politics

This week I spent about 50 hours volunteering with the DNC. I was in the credentialing department and worked as a driver (which meant I had an abundance of free time to get stuff done for the fshbwl when I wasn't out driving). On the whole, I was really impressed with how smoothly everything ran and thought the city did a fantastic job with the whole event.

But beyond the organizational side, I was also able to participate in some of the actual major events, including Monday night in the Pepsi Center (where Michelle Obama was featured) and Thursday night at Mile High (where Barack Obama accepted the presidential nomination). Flowing out of these activities, I have two major thoughts.

First, we spend way too much money on what, in the end, is just a really big party. Sure there was some work that was accomplished in the side meetings, and there's energy developed for the campaign by the major events, but in the end, I just don't see it being worth the multi-million dollar investment.

Second, now more than ever it's clear that, when it comes to the two political parties, neither side really listens to the other. The clearest example of this came last night after I got out of Mile High. The people I was driving were at some party backstage so I had a while to wait for them to get out to the car. Wanting to get a heads up on traffic, I clicked on 850 KOA, the best source of traffic but also an admittedly right wing talk station.

As I listened to the commentator talk while I waited for a traffic update, my jaw hit the floor as he took the statement, "Every American who puts in an honest days work should be able to support his or her family." and turned it into, "We're going to give you money whether you earn it or not." This was followed by all of the handout and socialist type language that is typically used by Republicans when talking about Democrats.

Of course, I'm sure next week, when McCain finishes, there will be a left-winger who take a statement like, "People need to put forth the effort to help themselves out of bad situations." and turn it into, "I don't care if you don't have boots, haul yourself up by your non-existent bootstraps."

Of course, it's not just those in Washington with this issue, after all, there are people who will avoid Obama's speech but hold fast to the right-wing commentary and others who will ignore what McCain says while feasting on left-wing responses.

When will we realize that only reading and interacting stuff we agree with does nothing more than foster ignorance?

Last week I ran across this article, an interview with Tim Keller, in Christianity Today. This week in my blog I decided to look at the questions he was asked, pull a quote from his answers, and share some thoughts.

Q: The recent Pew study talked about changing patterns of belief in America. Has that affected your apologetics ministry?

A: Evangelicalism has been so identified with conservative Republican values that a lot of people who might be more moderate have decided they are not religious. I've seen that happen in New York. They're moderate or liberal politically, and they feel like orthodox Christianity is so identified with conservative Republican politics that they have actually distanced themselves from the faith.

For me, the corrective to this problem becomes the church focusing on a broader set of issues. Over the past number of years, Christianity has essentially become, at least in the public sphere, about a select few moral issues. Since those few issues match up with the agenda of the Republican party, Christians have in turn adopted other values held by Republicans and made them Christian issues. In other words, something that should have remained non-reciprocal, became reciprocal (yes, for all you Sem educated folks, that language is intention and I am thinking of the second genus).

But what if churches, rather than holding onto just a few select issues pulled out everything Scripture offers ... social justice, creation stewardship, just war, etc. Suddenly you have issues that, at least at some level, gel with both parties and, if nothing else, people who are more concerned about those oft ignored issues can at least feel as if they aren't excluded from the church on the basis of their political party.

It also allows you to have a whole lot more fun with election day, aka, national sin boldly day.