Christian Activism and God's Plan for America

Politically active Christians fight for policies they feel support their god's agenda. In this statement of belief about why Christians should be politically active, Michigan businessman, inspirational speaker, and born-again Christian Stacy Swimp argues that "True Christians have a responsibility to God to fight any law or policy that would violate God’s will and, in the end, our own conscience."

Swimp and other politically active Christian leaders urge believers to engage in the entire process from prayer to the polling place, and to work in private, in small groups, and in crowds in an effort, as Swimp articulates, to remove " the demonic stronghold which has, for decades, lead us down the path of moral relativism, socialism, broken families, record levels of unemployment, and leadership that has forgotten that righteousness exalts a nation!"

Taking a shot at Swimp for his hasty generalizations would be easy enough, but he is here not as a punching bag, but as an example of Christian political activism and an introduction my argument that, from the perspective of a believing Christian, political activism has no bearing on political outcomes, and from the perspective of a non-believer, Christian political activism seems almost contradictory to the faith's tenets.

Let's begin with solidarity. While Christians in general claim the same broad beliefs, their politics (and indeed their doctrine, but that is best left to a shelf of books) are anything but homogeneous. What one might support depends on one's particular sect. Let's take a look at two politically active Christians' views on the minimum wage. The first, Stacy Swimp, you've already met.

Stacy Swimp

Swimp is a businessman and conservative Christian and is connected with The Crossing Church in Farmington, Michigan whose pastors, Randy and Debbie O'Dell, are married. I only point this out because although Swimp does not directly associate himself with a particular sect, it is safe to conclude he holds generally Protestant religious views because the Vatican does not allow ordained clergy to marry. Swimp urges his readers to fight a political battle against the minimum wage which is, in his words, "inherently discriminatory. It can be argued that they are racist in consequence, if not in intent" and "furthermore, show partiality for one segment (a very small part) of our society, to the detriment of the masses. Hence, they are not only morally wrong, they are unrighteous. Spiritually wicked." Got it? God says we should pull back on government entitlement programs and increase the freedom of the individual to move in a relatively unregulated capitalist marketplace.

Charles Clark

Economist and staunch Catholic Charles Clark disagrees with Swimp, and in an interview published in U.S. Catholic, argues for legislating a raise in the minimum wage. He emphasizes that "research clearly shows that once you raise the minimum wage, the whole bottom wage structure rises with it. The last study that I saw found the bottom 40 to 50 percent of wages start to creep up once you raise the minimum wage. That’s a way of creating rules to push people up." Furthermore, Clark, like Swimp, frames this as an important issue for the faithful, "Poverty is exclusion, and people are excluded from more than just the economic life of the community: exclusion can be social, political, cultural, and even spiritual. These are areas where the church, I think, can be most effective." And . . .got it? God says we should use government power to manipulate the capitalist marketplace and decrease the individual businessperson's range of choices when comes to paying his or her workers.

So how does God decide which view to support? Is there some sort of polling switchboard and He just goes with the majority? How does He weigh the prayers and protests and votes of politically active Christians on opposite sides of an issue or who take various differing positions within an issue?

Actually, Christian religious texts have the answer to these questions, and at least for those who take the Bible as truth (often spelled with a capital "T"), reveal that for true believers, activism intervention can have no possible impact on the outcome of any political struggle.

Let's postulate (if you aren't Christian) or present as a given (if you are Christian) that:

The Abrahamic god worshiped by Christians exists. I will, according to convention, use the masculine pronoun and refer to him using the proper pronouns "Him" and "He" and the proper noun "God."

God is omnipotent. He can exert His will over anything in His creation at any time or any place simultaneously. Nothing can resist His power.
"And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." (Revelation 19:6). 

 God is omniscient. He knows all things at all times, including the past actions, ongoing actions, and future actions of everything in His creation. Nothing is hidden from Him, including even the most fleeting thought.
"I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.'" (Isaiah 46:9-10).  

God is omnipresent. He is everywhere at all times and in all places and has been and will be for all eternity. God's presence cannot be escaped.
"Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account" (Hebrews 4:13).

 God has a plan for His creation. He has a plan not only for the larger scheme of things, but also the lives of every individual creature, including and especially humans, in His creation.
"This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men" (Acts 2:23).

Because of His overwhelming power, it is quite easy for Him to affect His plans. He enacts His larger plans through the actions of individuals and groups of individuals regardless of the personal desires of those individuals.

This, for example, occurs in Exodus when God tells Moses to ask Pharaoh for release, but apparently for PR reasons, God says to Moses, "I will harden Pharaoh's heart that I may multiply My signs and My wonders in the land of Egypt" (Exodus 7:3). Pharaoh may well have let Moses and his crew go without all the death and pestilence, or maybe just after Aaron did the whole my-snake-rod-swallows-all-your-snake-rods thing, but that was not part of God's plan.

