Change

This has been a year of change - for our country and for me.  Though I was raised in a Democrat household and was involved in anti-death penalty activism in high school, I became a conservative Republican soon after trusting Jesus in the eleventh grade.  I attended a banquet for a crisis pregnancy center and was deeply moved by the sanctity of life issue.  I left that event a pro-life conservative Christian who evaluated candidates one one issue alone - their stance on abortion.  

I served in the leadership of a county Republican party organization and ran for city council in my city on a a conservative platform.  I volunteered for George W. Bush's presidential campaign in both 2000 and 2004.  

But in 2005, I started having second thoughts.  

President Bush nominated Harriett Myers to serve on the US Supreme Court and it was not even clear that she was committed to review or overturn Roe v. Wade.  

The war in Iraq took an ugly turn as American troops started dying at an unthinkable rate.  

I started realizing that this President struggled to string together a coherent sentence.  

And earlier this year, I started reading.  Two books.  Failing America's Faithful by Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and Souled Out by E.J. Dionne.  Both offered a more liberal view (both politically and theologically) about the role of faith in politics.  Dionne specifically challenged the idea that conservative Republicans like George W. Bush were advancing the values of the Christian faith and presented clear evidence of Bush's attempt to manipulate values voters to win two elections.  Some of the things I read in these books made me very angry.  But my main take-away was that perhaps the teachings of Christ could apply to more issues than just abortion or gay marriage.    

Despite all of this, I supported Mike Huckabee during the Republican primaries.  As his campaign was winding down, another campaign was just beginning - Barack Obama's campaign to bring change we can believe in.  

I watched his speech the night he won the Iowa caucus - and got goosebumps even though I disagreed with much that he said.  

I continued to watch his campaign from a distance.  When he came to Dallas, I went to the rally. But I only clapped once (when he mentioned helping students pay for college) and I never once chanted "Yes We Can."  

When John McCain won the GOP nomination, I was concerned.  I have never trusted McCain or supported many of his policies. 

And as I reviewed all that I had observed and learned in the last number of years, I found a strange freedom to consider voting for a Democrat candidate for President.  

The more I listened to Barack Obama, the more I heard him communicate the frustration I have felt about our country in recent years.  His words and policies reawakened a hope and optimism in this country and in our people that had been dormant for many years under the Bush administration.  

And I started chanting "Yes We Can."  

When I shared this new conviction with friends from DTS, the response was surprising.  One student looked me straight in the eye and told me that he did not understand how a Christian could vote for Barack Obama.  Another said, somewhat jokingly, that my support for Obama just showed how far a Christian could fall.  

Against this background, I watched "Christian" conservatives pray that God would rain out Obama's historic, outside acceptance speech.  I watched the Pennsylvania Republican Party run ads in the last weekend of the election using Obama's relationship with Jeremiah Wright in a way that was clear fear mongering and race baiting.  I received emails from Christians castigating their fellow brother in Christ as a secret Muslim and spreading other nefarious lies easily disproved in a quick Google search.    

Then the election happened and we made history.  

But the church continued its self-centered, sulking behavior.  Most at DTS were silent.  Few people brought up the election.  One person asked a friend of mine who voted for McCain if I was rubbing salt in his wound.  I heard a handful of pastors and teachers begin talking about the persecution facing the church and warning against the rise of the Anti-Christ.  In the library at DTS, I heard this concession: "If the Apostle Paul could pray for Nero, then I guess I can pray for a President Barack Obama."  (In case you do not know, Nero was the Roman emperor who lit his gardens by burning Christians and entertained his people by sacrificing Christians to animals in the Colisseum.)    

And in the last three weeks, I have realized that the church has chosen to become just another special interest group clamoring for the attention of the powerful.  Its strategy to advance its concerns has been to partner almost exclusively with the Republican party and its platform.  In pursuing ends that are sometimes righteous, it has used means that rarely are.  

And I reject this type of politics and and this hypocrisy.  

So I am searching - myself, my story, my spiritual journey - to find my place in the body of Christ.  I am wondering how to engage the public square as an ambassador for Christ - the God who became flesh, spent time with the poor and powerless, healed the sick, and died at the hands of the powerful.  Thankfully, I am finding those within the body of Christ who have this same heartbeat and passion.  

And I anticipate the change God will continue working in me, in the church and in our country during this season . . .