I, like you perhaps, have grown weary of the presidential
race. While I prefer democracy, having a
king that rules till his death would mean we would not have to endure a
presidential election every 4 years and the absence of campaigning would be a
real advantage.
The rhetoric of those running for office convinced my wife and me
that to prepare for Easter we would not listen to any news during Lent. That was such a delight, we have, to a great
degree, continued fasting from political news and talk. This is not anti-left or anti-right; we are
equal opportunity fasters.
After Easter Sunday one day, I tuned in to listen to the
political news and talk. I listened to
both NPR and Sean Hannity. It dawned on
me that the problem with our political leaders is they reflect our nation. They look and act like the people in our
America. Trump and Clinton, for example,
are just the acceleration of our nation as a whole.
With our politicians, it is almost as if you took our culture,
values, social mores, and world-view and processed them down into a highly
concentrated form. We love our
candidate and hate the others because we love ourselves and hate those who
might oppose us. I don’t believe that
those running for president are so very different from us. I believe they are a reflection of us, but in
a more intense fashion. We are pastel,
they are vivid; we are mild, they are intense; we are restrained, they are emboldened.
To quote the song "Cult Of Personality" by
Living Colour:
Look in my eyes,
what do you see?
The cult of
personality
I know your anger, I
know your dreams
I've been everything
you want to be
While we are quoting, let’s grab a couple from the front-runners.
From Donald Trump we have arrogance in a highly refined form.
"My
IQ is one of the highest — and you all know it! Please don't feel so stupid or
insecure; it's not your fault."
“The
beauty of me is that I’m very rich.”
From Hillary Clinton there is a certain self-importance
that marks her speech.
"If you want to remain
on this detail, get your f***ing ass over here and grab those bags!"
(To a
Secret Service Agent who was reluctant to carry her luggage because he wanted
to keep his hands free in case of an incident.)
"Stay the f**k back,
stay the f**k away from me! Don't come within ten yards of me, or else! Just
f**king do as I say, Okay!!!?"
(Screaming at her Secret Service detail.)
I believe that our culture is
marked by arrogance and self-importance.
A professor of mine once said, “The beauty and problem with democracy is
that we end up with the leaders we deserve.”
While I will not support either of these candidates, I do believe they
both reflect the contemporary American condition.
Let me be painfully honest; I
believe it is the church that is to blame.
Had the church been salt and light in the world over the last 50 years
we might find a different America. In
many cases churches and church leaders have been most concerned about self-promotion
and building their own kingdoms, rather than building the Kingdom. As a consultant, I have worked on multi-constituent
campaigns in which preachers refuse to participate because they wanted to
protect their turf.
Because the church has failed to
live and love as servant-leaders, the world has no example. Because congregations have been building
empires, the world has no counter culture to the culture of self. Because we have made idols of mega-star
Christians and pastors, the world has lost it moral compass. Philippians 2 tells of the God of the
universe becoming a servant and dying on a cross. That is a humility we almost never see in
politics, because we see it so rarely in our nation, because it is too little
practiced and taught in the church.
In contrast to the quotes of
Trump and Clinton, let’s consider a quote from John the Baptist, “He must
increase, but I must decrease.”
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