Two things you aren’t supposed to talk about in friendly conversation: Religion & Politics

More specifically: “American” Christianity & “American” Politics

If you’ve known me for any length of time, you probably know that I’m a native of central PA, I'm a person of faith, and I'm not conservative. I was raised in a Christian home by good conservative parents who I love. I went to Christian school and was taught about the bible, morality, and much more. My teachers, to the best of my knowledge, were all conservative. For the most part, they were good people. I was also lucky to have a teacher who was an environmentalist and without being political talked about the importance of environmental consciousness and even railed on some of the anti-environmental practices such as the abundance of plastic water bottles and gas industry tactics. But for the most part, my upbringing was “Christian conservative.”

Although I can never claim to have been a saint in my younger days (or ever), I was fairly devout to my faith. I went to church (still do), read my bible (still do), and prayed often (still do). However, I also got in trouble for questioning things that were taught as part of the American Christian curriculum, such as the treatment of Native Americans and “Manifest Destiny”. At the time I didn’t realize it was full on genocide, but just that colonists had forced them off of their land, which seemed egregious to me as a child. I was told that they weren’t fully utilizing it anyway so this was God’s plan. I also remember learning about communism and saying that it seemed like a good idea but there was too much corruption in the systems that had tried it. Not exactly opinions that were encouraged at an elementary school level in Central PA.

I don’t bring this up to point out how progressive I was as a young kid. I could point to several conservative things I did (voting for Bush when I was fresh out of High School) that I’m not exactly proud of today. But I bring it up to draw the question of where my values came from. My parents sent me to a Christian school, honestly, because they hoped I wouldn’t be influenced by secular teaching. We weren't particularly exposed to secular media either as we didn't have tv and were relatively sheltered. However, I went to college and had professors ask me (literally), how someone with my background had such progressive views. I would often point to my older sister (she had the same upbringing as me) who never tried to influence me, but encouraged me to ask questions and told me that the feelings I had about certain things I was taught were not wrong. I am forever grateful for that encouragement, but even she reminds me that those questions were my own.

You see, as Christians, we are taught from a young age about unconditional love, forgiveness, sacrifice, and kindness. “Greater love hath no man than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends.” Whether or not you believe in Jesus, you can’t deny that his words and actions embodied nothing but love. I’ve always loved Jesus, though today, I struggle with what that means, when saying it regularly identifies me with people who embody pretty much the opposite of what I believe about him.

I can’t put my finger on when the conservative non-Christian teaching began or if it was always there. Perhaps as a child, only love made sense and the condemnation of the world by the finger pointers sort of went over my head. I do remember church divisions over some pretty trivial things. I also remember a particularly nasty and racist pastor who told his congregation not to speak to my parents anymore after they decided to go to a different church. Can you imagine hating someone because they decided to worship in a different building? I know that my opinion of modern Christianity changed a lot when I began to read my bible on my own, had a little world experience, and started to see just how far off and legalistic Christianity was.

When I read about Jesus, two things clearly stuck out to me: first, he loved and cared for people, especially those on the outskirts of society for whatever reason; second, he railed against the self-righteous religious elites as “hypocrites,” “vipers,” and “full of dead men’s bones,” who would not enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus took pity on sinners and didn’t preach that they needed to do better by Mosaic law. He taught that loving God and one another were the highest commandments. He said that he had not come to save the (self) righteous, but the sinner.

There is a long history of how Christian theology was shaped and changed over the centuries, but it is clear that soon after Jesus, the “church” changed to become the same things that he had taught against. Originally meant to be a source of love and spreading the gospel (literally good news), it became a legalistic semi-governmental institution about little more than power and greed. I believe that it’s very easy to see the modern day Pharisees and the pious religious elites. These people share nothing in common with Jesus. They would condemn the very people they are supposed to love and save. I don’t need to understand the history of theology to see that what Jesus taught is not what “American Christians” do. It reminds me of a Bob Dylan lyric: “God is in his heaven, and we all want what’s his. But power and greed and corruptible seed seems to be all that there is.”

I will go a step further and say that there are some preachers and churches that try to be non-political. I will give them some credit for not preaching politics from the pulpit. However, the culture is such that if you can’t speak out against the idolatry that is “American Christianity,” you are only skirting the issue and appeasing those who are all-too-comfortable with the status quo.

I can’t give up though. It’s engrained in me. For all my doubt, questions, and even some self-loathing, I can’t not believe in Jesus and his message of love. Many Christians are conservative because they believe that conservatives share their values. It is for that exact reason that I am not conservative. I am not making any claims about the morality of democrats/liberals, as I find most of them to be severely lacking as well. However, if forced to balance which party or ideology cares more for the “lessor of these,” I believe the answer is crystal clear. Let’s be honest and say that if Jesus were on Earth today, he would not be a republican or a democrat. He very likely wouldn’t be an American either.