How to Be Political (Like Jesus) Without Losing Your Soul
This Sunday begins our six-week series on how to be…. Political.
😱🙀🤯
Such a big, scary word to so many of us. But because it scares us, many of us have one of two reactions: we either get angry whenever someone wants to “talk politics” or, for many, we hide, avoid the conversation, or redirect to something about the weather.
But politics isn’t about your political party - it’s about living with other humans. We have to make choices about how to shape the world around us (some of which become laws). Otherwise, the neighbors can crank up their music as loud as they want at 3am, or folks can drive and make turns without signals or brake lights. Eventually, we decide together on how to make rules that make for abundant life for our community, known in Greek as the “polis.”
Our church and the denomination it belongs to, the PC(USA) has long championed the freedom of conscience, which means that we don’t believe in telling people exactly how to live out their lives as followers of Jesus. What it DOES mean, however, is that there are certain principles, shown to us in the life of Jesus and illustrated throughout scripture, that guide and inform our conscience while helping us figure out right from wrong in our choices as communities.
THAT’S what this series is about.
I’ll have a lot more to say over the course of the next six weeks’s sermons, but I wanted to share a link here to a guide that can help you think about what it means to live politically AND faithfully.
The national Presbyterian church regularly studies topics rising up in our culture and national conversations, and this one is a repackaging of work done by a committee of people like you and me from 1988. They sat down together, studied the Bible, scholars, and best practices of other Christian groups, in order to help us understand the wild world we live in and how to interact with it. They re-released it for American’s 250th celebration this year and made it clearer for the questions we’re asking today.
Why “Presbyterian” Will Never Be a Political Party
Read the first page summary, and then dive deeper if you have time.
Feeling like you have “political” questions that you don’t feel safe sharing with others? Reach out to me (LINK to MESSAGE FORM https://www.firstpreshampton.org/staff-contact ). I can promise that I’ll never shame you for your ideas or your votes, I’ll do my best to seek understanding before being understood (shout out to St Francis of Assisi for that one!) and I’ll always try to bring you, and me, and all of us closer to the walk that Jesus walked.
Walking with you,
Eric