The Gift of Not Belonging

I know the feeling of not belonging.

As an immigrant from Nicaragua, I feel like I don't fully belong to this place I call home. Through the 13 years I've been in this country, however, I have adopted some of its values and cultures, while at the same time not abandoning fully my own Nicaraguan values and culture.

Because of this, I feel like I don't fully belong in Nicaragua anymore. My Spanish accent has changed and it is no longer fully Nicaraguan, for example. My newly adopted western values are sometimes in conflict with my Nicaraguan ones.

I am stuck in the middle of two cultures.

A Progressive, But Not A Liberal
But the feeling of not belonging doesn't stop there.

Politically, I feel I don't belong to any of the polarized political positions in this country. I don't feel fully comfortable belonging to either the Republican or Democratic party. I have strong disagreements with both.

In many ways I am a progressive. I feel my calling as a Christian is to see the perspective of the poor first, not because they are somehow more "deserving" (how can we talk of someone being deserving or not in a religion that stands on Grace?), but because the world puts them last.

Jesus hanged out with sinners and tax collectors. He hanged out with the poor. In my imitation of Christ, I want to do likewise. This is what makes me a progressive, even if I don't fully buy into the liberal agenda.

It is for this reason that I support raising the minimum wage to a livable minimum wage. This aligns with my conviction that people are more than what they do, and that in an economy that needs the janitor as much as they need the CEO, they should both be afforded a wage that can sustain them and their families with dignity.

It is for this reason that I want to call this nation to show more hospitality to immigrants. When Paul proclaims that in Christ there is no Jew or Greek (one of the racial and spiritual divisions of the time) he is leaving issues of nationalistic values as secondary to our call of seeing the other as our brother and sister.

The way the world mistreats the "other," the foreigner around the world, is heartbreaking. It seems to me that we value more our nationalistic identity than our call to love our neighbor. When Jesus responded to the Pharisees' question of, "who is my neighbor?" He responded with a parable that highlighted a Samaritan, the hated 'other' in that context.

Our neighbors are not only people of our own kind but the "other" our culture fears and despises. Even if we are disposed to not include the foreigner as our neighbor but more as our enemy, the command from Jesus to love our enemies still applies and calls us to love.

Love, for the Christian, is inescapable.

It is for this reason that I feel uncomfortable supporting most Republican candidates, because they (at the current choices) don't strike me as being welcoming to the immigrant. In fact, many of them want to deport the 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country whom they see as not belonging here.

Not Pro-Choice and yet Not Pro-Life
Let my clarify this. Ethically speaking, I am Pro-Life in the fullest sense of the word, but I can't join the Pro-Life movement as it currently is, with all the political entanglement of a particular party. This is what I mean by not being Pro-Life. I don't wish to be identified with the Pro-Life movement in the US.

I see being Pro-Life as a holistic call against a culture of death. For this reason, I can in no good conscience get behind pro-gun rights (I don't see an issue in using guns for hunting, but open carry? I have an issue with that).

I can't get behind a Pro-Life movement so entangled with a particular party that encourages cuts in the budget towards health and education but never speaks of cutting the budget towards the military and security.

If we are truly Pro-Life, then the fact that as a nation we engage in wars every 30 years or so should be disturbing. If we are truly Pro-Life, we should by definition abolish the death penalty. A political platform that condemns abortion but upholds other forms of 'righteous' killing may be more accurately described as Pro-Birth, but never Pro-Life.

This doesn't mean I am Pro-Choice. Better said, I am not Pro-Abortion. I can't deny that abortion deals with the ending of a life. This alone disturbs me. We can argue all we want whether a fetus is a human being or not, but it would be disingenuous to deny that the fetus is alive.

I know that as a man, my opinions on this subject necessarily take the backseat. I recognize that I will never have to go through the excruciating experience of deciding whether to have an abortion or not. I want to acknowledge that my perspective is severely limited because of this, and I truly don't know fully what I'm talking about, nor will I ever.

At the same time, one forms opinions on matters whether one wants to or not, and my value of life prevents me from fully supporting abortion. I understand it is not always a black-and-white issue. I understand that in many situations there are subtleties that deserve our attention. But at the end of the day, after an abortion is performed, a life is lost.

Any loss of life should always grieve us.

As you can see, for these and many other reasons, I cannot fit into any particular conservative or liberal box. I don't belong to any of them.

The Gift of Not Belonging
I can take these realities and declare "woe is me!" but I won't. I want to embrace this reality as a gift from God.

This gift of perspective allows me to see blind spots that are ubiquitous in any given culture. It allows me to see from two different cultural lenses, and acknowledge the pros and cons of each position while not fully fitting into those boxes myself.

Not only that, but maybe this sensation of not belonging is the call of the Christian. Jesus declares that we are in the world and yet not of the world. He also proclaims that His Kingdom is not of this world, and yet the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, present in this world.

I am disturbed, therefore, at seeing the Church in the US being so shaped by culture wars and ideologies of our society. I see a church that conforms more and more with the polarizing views of our national politics, whether they be conservative or liberal.

I see a Church that mirrors the political polarization of this nation, instead of the unity we are called to in Christ. If the Church is so divided not only theologically, but also culturally and politically, can we truly say that it is living fully in Christ?

When we choose a side and defend it against the other side, we enter into a cultural bubble. Ideas formed in these bubbles will slowly develop apart from the perspective of the other. As time passes in this polarized nature and ideas on both sides continue to develop independently from each other, we are driven further and further apart.

Divisions are so aggravated that when the two opposing groups get to share their ideas with each other they are both met with disgust and disbelief. Polarization is a vicious cycle that feeds on itself. The two bubbles will grow in substantial size, and when they make contact with each other, they will burst into chaos.

Here is the thing: the Church is not called to be conservative or liberal. The Church is called to be Christ to the world. Christ did not belong to any particular party of His time. He was not a Pharisee. He was not a Sadducee. He was not a Zealot. He was not a Hellenistic Jew. Christ simply was and is.

I'm not saying that a Christian shouldn't belong to any particular party. What I am saying is that this belonging is only secondary to the call to belong to Christ. Belonging to a particular political party should never be seen as a prerequisite to belonging to Christ. To consider it otherwise would be pure idolatry. When we have denominations that identify first as either "traditional" or "affirming," and only secondly as Christ-centered, we have indeed allowed our faith to be shaped by our politics instead of the cross.

I believe that our root sin as a Church is nothing other than the idolatry of culture. Our call then, is not to be a conservative or a liberal Christ to the world. Our call is simply to be Christ to the world.

The Unholy Marriage of Conservative Politics and the Church

Photo by Leland Francisco

"Jesus answered, "My Kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world" - John 18:36 ESV.

"There are two great lies that I've heard: 'The day you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will surely not die,' and that Jesus was a white, middle-class republican, and if you wanna be saved you have to learn to be like him." - A King and a Kingdom by Derek Webb.

The marriage of the political right in the US with Christianity frightens me to no end. This scary and unholy union has brought, in my opinion, a lot of misunderstanding of what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

As we read the history of Christianity, we see how this little movement of Christians started by being at odds with the political system of the world. Jesus suffered persecution from the authorities of His day. The early Christians were heavily persecuted as well, and their faith, in many aspects, was a counter-cultural one.

Jesus Himself, as we see in the Gospel reading above, clearly declares that His kingdom does not originate from this world.

It is important to note how He contrasts the way the world would deal with His particular situation with the way He is choosing to deal with it: "If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews." Of course He doesn't call his disciples to resolve His situation as the world would because His kingdom "is not from the world."

As we see from the Scriptures then, the culture of the kingdom of God is in some ways in contrast to the kingdoms of the world. The way the world resolves issues (fighting, ruling it over others etc.) is not the way the kingdom of God resolves issues.

This contrast between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world must be acknowledged. Although we can and should be trying to conform our worldly political systems to reflect the kingdom of Heaven, whenever a union of these two forces is attempted (as we see countless times in the history of Christianity), we instead see a heavy and unholy distortion of the message of Jesus.

The Marriage Between the Political Right & Christianity
I've spoken extensively of how liberal Christians try to marry cultural liberal values with Christianity, and how it distorts the faith. Now I want to turn my attention to how conservative Christians do the same.

It was an interesting experience to see my twitter feed explode with pro-life articles on the anniversary of Roe vs Wade. No other day exemplifies this unholy union as this day.

Don't get me wrong, I am certainly not pro-choice. I believe all life is sacred, and I agree with Pope Francis when he says in the Joy of the Gospel that "It is not progressive to try to resolve problems by eliminating a human life."

But I have no desire to join the pro-life movement as it currently is. On the anniversary of Roe vs Wade, my twitter feed was crowded with articles about this or that (mostly Republican) politician being pro-life and how they deserve our support.

On this and many other issues (like gay marriage, prayer in schools etc.) the underlying message is this: if you wish to become a faithful Christian, you must be a Republican. While it is true that many Christian will not say this directly (some will!), you still get the sense that to be a Christian is to vote Republican.

