I want to say at the beginning that I hope you will read this as a heart-felt appeal and not as in-your-face challenge. Most of us know that Jesus’ call to receive the kingdom of God means we must reevaluate our culture and reject those things that do not fit with it. This is an appeal for us to examine one aspect of democratic culture in the twenty first century as we take a careful look at Jesus’ teaching.
Early in my life as a disciple of Jesus, I found myself very troubled a few weeks later by the decision I made to cast a vote for someone the year I was first eligible to vote. As a young disciple, my angst caused me to turn to the gospels and to the life of Jesus wanting to learn from his example. What I found there was that Jesus came into a political hotbed. Democracy did not exist in his part of the world, but, nevertheless, politics played a key role in life and society. Nationalistic tendencies were found through Judea and eventually erupted in the Jewish war, which resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 a.d.
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