Pensees: Another Quote of the Week

Another Quote of the Week

Dan Burrell speaks my mind! I don’t talk politics often here. I have my own views of politics and government and being the contented misfit that I am I don’t chant the party line. I’m a registered Republican, but I am seriously thinking about changing that (if I can. I think registering Republican was my best option. It’s been so long. Illinois may require registering with a party. Some states do. I need to check this out.). Not that changing my registration to “independent” would have any effect on anything (probably not even my vote), but at least it would relieve me of the vexation I constantly feel as a “registered Republican voter.” When LaShawn Barber was wondering outloud on her blog about whether or not she should join the Republican party I was among the minority that argued for her to stay independent. (Again, not that I imagine she even read my argument!)

Besides, I have often wondered about my outreach to the community, the unsaved, if they know that I am formally linked to a party, the Republican party. Chuckle all you want at my private concern, but I am personally alarmed at the near religious loyalty American Christians have for their party. And dream all you want, but the party is not Christian. I’m not prepared to have to always answer for the sins of the “religious right-wing party.” There are enough elements of my identity as a whole person, a Christian servant of God, that make a gulf between me and the average Joe American that I don’t feel it is necessary to add to it the fact that I am a card-carrying Republican. I personally think that when there is no longer the remotest possibility whatsoever to imagine that there is a “Christian” party (a religious right) that American Christians will be once and for all liberated from the fantasy that they can change the world politically. Then they will return to the higher calling of pilgrimage, quietly placing their votes but actively functioning as citizens of Another City and ambassadors of Another Kingdom.

Now, I’m going to vote. Believe me: I am going to vote. It’s my civic duty. And, besides, voting gives me the right to gripe! I’d feel so hypocritical otherwise. ;-)

But Dan Burrell who has more knowledge of politics in his little finger than I do in my entire body, who has been really, really involved in politics beyond entering the polling booth, and who is also a fundamental baptist pastor is backing off political activism. He even goes so far as to commit sacrilege: he questions the war. On this topic (a very sensitive topic) as well, he speaks my mind.

I started out a strong supporter of the war. I bought the whole WMD line and very much stood with the President on the matter. I have my doubts now. And I am not influenced by liberal media. It’s the White House that has turned me. Bush may be a man of integrity (I can’t tell anymore), but he is certainly part of a party machine that is corrupt to the core and that is evidenced in hundreds of other unrelated decisions that continue to empower government and strengthen the future base (Bush’s big government) for a more radical liberalism that will one day be in power. I speculate (and digress), but thanks to Bush they will have more power than they would have had before 2001.

Now for Dan Burrell’s quote (after you have read this, go read his entire article. Friend Brian McCrorie puts up a good argument, but I’m with Dan on this one.):

Here’s a reason [for side-lining himself politically] that may shock some of you but, I’d still like to see someone from the administration reconcile the war with Iraq and the totally bogus intelligence used to take us there. Many people question my sanity and my salvation for daring to question the war, but as the father of an 18-year-old son, I’m not thrilled with the idea that we are sending our boys to the desert to prop up an Islamic so-called democracy which has no use for infidel Christians and is already seeking a relationship with the extremist regime in Iran. As for Afghanistan, I wouldn’t want my son dying for a nation that would execute an evangelical in a heartbeat for preaching Jesus.

Read Dan Burrell’s article.