I think its time

Okay, can I just say that I am tired of seeing christians raising there voices to an already loud roar involving politics, and the issues revolving around the like of this. I find myself being asked to vote for two men that stand for all these different issues, and trying to pick the best one we feel is right, then after doing so, trying to prove to others why they are wrong for their choice. We tell one another to be mindful and watch out for the other, because of their past, when we are clearly taught to hold no account of the wrong they have done in their past, and that we are not to judge. We were giving the command to love one another, give to the broken, hurt, and dying people in this world. Ultimately, to be the body that God needs to show the world what he is like. It seems, that the candidates and the issues they stand on, divide us as a body. They cause anger and bitterness when disagreed with about who is right. I just can't see where the unity is. I think if we choose to do the things Christ instructed us to, we would see a broken world being healed.

" On the news are sound bites from a speech by the president of the United States. He's on deck of an aircraft carrier, proclaiming victory in a recent military effort. Not only was the mission accomplished, according to the leader of the world's only superpower, but American forces are now occupying this Middle Eastern country until peace can be fully realized within its borders.

This puts a Christian in an awkward place.

Because Jesus was a Middle Eastern man who lived in an occupied country and was killed by the superpower of his day. The Roman Empire, which put Jesus on an execution stake, insisted that it was bringing peace to the world through its massive military might, and anybody who didn't see it this way just might be put on a cross. Emperor Caesar, who ruled the Roman Empire, was considered the " Son of God," the "Prince of Peace," and one of his propaganda slogans was "peace through victory." The insistence of the first Christians was that through the resurrected Jesus Christ, God made peace with the world. Not through weapons of war but through a naked, bleeding man hanging dead on an execution stake. A Roman execution stake. Another of Caesar's favorite propaganda slogans was "Caesar Is Lord." The first Christians often said" Jesus is Lord." For them, Jesus was another way, a better way, a way that made the world better through sacrificial love, not coercive violence.

So when the commander in chief of the most powerful armed forces humanity has ever seen quotes the prophet Isaiah from the Bible in celebration of military victory, we must ask, is this what Isaiah had in mind?

A christian should get nervous when the flag and the Bible start holding hands. This is not romance we want to encourage. 

And the Urprache continues to echo within each one of us, telling us that things aren't right, that we're up against something very old,

and very deep,

and very wide, 

and very, very powerful.

For a growing number of people in our world, it appears that many Christians support some of the very things Jesus came to set people free from."

"Jesus Wants to Save Christians"

            Rob Bell and Don Golden