Is the Kingdom of God Republican?
When a marriage of a political ideology with the kingdom of God is attempted, many aspects of that particular political ideology, which at its source is not Christian, starts to slowly seep into Christian theology and practice to the point that it is normalized. To be Christian then becomes tantamount to being part of a particular political system.

This confusion of kingdoms gives birth to many blind spots in our culture, to the point that we need an outsider's voice, or a certain distance from our cultural perspective, to really see them.

Lack of Integrity in Pro-Life Politicians
To use the pro-life movement as a case in point: many, if not most, of those Republicans who are pro-life are also pro-guns. Guns are a weapon of violence and death. Guns are a weapon for fighting. Can we claim with integrity that weapons are pro-life?

Many of these Republicans are also against many welfare programs that help the poor in our nation, including the recently born. This creates a sense of social Darwinism (social survival of the fittest) and meritocracy, where the poor are seen as unworthy of that help (it is their fault that they are poor) and that it is not fair to give something to someone who hasn't earned it.

First, isn't it ironic that the most fervent opponents of evolution also push the ideology of social Darwinism?

Secondly, the ideology of meritocracy goes against our concept of Grace. Who is good enough to receive the gifts of God? Who is good enough to earn His grace? It is true that love seeks to improve the character of individuals, but it is also the nature of love to give to those whom we deem as unworthy.

Both are not mutually exclusive. Don't buy into this false dichotomy.

Also, many of these conservative politicians support big spending on the military. We spend over 60% of our national budget on the military. Only 6% of our budget goes to education.

These politicians seem bent on presenting the US as a strong nation that will not be messed with by showing our military might to the world. They are also more likely to present the "other" as the enemy. Ted Cruz, for example, recently mentioned the need to "carpet bomb" ISIS.

If Jesus was president, would He carpet bomb His enemies? Love of one's enemy takes second place (or less) and becomes a romantic and naive idea to our real need for security. Notice how the world solves problems by fighting, and how these politicians push the US to deal with these issues by fighting.

Many of these "pro-life" politicians also refuse to let any Syrian Muslim refugees into this country, for fear that they will turn out to be terrorists. Again, our need for personal security takes priority over our call to love our "enemies."

And don't get me started on immigration. In these and in many issues, Scripture's call to treat the foreigner as our own and to show hospitality to strangers is drowned out by the world's call to protect ourselves and our way of living.

These illegals broke the law, they say, and for that reason alone they are not worthy of our welcome. It is true that many committed a civil offense when they crossed the border illegally, but I am thankful that Jesus doesn't use the same rigid prerequisites to welcome us into the Father's home as the world would! Forgiveness and other forms of retribution to repay this civil offense (outside of deportation to violent and unstable birth countries) seem oddly out of the question for many of these politicians.

The Way of the Kingdom of God: The Cross
You see, the way of the kingdom of God is risky. It is not safe. It makes no sense for politicians to adopt the way of Jesus which ultimately leads to the cross. But thank God! We are called to follow the way of the cross, and not the way of self protection! We are called to leave behind the world's call to security and to follow the call of Jesus to the cross. We are called to lose our lives in order to gain them!

No politician can preach the extremely risky way of the cross and still win votes. And this is why the union between our politics with our faith will always lead to a false Jesus: a Jesus who is of this world.

No political party will ever represent fully the kingdom of Heaven. If it did, then the kingdom of God would be of this world.

Who do you choose to follow? Who do you decide to pledge allegiance to? For me, I will pledge allegiance not to politics, but to a King and a Kingdom.

The Western Captivity of the Church: Christianity as a Social Club

Christianity, in the Western world, is a social club. We fancy ourselves a community, a church, but the Western cultural captivity of the church betrays our best intentions.

Every culture has its blind spots that are obvious and yet elusive. Elusive because our own ethnocentrism prevents us from seeing with different eyes. We are blind as to how our Western cultural values takes over Christianity and transforms it into what is was never meant to be.

The Acculturation of Christianity
I'm not trying to say that the acculturation of Christianity is something bad. I believe Christianity should incarnate into the culture wherever the gospel is preached. Instead of having a carbon copy of Christianity in the entire world, every culture shines a light on different aspects of the faith, and in doing so, it remains distinct from one another and yet universal.

The problem is, however, that in the Christian west, our cultural values have come in its full force, hijacked our faith, and overshadowed the person of Christ on whom it is supposed to be established on. Both the Christian right and the left are equally guilty of this.

This is most evident in the way we present our faith to the world.

Christian Witness According to the Clubs of Conservative Christianity & Liberal Christianity
In my experience, when conservative Christians witness their faith to the world, they do so from their cultural values. They promote all the political and cultural values associated with the right: pro-life, traditional family values, personal responsibility, personal freedoms from government, and oddly enough, gun rights and capitalism.

