For a long time now, I have been labeled as something of a Christian "liberal". This can be largely attributed to my stance against war, my passion for the poor, my decidedly undecided way of voting in elections, my passion to write every congressman and senator about all issues, my open stance on heavily polarized "hot bed" issues in the realm of politics, etc...etc. However, I find it disturbing, in the quiet moments I have with my God, that my stances are anything BUT liberal! My stances are at the root fundamental; and I use such a word here in an attempt to rescue it from the likes of Christian "Fundamentalists" who have come to be hated by much of the world which struggles day in and day out just to survive. My stances are fundamental to what it means to be a citizen of the Kingdom of God; but I am, and joining humanity in being, a huge hypocrite. For, my stances may land consistently on the side of the rudimentary foundations of the Kingdom of God, but my life rarely reflects such stances. I live in the tension that the Kingdom of God calls me to something that is so Upside Down from the paradigm that the world and much of the church has taught me to live. I am to love the unlovable, I am to take the bullet to defend the powerless rather than kill the powerful, I am to be actively involved in my government while maintaining that my expectations of them should rise no higher than that of any other broken system, and, in light of the last remark, I, personally, am responsible to the poor around the world, but am to live out of a paradigm that allows me to react and bring the Kingdom as a solution to the world's brokenness because God is worth it (NOT because I have to, to gain His favor). What does it look like to live as a citizen of the Kingdom of God, to live like Jesus? I think the answer is found in thinking backwards from all you’ve been taught. It is a scary thing to realize that more often than not, Jesus stands with the very groups we like to disassociate ourselves with.Check out Donald Miller's (Author of Blue Like Jazz and Searching for God KNows What) podcast on iTunes. He and Derek Webb (former lead singer of Cademon's Call) discuss, in detail, so many of these ideas, and what it means to see Jesus and the Kingdom as it truly is by not conforming it to our desired imagery.
Peace of Christ to you!
