Religion, Politics, Life and Death

I've been thinking alot lately about religion and politics. Perhaps more aptly styled faith and futility. I find it harder and harder to reconcile the faith I espouse with the politics of patriotism. Don't get me wrong, I love my country and yet do not really expect it to behave in a Christian manner. Government interests and Christian interests only coincide when expedient to the reigning political system. Clearly, Christ recognized this in advising that we "render unto Caesar what is Caesars and to God what is God's"

I don't dispute that a government's job is to protect and defend. However, I am coming to realize that the Christian response is perhaps the way of redemption rather than revenge. Perhaps we are called to address violence with nonviolence, hate with love, death with life. Even facing certain death, Jesus declined to incite a rebellion.

I always have thought that the death penalty was justified in some cases. The more I think about it the more unsure I am. As Christians we believe none are beyond redemption. Can we really know who God will use? David was and adulterer and murderer. Moses slew a man in anger. Paul presided over the stoning of Stephen and others. This is not to suggest that actions do not deserve consequences. Consequences are a part of the natural order and learning does not happen without them. However, we can protect society with life imprisonment and still act redemptively. This would also seem to be a wiser course given the demonstrated abuse of the process by prosecutors as well as the cases overturned by scientific evidence.

These issues and others and their troubling implications make the following observation of the blogger, Rick from Philadelphia, resonate with me. Rick says, "Personally I don't have the guts to follow Jesus, so I sometimes settle for being a Christian".