US Mennonite Brethren

 

Chuck Colson’s column, The Back Page, in the February 2008 issue of Christianity Today was entitled “No Utter Collapse.” What Colson says is often of interest to me. He has a perspective that few of us will ever have given both his experiences in high places and his decision to enter a trust-follow relationship with Jesus. He’s been kicked around quite a bit, and yet it appears to me Colson has held firm in his core convictions and his often very effective practical theology. Anyone who finds and steers a ministry to prisoners with the kind of impact that he has had deserves some affirmation. Among other things, Jesus calls his followers to exactly that.

 

By the time you read this article, our nation will have selected the next president of the United States. No doubt somewhere around half of our citizenry, and perhaps some of you, depending on how you voted, will be feeling like the sky may really be falling down this time. That’s why what Colson says in his February article matters. Colson asserts that we need to be careful not to believe everything we read or hear. He refers to New York Times columnist Frank Rich who wrote an article in the fall suggesting, “Inauguration Day 2009 is at very least Armageddon for the reigning ayatollahs of the American right.” The inference is that the heyday of the Carter/Moral Majority/Christian Coalition era is over.

Colson says Rich and others like him are wrong. Colson suggests that though the evangelical landscape is changing, adjusting and transitioning in various ways, the people who comprise that movement are steady at the helm, “battling for traditional values.”

Colson writes, “We’re defending life, pursuing justice and caring for the poor. Yes, we’re beginning to get more involved in environmental issues, thanks to younger evangelicals reminding us that God commanded us to care for his creation. But we do all of this in God’s name—which is what sets the secular media’s teeth on edge.”

He adds, “It would be a tragedy if, regardless of how evangelicals vote, we allowed the media to define us. What is it that makes us evangelical? Our commitments to orthodox biblical Christianity, spreading the gospel and promoting righteousness in all spheres of life.”

All of this to say, from my perspective, who the president is matters some, but when all is said and done there is another kingdom that matters more. And no matter what people might think or say of us individually or of the lot of us together, we press on for a higher calling.

The apostle Paul had that in view when he reminded the Ephesian Christians that they were “no longer foreigners and aliens but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household” (Eph. 2:19).

More graphically, Paul writes to the Philippians that it is important to differentiate between the core values of citizenries. Some give evidence that “their mind is on earthly things.” Then he lays it out for the followers of Jesus: “But our citizenship is in heaven” (Phil. 3:19-20).

Too many of the past months have been pierced by the political process that leads up to an election. There were too few moments to make us proud and countless events that were discouraging. Congratulations to those of you who carefully did your homework and then responsibly cast ballots in spite of the turmoil. No matter how you voted, no doubt you lost some and won some.

You may have a knot in the pit of your emotional stomach about the results of Election Day. And for some, the significant national and global economic and political instability and the declining value of your assets adds to that sick feeling.

Here’s the deal: Eternal perspective matters! Where our treasure is matters. A right commitment to the right kingdom matters. Behaving like citizens of Jesus’ kingdom no matter who is president matters. His sky is not falling down.