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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Valley&State Backpage O&E Sports Archives Classifieds Faith&Beliefs Obituaries Revels October 18, 2004 An open letter to evangelical Christians Rob Asghar Dear fellow evangelical: Let's you and I think about staying at home on November 2. The last time an empire of unprecedented strength was threatened by barbarians, blaming fingers pointed to Christians citizens, who were accused of being too pacifistic and too otherworldly to be of any use in resisting the threat. Sixteen centuries later, no one makes that accusation, because the Christian pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction. Back then, the empire was Rome, and the barbarians were Visigoth hordes. St. Augustine rose up to defend Christian honor; he argued that although Christians owed their allegiance first to the City of God (the Church, more or less), they could still be responsible citizens in the City of Man. In short, good Christians could make good citizens. Augustine even developed his famous theory of just war to explain how Christians could model Christ's turn-the-other-cheek ethos in their daily lives while also allowing state authorities to use violent means to protect innocents. But he would not have condoned the extent to which his theory has been taken, or the extent to which the City of Man-in our day, the American empire-has been confused with the City of God. Why Can't I Get a Witness? I have often been a poster child for evangelicalism, due to my Muslim roots, and am often asked to speak to groups about how someone from my faith background "found Jesus." Yet I remain the only Christian in my family. My younger brother, who recently moved from a liberal northern town to a major southern city, e-mailed me last week with this observation about his new place of residence: "It's starting to annoy me as a place teeming with pig-headed, conservative, know-it-all, Christ-is-our-Savior Republicans. I don't know if I want to stay here." Sticks and stones don't hurt Christians, but names will break us. More than any group on the planet, we want to be liked; after all, we believe that we are witnesses to Divine grace and truth, and we want to be credible witnesses so that others might be inclined to see and respond to the same saving truth that we see. But we have increasingly repelled responsible and intelligent people like my brother, and that means it is time to take stock. Augustine's pagan world already knew that war is a reality. The very history of humanity is a history of warfare, Churchill noted, punctuated by peaceful interludes. Christ came to speak of something different, and that is why nonviolence around the world has resulted largely from the influence of Jesus. But lately we are seen as finding war to be more enjoyable than non-Christians do, and our world takes note. Most mainstream Muslims feel unfairly tainted by charges of being warlike, yet they sense that the most hawkish elements in American society are evangelical Christians; what then shall we say of any "witness to God" that we could hope to offer them? Idolatry in Our Own Day Jesus often warned the most religious men in his midst, "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!" Is there any possibility that the triumphalist nationalism of today's evangelicals is a human tradition that is displacing some apolitical Biblical commands of God? Have we created a modern-day syncretism, a blending together of God with convenient mini-gods? When the stakes appear to be life and death, who is our God then? The Gospel teaches us that security is found in Christ's teaching and presence alone; neoconservativism teaches us that security is found in haughty displays of worldly power. Augustine taught that Rome was not to be worshipped; neoconservatism is inherently worshipful of human empire. Jesus mocked the traditional concept of authority; evangelical leaders use democracy as an alibi to re-glamorize it. Christians who pay attention to the Bible should not be shocked by our failures. The Exodus narrative of the golden calf and the prophet Hosea's description of Israel's unfaithfulness to Yahweh are spotlights on not merely the sins of those who sought to follow God in the past, but on our own sins too. I know that it is hard for us to let go of politics, especially in these times. Indifference to Biblical morality has invaded our culture and the institutions in which our children are schooled. Our schools and companies hold holiday parties now, because Jesus has effectively become "He who must not be named." But whenever Christians of antiquity were faced with such forces of opposition, they simply and winsomely modeled something better. Will evangelicals not be disillusioned when it finally dawns on them, on the political morning after, how much they've had to drink of the nectar of moral compromise within the political world? This manifests especially in the notion that the "other side" lies and cheats so much that any of our own breaches of truth are forgivable by comparison; this tendency toward moral clarity at the wrong times and moral compromise at the wrong times is a distortion of the Christian view of human nature. Augustine was right: Good Christians can make good citizens. But when we go overboard, and when we risk turning our civic life in a worship of nationalistic idols, it's time to consider that it would be better to stay at home and purify our motives, realizing that God's ultimate purposes will prevail regardless of our political posturing. And if you decide to sit the voting out, drop in after five o'clock on election day. I'll have snacks and sodas, and we can watch the returns together. Rob Asghar is an independent writer and editor who has been published in nearly thirty newspapers around the world. He has been an editor of management books and a ghostwriter for major figures in business and academia. Contact him at [email protected].\ DailyTidings.com Home Page Valley&State | Backpage | O&E | Sports | Archives | Weather | Classifieds Columnists | Faith&Beliefs | Obituaries | Revels | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2004 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Click Here Site Search: .:Advertisements:. RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams