It seems like the past couple of posts I’ve written here have been focused toward the Christian subculture is some way or another. Not really where I want to keep focusing my thoughts, because I don’t want to sound like I’m in a bubble, but this really gets my attention.
Since I’ve lived in the Bible Belt (for those unfamiliar with, it’s a group of southern states in which religion is as common as football), I have been amazed at how politics play into the Christian faith. You can always tell the people here who claim to be Believers because of two (very corny and disgusting) things: that stupid fish on the backs of their cars, and bumper stickers that read something along to lines of “Bush for President” or “I voted for Bush” or something equally invoking of rolling your eyes.
In fact, there seems to be this underlying thought process that, if you’re not Republican and you don’t support George W. Bush, then you’re not a Believer, or at least not a practicing one. Guess that rules me out. I’m not advocating that Believers isolate themselves from politics, because that would make us irresponsible citizens. But the fact that my opinion diverges from yours politically doesn’t make either of us more or less of a person of faith.
I think it’s a microcosm of a larger problem, however, and that is the problem of how faith and creative thinking seem to be ostracized from each other. In my experience, especially in this geographic location, having faith means that you have to act, talk, and walk a certain way. It means that there’s a box you have to fit into, with out deviation. It means that independent thinking is absolutely not permitted…only blind acceptance of what a man in a suit with a Bible and an axe to grind tells you. This leads those who are of a more creative bent to struggle. We are sent the message that we cannot reconcile being an artist with being a Christian…we should choose one or the other. And many flee the faith because of it, because God hard-wired them to be artists, but they’re told that they can’t be.
And still others are treated as lepers because they hold a different political view.
It is so critical that Believers re-prioritize. God made many different people, with different personalities and gifts. He wants us to be different, to be ourselves. Why in the world would anyone want to be part of a religion that doesn’t allow them to be themselves, but demands that they be something…someone…that they’re just not? Certainly, there is an internal change that transpires in a Believer, but that doesn’t involve placing that person into a mold, or programming them to look, act, and talk a specific way.
The issue is that Christianity was never meant to be a religion, it was meant to be a faith. God created spirituality, and man perverted it into religion. Spirituality is different than that…it is real, it’s not about a long list of rules, it’s not about magic words and rituals and traditions. It’s about talking to Him, knowing Him, believing Him. Just believing.
But religion has dominated our mindsets and poisoned our churches with the desire to gain status and acquire prestige. C.S. Lewis makes interesting comments on this in “The Screwtape Letters.” He feels that this type of mindset is the thing that demons enjoy. Demons love politics.
Does that mean that God hates politics? Perhaps God hates religion, too.
Now there’s a thought.