And just to be clear, I do agree that the Kingdom will not come through government. This will hopefully be more evident in my next post. Glad we all agree that Mitt Romney was out of pocket!

“There was once a little boy who was about to cross a river and a rattle snake came up beside him. The snake looked at the boy and said, Would you be so kind to take me across the river? The boy looked at the snake and said no way, you bite! The snake said, No, I promise, I will not bite you. So the boy trusted the snake, picked the snake up and took it safely to the other side. As soon as the boy put the snake down, the snake rattled and bit the boy. The boy said, Hey you promised not to bite me! The snake said, You knew what I was when you picked me up, what did you expect?”

You see Mitt and all of the political elite (obviously not all but allow me to paint with a broad brush for a moment) are simplying doing what comes natural to them… protecting their own and lining their pockets. What more could we expect? The truth is that God has given the church the mandate to uphold His Word and take care of the poor. Could it be that we (I am part of that collective we) have fallen down on the job… fallen asleep at the proverbial wheel? Many times in our church services we quote 2 Corinthians chapter 9 in an effort to encourage the saints to give. Perhaps this giving is targeted toward the building fund or some other endeavour. But a careful look at the scripture says that the purpose of this particular offering, outlined in the aforementioned text, is to send to the church in Jerusalem mind you the poor in Jerusalem as they had fallen on hard times. I can only imagine what would happen if the church began taking up collections for the sole purpose of alleviating some of the suffering of others. Yeah I know we have our benevolence fund and we give a certain percentage to missions, but in the grand scheme of things how much does this compare to the amount that is collected? I don’t have insight into any church budget but I am going to go out on a limb (and I am confident it will hold) and say that the bulk of the money that is collected goes toward purchasing buildings, building upkeep, programs, all sorts of overhead, but nothing really to do with helping the poor. I am afraid there is something seriously wrong with this picture. Judgement must first begin at the house of God. You see the problem in Washington, the world and the church is a heart issue, and no amount of public policy will fix it. I am not against Christians participating in the political square. In fact I am for it and believe that we should work for laws that are just and hold our public officials accountable. However we must not get caught up in what Chuck Colson calls “the political illusion”, (the idea that politics is going to solve all of our problems). The kingdom does not come through Washington, but rather through the people of God as we uphold is Word and put it into practice. Romney and others will only speak and do what their flesh dictates, but let us, the people of God speak and do what God’s Word dictates.

From my vantage point Mitt has simply echoed the words of Newt on this topic. The narrative follows this direction, “If those poor folk would develop a work ethic then they wouldn’t be poor.” The condescending gaze of these powerful men are reminders that the colonial experiment of those other ‘sons of privilege’ is alive and well. This is the gaze of the colonialist who wrote so eloquently about liberty as they enslaved generations of families who worked without the freedom to own anything except the hope of death and freedom tied to the afterlife. It is also the gaze of preachers who utilized the Scriptures to shape ‘virtue’ in their own favor ignoring many of the words and works of the Messiah.

It’s amazing that one corner of American society has high jacked the concept of “values”, “valor” and “integrity” and everything associated with “good ole…” Some of the hardest working, most trust worthy people I know are poor, dirt poor. Christ intended to be born into poverty–it could be said that Christ would fit in well in societies less desirable communities and not so much in our ‘gated communities’.

But, MUCH more importantly, I think this should remind us as Christians to not wait on the government (and, yes, that includes you, Obama) to help those most in need. The Bible commands believers (not politicians) to take care of the poor. As individual Christians and as the global church, we need to take that burden upon ourselves, while Romney and his cronies do back flips into their golden swimming pools full of money.