Last week there was a great deal of hubub about comments made by Bernie Sanders during the confirmation hearings of Russell Vought, a devout Christian and potential deputy White House budget director. If you want more info about the conversation, you can read about it and watch video here. The issue centered around an article written by Vought in response to a situation at Wheaton College in which a faculty member made a statement about Christians and Muslims worshiping the same God, which put her at odds with the schools statement of faith and caused quite a few problems when they decided to fire her (which is an argument I don’t want to rehash here). In his response article, Vought wrote this:
Muslims do not simply have a deficient theology. They do not know God because they have rejected Jesus Christ, His Son, and they stand condemned.
This is the quote that Sanders used to question Vought’s ability to serve; how can someone love and make decisions for people they see as condemned? Most of the writing on this has been about constitutional law and the fear of Christians to be dismissed for their beliefs, but I want to look at this from another angle. Over the last week, in both sermons and studies we have looked at the justice of God. I believe that the existence of God’s justice is exactly why Christians are fit for public service. A God who will judge makes Christians more suited for caring for a great variety of people than their secular counterparts.
We live in a time of great polarity. People have drawn up their sides and have declared an enemy, which has created an ugly conflict between members of society. Those who should be working together are instead angrily accusing ‘those people’ of being hateful, stupid, and destructive; neither side is willing to budge. This is because to give any ground is to lose. There is no way to move forward and work together.
The Christian has a buffer against such a defensive position. A Christian is someone who is both sinner and redeemed. Being saved does not mean you cease to be a sinful person, but that your sin is covered by the grace of Jesus. This paradox helps the Christian to engage the world, not as a binary, for-us-or-against-us option, but as people who share the struggle of humanity. While the claim of Christ is exclusive (I am the Way, Truth, and the Life, NO ONE comes to the Father but through me), His grace is universal (sends rain on the just and on the unjust). So a Christian can lead out of the love of God for all people, trusting that justice will come for all in the end. It frees the Christian from having to engage in spiteful action against those who oppose because God will rectify all things.
Do all Christians act this way all of the time? NO. They do have access, through Jesus, to this kind of benevolence. This freedom from having to bring full and complete justice in this lifetime allows for the ability to love and serve those who believe differently, which is a very needed trait in this country right now.