Election Season and Your Soul
Election Season and Your Soul
Brian Zahnd
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.
~Jesus, Sermon on the Mount
Twelve years ago I gave my ironically named “BZ’s Ten Point Christian Voter Guide.”
Now, twelve years later I would like to again share my “voter guide.”
(This comes from my heart — the heart of a pastor. If you choose to comment, please be considerate and kind.)
BZ’s Christian Voter Guide
1. The political process, while necessary, has little to do with how God is saving the world.
2. The fate of the kingdom of God does not depend upon political contests.
3. Don’t be naïve, political parties are more interested in Christian votes than they are in Christian values.
4. The bottom line for political parties is power. The bottom line for a Christian is love. And therein lies the rub.
5. While in pursuit of the Ring of Power, you are not permitted to abandon the Sermon on the Mount.
6. If your political passion makes it hard for you to love your neighbor as yourself, you need to turn it down a notch.
7. Your task is to bring the salt of Christian civility to an ugly and acrimonious political process.
8. To dismember the body of Christ over politics is a grievous sin.
9. Exercise your liberty to vote your conscience and conviction, while accepting that other Christians will do the same and vote differently than you.
10. It’s more important that your soul be filled with love than it is for your political team to win the game.
Love is patient and kind.
Love does not envy or boast.
Love is not arrogant or rude.
Love does not insist on its own way.
Love is not irritable or resentful.
Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing,
Love rejoices with the truth.
Love bears and believes all things.
Love hopes and endures all things.
Love never fails.
~St. Paul (1 Corinthians 13)
We live in a political world
Where peace is not welcome at all
It’s turned away from the door to wander some more
Or put up against the wall
We live in a political world
Everything’s hers and his
Climb into the flame and shout God’s name
But you’re not even sure what it is
~Bob Dylan, “Political World”Lord, make us instruments of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let us sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O, Divine Master,
grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
~Prayer of St. Francis
Peace,
BZ
(Artwork is The Sermon On the Mount by Fra Angelico, 1443)