Mixing politics and religion

Yesterday at Pantego Bible Church our pastor continued in a series on Jesus' Sermon on the Mount from Matthew Chapter 5.  The subject, beginning in verse 33, is about oaths and the discussion was on the relationship to faithfulness.  We're called to be faithful to one another just as Christ is faithful to us.  A lengthy separate discussion could be had on the timing of what we as humans deem to be in order for God's faithfulness, but alas for now I'll let that go with the adage "God is God and I am not."

So do we find faithfulness in our elected officials in modern times?  In any times? I've taken the oath of office twice now.  It goes like this:

"I, A.J. Mathieu, do solemnly swear, that I will faithfully execute the duties of the office of Joshua City Council Place 4 of the State of Texas, and to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the constitution and laws of the United States and of this State, so help me God."

Jesus actually calls us to not swear at all on anything because all things come from God and the measure is much beyond ourselves.  The expression of faithfulness and truth are really a lot easier than that.  You don't need fancy language of measure to how faithful you'll be.  Instead Jesus says, "Simply let your "yes" be "yes" and your "no" be "no"."  How's that for fact checking campaign promises?

I think the fact that we have all sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God has pushed us to come up with some sort of way to say "I REALLY mean it THIS time" and so the oath was born.  Can you imagine hearing a politician tell you something and walking away without question?  What a wonderful thing to strive for!  Words chosen carefully could get a lot of people further down the road of faithfulness and truth.

In this day of instant information and manufactured personalities it makes it even more difficult to really measure a candidates integrity.  You have to be vigilant.  You have to dig deep.  And if you find something small that doesn't add up I say that's a great find because if they'll lie about the small things they'll lie about the big things.  Sometimes another old biblical principal is in order - forgiveness.  The real skill there, my friends, is discernment to know if they really own up to a mistake and will do better next time.

I think I'll keep working on a reputation of my "yes" meaning "yes" and my "no" meaning "no".  I suggest you expect that of everyone.  So I guess some of that Christianity stuff does play in well with politics.  And what's up with most of us casting our ballots at churches? Separate those churches from those States and we'll have voting machines next to an animatronic Chuck E. Cheese...which may be more appropriate in many cases.

A.J.