I would agree with what is explicitly written in this post. But with his description of leaders who sow hatred and other evils, I suspect that the writer intends to make a one-sided political application. What the writer may not realize (or maybe he does, which would be to his credit) is that the two sides of our sharp political divide can both see the leaders on the opposing side as the ones who are sowing hatred and fear, and who are really all about power.
Who was sowing hatred, fear, and aggression in 2020? Both sides can make a case that the other side was. Coarse, nasty rhetoric? Both sides can be accused of that. Who is defending those who are the most vulnerable to oppression? Is it the waves of souls being trafficked by cartels over the border who are the most vulnerable? Or could it be souls still in the womb? Or what about those who would compel us to lie about gender and whether we can change our DNA? Is that about love, or is that about power?
Under whose governance have we been safer from criminal and economic violence? Isn’t that the sine qua non purpose of government, according to Romans 13? And after all the blood that has been senselessly shed in Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Gaza (and, potentially, in Taiwan?), under whose watch has the world been safer? Is love the real issue in our current political debates, or is it merely power?
In a post a few years ago, I said: “But whatever he was, Jesus was not a Marxist. Marxism is not about the poor. It is about power. It is about replacing one oppressor with another (in the words of the Who, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”). The poor are just a useful means to that end. So is Jesus: a symbol who sometimes serves as a useful tool. But Jesus will not allow himself to be used as a Marxist tool. Or anybody else’s tool.”
With all the recent concern about “Christian nationalists” (whom I have never met), I find it is the folks on the political left who do far more wrapping themselves in the mantle of Jesus. Such is what the above commentator appears to be doing. I hope I am wrong; his actual words are a challenge to both sides of the political divide – depending on how we read them.