Dude, your breath.

Likewise, Jesus's public torture and blood sacrifice was also part of God's plan, a plan in which He created a dramatic tableaux using his former pal and fallen Archangel Satan and patsy Judas Iscariot: "Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, one of the Twelve. And Judas went to the chief priests and the officers of the temple guard and discussed with them how he might betray Jesus" (Luke 22:3-4). 

Neither Satan nor Judas had any say in the matter. I suppose you could argue that Satan could have refused God, or failed to have been manipulated into possessing Judas, but that would contradict God's omnipotence.

All this helplessness in the face of an almighty deity means that if you are believer, you can take solace in knowing that even though your prayers were not answered, God heard them and didn't answer them for a reason, or He answered them in unexpected ways because it was all part of His plan.

God's plans are immutable and the individual's wants are secondary, if not irrelevant. He already knows the outcome of everything in His creation across all time and is present and powerful in each every moment. You can't surprise Him and He can't surprise Himself.

Thus, whatever path the United States body-politic is taking is being directed by God through the actions of individuals and groups of individuals whether they know it or not or whether they think their actions are making a difference or not.

By way of example, the striking down of DOMA was all part of God's plan and the exertions of protestors on both sides of the argument were also part of His plan. Like Pharaoh and Moses and Satan and Judas Iscariot, Christians might argue that yes, of course the DOMA defeat is part of God's plan. He want us to demonstrate our loyalty and commitment by fighting more strongly for His will in our nation and is testing our worthiness through political martyrdom and ability to suffer. But this doesn't make any sense because, being omniscient, He already knows the personal commitment and worthiness of every single individual.

So why do some believers feel that "good Christians" are politically active Christians? If you are not a politically active Christian, are you are something less than "good." Does that mean you are bad? Does God prefer the firebrand over the hermit? Will a prayerful, reflective, honest, introverted, studious true believer be cast out of Heaven and a prayerful, honest, exuberant, publicly passionate extrovert be welcomed? Real Christians know these are rhetorical questions.

Or not, Your call

One argument made by some religious leaders that good Christians must be politically active in order to influence the levers of power to push the United States to become a moral and righteous nation, a more Christian democracy.

But again, it won't make any difference. If God needs America to become a Western European democracy with a single-payer health care system and extensive social safety net with legalized abortions, so that later he can condemn the damn place to sulfur and brimstone, then no amount of good Christian influence is going to make any difference. If, on the other hand, He chooses to take America to the brink and save her, then He has already planned it (and relative to His existence, it has already occurred and is occurring) and He'll do it without his followers' puny exertions.

For non-believers my argument is simply a thought exercise. They understand that political activism does have effect on the outcome of political struggles, and they also understand that religion plays a big part in people's lives. Thus, non-believers realize that religious beliefs can be manipulated or invoked or rallied to successfully gain the upper hand in political contests.

For believers it is a bit more complex. They cannot be fighting for personal gain, because through faith they already have achieved the Kingdom of Heaven and in the blink of an eye will be reunited for eternity with their deity.

They also cannot believe that their exertions will help anyone God doesn't want to be helped or change anything God doesn't want changed.

This excerpt from Chapter 9 of Paul's Epistle to the Romans sums up the whole exercise:

For He says to Moses,“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

The research clearly shows that once you raise the minimum wage, the whole bottom wage structure rises with it. The last study that I saw found the bottom 40 to 50 percent of wages start to creep up once you raise the minimum wage. That’s a way of creating rules to push people up - See more at: http://www.uscatholic.org/blog/201306/catholic-case-raising-minimum-wage-27483#sthash.e6mDhtU5.dpuf

The research clearly shows that once you raise the minimum wage, the whole bottom wage structure rises with it. The last study that I saw found the bottom 40 to 50 percent of wages start to creep up once you raise the minimum wage. That’s a way of creating rules to push people up - See more at: http://www.uscatholic.org/blog/201306/catholic-case-raising-minimum-wage-27483#sthash.e6mDhtU5.dpuf

Artifacts #5: Cartography

A dear friend gifted me this collection of early 20th century Ordnance Survey motoring maps in the 1980s. It had been in her family for some time and she knew of my love for all things cartographic. Poring over maps is, indeed, my idea of a good time.

Published in 1929, the kit is a marvel not only of pre-orbital-platform cartography, but also of functionality, durability, and aesthetic.

The collection of 11 maps and an index sheet covers England and Wales and snugs perfectly into its stout leather case. Sigh the hinged lid closed and the springed clasp clicks into a keyed sliding release mechanism. The tidy heft and precision of the whole package would fit nicely alongside a picnic basket for a country outing in one's 1927 Wolseley motocar. 

