Careful on the Interpretation

 

     I’ve seen a number of comments recently on the earthquake in Virginia (between DC and Richmond, but most news sites say it was in DC), and of course almost as quickly as the ‘did you feel that’ comments went through, it was immediately followed by the ‘God was making a statement to our leaders in DC’ comments.  Fortunately, no one appears to be seriously injured, but there are some buildings that will need attention.  My title is aimed more at the ‘God’s making a statement’. 

     I’ve explained my view in the previous post who want to use God and what political party Christians should vote for and the dangers in doing that.  Now I guess the cute thing to do is say God’s trying to get people’s attention through natural disasters.  To me that’s even more dangerous than trying to say how God would vote in American politics.  At the very least, it’s easy to poke fun at that sentiment.  Of course, that fits in with the ‘vengeful God’ concept a lot of people have.  I’m not going to get into a long-winded discussion about that, I’ll save that for when I’m more introspective.  I will end this with a short humorous story I read in a Reader’s Digest many years ago.

‘A lawyer was making his opening statement in a civil trial.  At one point during his statement, a small earthquake shook the courthouse.  Being quick witted, the lawyer turned to the judge and said “at least someone agrees with me, your honor’.  The judge smiled, and replied, ‘earthquakes come from below, don’t they?”’

Does God vote?

 

I’m going to go on a little bit of a rant right now, because a couple of things are really setting me off.  There are multiple groups, sites, etc., that want to directly inject religion into American politics.  These groups are stating that their particular political philosophy is the one God ‘supports’ (who knew God was a special interest group?)  I am not trying to single out any one group on this (although this phenomenon does seem to exist more on one side than the other), it’s just that for me this whole thing is starting to cross over into the silly.

I have a difficult time with those who want to bring politics and religion together.  I am NOT being critical of those whose faith is a major factor in their political philosophy and decision making processes.  If their faith is a major factor in their life, I would expect it to be this way.  If one were to go digging through history, we would find multiple instances where politics and religion were made mutually exclusive.  On the individual level, this is difficult at best, and more probably impossible.  But for as diverse a country as this one, it is a necessity.  People were worried when John F. Kennedy was running for President, because he was a Roman Catholic.  (The Pope would be influencing American policy was one expressed concern) and this wasn’t the first time the situation presented itself (Alfred E. Smith in the election of 1920 was another time the Roman Catholic religion was an issue in American politics). 

One aspect of this that’s really grating on me right now are people who say Christians should support only one party.  To me, it’s insane to say that being a good baptist, catholic, etc. means you should only support party x.  In my view, not only is this insane (despite those who can give extensive theses to the contrary) it borders, if not completely goes over the line into judging other people.  I’ve already made my thoughts known about that issue, so I won’t rehash.  Suffice to say, it’s not something we should be doing (I know, I know, I’m doing what I say we shouldn’t, but I’m not judging these people’s salvation, just their sanity).

I believe a person’s faith is ultimately an individual matter.  How we express our faith and how we interact with others is something each individual has to work out on their own.  How one votes, or believes the government’s priorities should be, is really not a reflection of that person’s faith.   Everyone has their struggles, or issues where what their heart and head believe differ greatly, and create major internal conflict.  Or, it may be a case where they have accepted something that, on the surface, appears to be in conflict with the faith, but if you talk and listen to the person’s reasons, it is in complete agreement with that faith.  It would be a far better use of our time to focus on our own faith and issues instead of trying to get everyone else to think like us.  Or have we all decided to try and be like the Borg ‘resistance is futile’.  Well, I’ll resist as long as I can.

Politics? Nah, I prefer theater

     I’ve been making a concerted effort in the last few months to leave everything political alone.  Why?  The simple and short answer is that I have become so frustrated and cynical at the whole process.  It’s gotten to the point where I can hear about a particular issue or fight in our nation’s capital and pretty much predict what the end result will be without trying very hard.  I’ve honestly given up on anyone in either of the American political parties doing the ‘right thing’.  If it really fit, I think I’d call myself a political agnostic (I think that is in the same category as Calvin and Hobbes ‘math atheist’).

     Take the most recent debt ceiling drama.  I knew when the issue was first brought forward into the ‘public consciousness’ they would drag the process out until the ‘last minute’ all the while going through the motions of trying to come to an agreement and putting down the attempts of the other side (it’s at that point when both sides put up the ‘unreasonable’ and ‘ideologically pure’ suggestions, knowing they’d get shot down by the other side).  Then, when everyone watching is getting their blood pressure and nerves up, they come out with a ‘compromise’.  Of course, it falls short of what everyone wants.  Those who we turn to for leadership tell us ‘it’s the best compromise we could come up with in the limited time we had’ and that’s supposed to make everyone relax and move on to the next ‘crisis’.  Again, using the most recent event, the next act is apparently testing how screwing up our own economy will affect the rest of the world, along with an extended version of the blame game (anyone want to actually lead instead of just wanting the power that we give to leaders?) 

     As an aside, does anyone think the ‘final result’ is something all involved put together behind the scenes while the ‘drama’ unfolded?  Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was.  In my view, politics (at least on the national level) has become almost as scripted as the best Shakespearian drama.  Apparently some people took the ‘all the world’s a stage’ line to its’ logical extreme.  It’s either that or they are trying a variation of the quote ‘you will never lose money underestimating the taste of the people’, theirs says ‘you won’t lose your elected position by underestimating the intelligence of the people’.