The Poison and the Cure: Kevin H

There is a trend that occurs here whenever I write an article that references Donald Trump….. the more that I make reference to Trump in the article, the more we will end up getting comments and commenters saying things like:

• But what about….. (fill in the blank – Biden, Hillary, Obama, etc.)?

• You’re just pushing your political agenda.

• You hate Trump and are teaching others to hate him.

• If you’re against Trump, then you must be for his opposition.

• You are so bitter and pompous and divisive.

• What about the Christians who support Biden and the Democrats?

• Why don’t you write about something positive that could actually teach people something good?

The ironic thing, as I often point out and yet the message never seems to get through, is that the focus of my writing is NEVER actually about Trump, but rather it is about the Christian response to Trump.  I point out that it is not actually about politics, but rather about how Christians conduct themselves within politics.  I point out that my main focus is not with how “others” or “outsiders” conduct themselves in the political arena, but rather with how my fellow believers and my own tribe conducts itself.  I even point out that I actually lean conservative on the political spectrum, but that my writing is rarely about arguing for political positions, parties, or politicians.

Despite all of this and the fact that one cannot actually find ANYTHING in my writings where I tell anybody how they should vote or where I promote any party or politician or political movement, some people seemingly cannot see beyond the politics.

Thus, they jump in to protect Trump, who is their champion, or at least the one they believe God has anointed as he did King Cyrus.  They accuse me that I am just out to tear down the man.  They ask incredulously  how I can spend so much time criticizing Trump when all those Democrats are out there doing things so much worse.  They accuse me of just being out to push my political agenda.  Even when they acknowledge my criticism of Christian behavior (while rarely acknowledging that this is actually the main point), they turn and say, “What about all those Christians who are supporting the Democrats just as badly?”

They play right into the tagline that I often place at the end of my articles, that of, “Partisan politics are poison to the soul.”  I believe what we see here at this blog is just a small snapshot of how poisonous partisan politics has become to our country as a whole, with sadly many, many Christians enthusiastically partaking in the poison.  When one writes from an angle of how God and Scripture teach us to approach these issues and one encourages the focusing of all political issues first through a lens of God’s character and teachings and His Kingdom and not through a lens of an earthly political binary divide, and the response is, “You’re just being political and pushing your political agenda and what about all those terrible Democrats, we see that the poison has seeped in deep.

Jesus truly is the cure to this poison.  Not the American, MAGA-hat-wearing, gun-toting, Republican Jesus who is carrying a Bible endowed with the Constitution and wrapped in an American flag, but the real Jesus who we see in Scripture and continues today to meet and touch people all throughout the world.

The difficulty is that many who profess to follow Christ today in America reject this real Jesus, or at least they reject the parts of Him that don’t align with their pre-established political ideals.  They don’t allow Jesus to be the cure to the poison, because they have mistakenly accepted the poison as something good from God, Himself.  The political lens through which they look at all things distorts the poison so that it looks righteous and good.

Now, we are all vulnerable to our own biases, predilections, and misunderstandings.  When I try to focus everything first through a God-lens, in no way am I saying I end up doing this anywhere near perfectly.  I am sure there are times I see something as being the “God-way”, when it turns out that it is just my own faulty predisposed inclinations causing me to see things that way.  I claim no superiority in being able to apply the God-lens better than everyone else.

Nonetheless, I at least try to use the God-lens and I at least have awareness of just how much other lenses can cloud our vision, with the politically partisan lens being a particularly popular and damaging lens in our nation today, including within the church.  When one writes that it is not good for Christians to ignore, justify, or even participate in sinful political behavior, and the response is, “You’re just trying to push your political agenda,” or, “What about those other political sinners,” then proof of the poison is made manifest.

Jesus is the cure.  But outside of a supernatural working of God, it’s going to take the Christian to recognize the poison in order to seek the cure for it.  Right now, many cannot see the poison for what it is, even to the extent of mistaking the poison as the cure, itself.

Many Christians in this nation today need to swap out their lenses to begin to see the poison and things for what they really are…  but are they even willing to try?

Lord, have mercy on us, sinners.