Each of the maps is made of paper panels affixed to a linen backing. A small gap between each panel means the linen bends for storage, not the paper, and thus the map does not lose information or tear along the fold. The colors are still bright and the although there are no motorways (the first wasn't opened until 1958), this collection could still be used to navigate without difficulty from Dover to Holyhead.

 Just touching these maps, peering closely at carefully drawn topography and tracing the lines of country byways on an imaginary meander from Upper Heyford to Steeple Aston to Great Tew and on to Tadmarton makes me want to eschew motorways altogether, pack a flask of white tea, and putter at single-track speed down lanes crowded by hedgerows. I want to steer by an old square Norman steeple and find myself lunching by the fire at a country pub and talking the weather with new acquaintances over a pint of bitter as a drizzle sets in outside.

A Cup of Mediocrity, Sir?

So weak you can see the flag at the bottom

We Americans do breakfast better than just about anybody, except maybe the Brits, with one exception. Our coffee.

Sure, while a brown, watery, mildly bitter bladder-full is part of many American’s morning, it fails in so many ways to live up to its potential.

Like many Americans, I take a dose of caffeine in the morning. But my loyalty goes to PG Tips or Black Irish.

Yes, I’m a tea guy, but I never order it with my eggs over-easy, hash browns and bacon. That’s because American breakfast joints can’t do tea. Instead, they proffer a little pot full of tepid bathwater and single yellow Lipton bag.

Hitting a fancy, themed chain restaurant doesn’t improve things. They just upcharge for their bathwater and a basket full of perfumed sachets that would be better employed dangling from your car’s rearview mirror after a weekend carwash.

So when I am away from my kitchen, I just default to coffee. It’s not bad, but it normally isn’t that good either. It helps my toast go down and takes care of my morning caffeine therapeutic throat bath. But that’s really all it does. I always walk away from a coffee-based breakfast especially self-conscious of my coffee breath, because, like a hangover after PBR, I got it without having that great of a time.

Now, you can get really good coffee here in the United States; it just isn’t common. You can’t get it fast in truck stops or shopping malls or at the counter of your favorite eggs-and-bacon-and-pancakes eatery. You get it drained from a bucket or carafe where the best you can hope for is the clerk or server who says, “You’re lucky, I just made it!”

Made it from what? Tiny nodules scooped from a giant open bin?

I was reminded of the delinquency of American coffee last fall, when my wife and I wandered around western and southern Europe for a month and re-discovered just how well coffee for the masses could be done.

Don't you agree?

We hit a Back-Factory in Worms during the mid-morning rush. The formica bauhaus tables were packed and crumbed and splashed as strangers crushed against each other cheek to jowl to shovel their pastries and suck down coffee. Those who couldn’t find a new friend overflowed into the cobbled shopping district.

German bakery snack chains, like Back-Factory, stock their shining shelves with a constant stream and wide variety of goodies from the bakery that clatters away just behind the service counter and pump out rich, dark coffee by the endless litre all self-serve at a noisy station just inside the door, where any patron back-up would stall the whole cafeteria-style process, but instead an endless stream of caffeine-hungry shoppers and office workers moved through easily. This automated station ground beans and delivered coffee at a rate and quality the baristas wouldn’t dare bet their tip money on. And the product? A cup of creamy, smooth brew without any harsh bite, covered with a layer of steaming froth. Perfect, cheap, fast.

Did I mention this was a chain?

Coffee?

With all this chaos and demand, Back-Factory still manages to produce excellent coffee in the same quantities as McDonalds pumps out Coca-Cola.

It seems like America has an unconscious, perhaps even guilty, understanding of our inability to give the crowds a decent cup of coffee. But instead of making a reasonable shift in preparation technique, we go for glam. We are like the high school freshman who works too hard to wear her womanhood, and tries all the glitter and spray and color from every tube and bottle and box Cosmo Girl can pitch her.

As a result, we have Starbucks and her ilk, all over-compensating for cafe impotence with esoteric menu boards full of overpriced, candied concoctions served by carefully chatty twenty-somethings. Plus, the ridiculous “international” linguistic mashup of size names just seems desperate.

Now, every time I tuck into an ABC omelet and take my first sip of joe, I think, damn, there are machines that can do the job better.

Look, I’m not a coffee connoisseur. I've never had coffee shat out of a Civet cat. And while I appreciate Todd Carmichael's zealous pursuit of coffee and bullets, all I really want is the same quality cup harried German white-collar workers get their hynde around everyday.
Maybe I should tell the manager he should check out Back-Factory’s website and “Werden die Franchise Partner!”