Jesus Is Not Your Political Property

Neither the Republican nor the Democratic party can lay a greater claim to "Christian values," because Jesus Christ didn't come to Earth to establish a political kingdom[1], and he expressly called his disciples to reject political and other worldly divisions. We are to be one in Christ, not one in any man-made political ideology.

Both the Republican and the Democratic parties in the United States are strongly influenced by Christian ideologies because Christianity has historically been and remains a majority religion in the United States. Furthermore, many members of both parties are Christians, not merely in name but in practice.

The reason that Republican Christians and Democratic Christians disagree about which party is more compatible with Christian discipleship is because Christianity has a complicated, millennias-old history of interpreting its own doctrines and sacred texts. Neither party is the party of Jesus.

This does not mean that Christians should be apolitical. Although we are called to be not of the world, we are also called to live in the world and to be a force for moral good in our communities by word and by example. But it does mean that we must avoid taking our Lord's name in vain by claiming (or even allowing ourselves to privately believe) that Jesus is "on our side" or "against the other side" politically. We are called to be on His side, and not the other way around.

Image: "Black Marble: Americas." NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Flickr. CC BY 2.0.

[1] We understand that following His second coming, Jesus will establish a kingdom on Earth which will be both spiritual and political, but it's not that time yet, and it would be the height of arrogance to assume we know what that kingdom will look like or how its government will function. Our sacred texts give us only a few clues, and those clues don't look much like any human government that we have any record of.

A Love Letter to My Female Friends

When I was a very little girl, I reveled in pink everything, and in frilly dresses. By the time I reached adolescence, I disdained "girly" things and performative femininity because they felt too constricted.

During and after puberty, I struggled to love my increasingly feminine body. I liked myself, but the messages I heard from my local and national culture about female bodies and female minds left me feeling very ambivalent. I felt like I needed to prove that I wasn't one of those women (no woman is, really; but I didn't know that then). In many ways that attitude endured into adulthood.

But then something happened. I met a series of amazing women, some of whom revel in performative femininity, and others who don't. And I discovered feminism. Not the caricature of feminism that I was told about in disapproving tones as a child and young woman, but actual feminism, which is far more complex and inclusive than I had imagined.

I got plugged into more than one network of women who taught me by word and example that womanhood and femininity don't have to be constricting. Rather, womanhood and even performative femininity can be powerful and celebratory. They taught me to interrogate and resist those cultural messages that told me there was something (oh so many somethings) wrong with my femaleness. These women continually love and support and challenge me. They help me grow.

My life has followed a course I never could have expected and did not plan. I cannot imagine how I could have navigated that course and remained spiritually whole without my beloved women friends. I need them like I need oxygen and like I need chocolate.

(I love my guy friends too, and the amazing men in my family who love and support and challenge me. But they are more like icing on the cake! They are a wonderful bonus.)

As Leslie Knope says: