The Need for Humility from Christians Who Get Into the Political Fray

Rob Asghar, the Dimestore Guru, is having a "discussion" with a commenter on his blog. You might want to check it out. I wrote this response which I think will make sense even if you haven't read any of the background:

It seems to me that what you're commending here, Rob, is a humble approach to faith and life.

Just because we are Christians doesn't mean that we're incapable of being wrong. Just because George W. Bush is a man of faith who prays doesn't mean that he can't be wrong. And just because I'm a Christian, it doesn't mean that I know what ought to happen in our political process.

That's one reason why, when I pray for the President and other foreign
leaders, I tell God, "I have my preferences. But You know better. I just pray that You open their hearts and, in whatever ways You choose, send Christ to them. Then, with their hearts (and wills and minds) open to You, help them to do what You want them to do."

But even then, we must acknowledge that our leaders see through a glass darkly.

I've said it before and now I'm going to say it again: Because of the
security we Christians derive from our relationship with Jesus Christ and our utter dependence on Him, we can feel okay about prefacing all our opinions with
the simple statement of truth, "I could be wrong." In fact, since I am a sinful human being saved only by God's undeserved act of grace through Jesus Christ and because I am a finite mortal being, nothing is more probable at any given moment than that I am wrong, either wholly or in part.

The very first reality any follower of Jesus needs to acknowledge is that, "I'm not God."

By the way, this acknowledgement can be hard to make. The longer a person spends in the Christian subculture, especially one that encourages the kind of self-righteousness Jesus excoriated in the Pharisees, the more that person "identifies" with God and the tougher it becomes to admit that all my thoughts might not come with the input of the Holy Spirit, the wisdom of heaven, or the imprimatur of Jesus.

I'm reminded of Irving Stone's book, They Also Ran, which told the life-stories of the defeated nominees of the major parties for President. One of those profiled was three-time Democratic candidate, William Jennings Bryan, a deeply committed but shallow Christian. Stone described a progression in Bryan's warped thinking that ran roughly through these stages (I'm paraphrasing because I don't have the book in front of me and it's been more than thirty years since I read it in full):

I want to do God's will

I've been anointed by God to do His will

I alone know God's will

I am God

Whether they would admit to making a bald claim of deity or not, many Christians, at a functional level, seem to live as though they think that way. After insisting--rightly, I think--that there are such things as objective truth and right and wrong, they leap to the unfounded claim that they know it all through and through. They claim that God is a certain kind of conservative Republican and won't entertain other notions. They claim that God wants to get rid of Senate filibusters of judicial nominations, wanted us to go into Iraq, and thinks that Tom DeLay is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Others will insist that God wants to preserve the Social Security system as is and knows that the Republicans stole the 2000 election.

Maybe God does want and believe those things, but until people can show me chapter and verse in the Bible that's the case, I think that they ought to willingly label their opinions as their opinions, not God's word. None of this is to say that people with particular philosophies, informed by their own Christian sensibilities, shouldn't be politically active. But humility should inform our forays into political debates. We should be able to say, "I'm as willing to listen as to speak. I'm as willing to admit that I'm wrong as insist that I'm right."