Thank you. I’m brand new to this app, obviously — it’s going to take me a while to figure out how to fit my kind of content into this kind of format… 🤷🏻‍♀️

… just as there are conservatives who understand collective sin and systemic injustice). In other words, there’s plenty in the Gospel to convict us all, wherever we are on the American political spectrum. But we can’t follow the Gospel and not embrace the political demands it makes on us.)

… the inescapable fact that we human beings cannot, cannot by any means or device or activity of our own design or effort, save ourselves, that we are utterly dependent upon the unearned grace of God … few progressives are fully comfortable with such truths. (There are exceptions, of course…

(Now, I mentioned earlier that the Gospel can be just as uncomfortable for liberals/progressives as it can for conservatives. I stand by that. The emphasis on the reality of evil as a Thing, the desperate need for personal repentance, confession, and absolution from God through Jesus Christ …

So when folks say “Keep politics out of the pulpit,” they’re really saying “Keep the Gospel out of the Church and out of my life.”

… but no, that’s not me — that’s the Gospel. And when we pretend otherwise, we betray the Gospel, neuter it, render it not only irrelevant to the world in which we live, but also just plain meaningless across the board.

So when I point out that racism, homophobia, trans phobia, xenophobia, unfettered and unhinged greed, climate depredation, the existence of billionaires, et al., are all contrary to the Gospel, that ain’t just my personal political whims I’m spouting — though many like to dismiss them as such…

… POLITICS! “Love your enemy and pray for your persecutor” is a political statement. “Welcome the foreigner who sojourns in your land, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt” is a politics statement. “Even as you do unto the least of these, you have done unto Me” is a political statement.

… we are to *value* in our societies. And how do we go about making decisions that express and make concrete our values? How do we construct, organize, and administer decision-making processes? How do we settle conflicts and decide what the group is gonna do? My friends in Christ, the answer is…

Now, it’s pretty glaringly obvious that the Holy Scriptures, and especially Jesus in the Gospels, have some rather particular and specific things to say about how God desires and intends for us to live together with each other, about how we are to make decisions as a community, about what and whom…

If you don’t agree with this definition of politics, let me ask you: have you ever been a member of a neighborhood association? A church congregation? A family? You gonna tell me there’s no politics in such environments? Really?

Let’s talk about what politics actually is. Politics is the term we use for the ways that a group of people goes about making collective decisions for their group. Sometimes formalized in legislatures, governments, courts; sometimes as informal as the cool kid’s influence in your 7th grade clique…

To be clear, the Gospel is not Democratic. Nor is it Republican. Indeed, Jesus says and does things that deeply disturb & anger both of those camps at various times. But if you argue that politics has no place in the Gospel, then you’ve just admitted that you don’t understand the Gospel at all…