So I went to hear Jim Wallis on campus last night and my dad came along with me. It was a refreshing talk with a couple of great jokes about Washington (I'll put them at the bottom, just for fun) and more seriously, a broad challenge and prediction that this generation may be the one that clears up the confusion about why people think negatively about Christians and positively about Jesus. He was referring, of course, to the research by David Kinnaman (coming to Calvin in January) and Gabe Lyons, in their book, Unchristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity... and Why it Matters. In their polling research both inside and outside the Church, Kinnaman and Lyons discover the painful reality that followers of Jesus are perceived as huge hypocrites that bear little resemblance to the one they follow.
Wallis suggested, as he has been doing for decades, that citizenship for Christians is not and never should be about getting in the pocket of any political party. Faithful Christians will vote for Barack Obama and for John McCain (more likely Sarah Palin, but that's another post...), and neither of these votes is the point. So what is the point?
Wallis' larger point last night was that without a movement among citizens to "change the wind," it won't matter who gets elected. The single most important political fact for Christians is that 30,000 children died yesterday, many from "stupid poverty," or preventable causes. That our society has the technology and the resources, but lacks the will, to reduce this number and lessen, or eradicate, extreme poverty, makes all of our bluster about Christian influence in politics ring hollow.
So the hope in last night's talk, and in my everyday reality in working with students at Calvin College, is that the wind seems to be changing. Even as I sat waiting for the Wallis event to begin last night, I overheard conversations among Calvin students that were profoundly aware of the need to connect our faith practices with our politics, to get beyond the simplified platforms of past elections and wrestle with complexities that require the hard work of living in neighborhoods, worshiping with broken hypocrites, studying policy and history and health psychology. I left with new hope, and work to do. The connections between service-learning and joining movements for change, because of our Kingdom citizenship, abound.
So your reward for getting all the way down here is the two jokes:
First, the religious one:
Two senators, a republican and a democrat are arguing over their parties ability to "get" religion. The republican said to the democrat, "you democrats just don't get it, and you never will," to which the democrat disagreed. The republican then threw down the challenge, "I'll bet you $20 can't recite the Lord's prayer, right here, right now." The democrat rose to the challenge, and boldly prayed, "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep..." "Incredible," said the republican, handing over the $20, "I didn't think you could do it!"
Second the political one:
A person falls into the Potomac River and is drowning a hundred feet from shore. The republicans rush to rescue him and throw a 50 foot rope, shouting, "The rest is up to you!" When that doesn't work, the democrats throw another rope, this one 200 feet long, and then they let go of their end of the rope.
