destroying itself by the law.