On the other hand, liberal Christians are guilty of the same thing, and when they witness their faith to the world, they do so from cultural and political values associated with the left: concern for the poor and marginalized, feminism and pro-choice, egalitarianism, self expression, gun control and regulated market.

Both the Christian right and left are reactive to one another, and they base their identity as negative characteristics of each other..."thank you God that I'm not like those..."

In my opinion, as I have expressed in past posts, both are guilty of the same thing, that is, finding their primary identity in their cultural values, instead of who they are in Christ.

We might find ourselves particularly drawn to the values of the right or left, or perhaps a combination of the two. I don't think that's wrong, and my point is not to argue the validity of one set of values over the other.

My point is this: our Christian witness should not be based on our cultural values. The left and right can't sufficiently tell us who we are as individuals and as a people, and so we should not base our identity in those values.

In Christ Alone
When I first came to Christianity, it was because of the fascinating, intriguing, and incredibly attractive person of Jesus. As I learned more about Him, and as I communed more with Him, my heart was more and more captivated by Him.

The most beautiful thing we can share about Christianity is the person of Jesus. No cultural value, however noble or just, can come close to His radiant glory. There is nothing more beautiful we can present to the world.

Our witness should be motivated by the person of Jesus. He is fascinating enough. He is attractive enough. There is no need to cover gold with silver in order to make it more attractive. In the same way, there is no reason to dress up Jesus with our cultural values and present them as the reason to come to Christianity. Show them Jesus, and the rest will take care of itself.

Why do we witness from our values? Is it because we are afraid that Jesus is not enough? Is it that we are embarrassed to be confused with some fundamentalist group and so we feel the need to cover Him up with our social and political values?

What brought me to Christianity was not its stands on abortion, traditional family values or its care for the poor and feminist egalitarian views. What brought me to Christianity was the person of Jesus. He was relentless in His pursuit of me, until I allowed myself to catch a glimpse of His beauty, and I never wanted to turn back again.

Let us stop selling the world short of who we are. Let us evangelize not by our opposition to Planned Parenthood and gay marriage, or our opposition to the free market or the 1%.

Those issues are important, but they should not be absolutized to the point that they become central to the faith.

When we evangelize, we should be motivated by this: the love of Christ for the world.

Rediscovering the Orthodox View of Male Leadership

[Mat 20:25-28 ESV] 25 But Jesus called them to him and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. 26 It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, 28 even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

[Phl 2:5-7 ESV] 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

[Eph 5:25 ESV] 25 Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

OK, seriously, what is wrong with me? Am I going all patriarchal and Westboro Baptist on all of you? Am I suffering from some sort of ultra-conservative and temporary lapse of madness?

Before you declare me clinically insane, or worse, a conservative, I pray you read what I have to say!

I will base my theological musings on these 3 verses. These theological musings emerged from a conversation I had with my fiance about leadership in relationships, and she deserves half the credit for what is written here.

Before I start however, I want to say that there is a huge difference between being conservative and being Orthodox. Conservatives love to think of themselves as Orthodox, but their "orthodoxy" is so entangled with so many political assumptions and values that it is no longer Orthodoxy.

Conservatism is a counterfeit of Orthodoxy.

If only we would realize this, in my opinion, we would avoid many serious mistakes, like the exodus of Christian Liberalism from Orthodoxy, in the hopes of distancing themselves from the horrific mistreatment from conservatives of Orthodoxy.

Anyways, that's another blog post! Back to our topic!

I believe God calls us man to be leaders. Crazy huh?

This leadership, however, is so radically different from what the world views as leadership. They are diametrically opposed to the point that I am willing to say that male leadership does not equal patriarchy. If anything it is the subversion of patriarchy!

Say what?!

I know. But before you sent me to a medieval asylum, or before I get killed by an angry mob of radical feminists, let me explain my exegesis of these verses!

I believe that Jesus was trying to destroy patriarchy by transforming our notion of leadership.

What Jesus is saying in Mathew 20 is this: leadership does not equal authority! If we truly follow the logic of what He is saying, then having leadership is not having authority, but literally becoming slaves of all.

Now, we may read this and think, "this is just Jesus being poetic and cute, you know that hyperbole thing". I don't think so. I think He means what He says, and it is crazy.

First, He starts by asserting an undeniable fact: rulers lord it over others. This is our basic definition of authority. Authority over others means that your will dictates what others do. Plain and simple. And yet Jesus says "it shall not be so among you",

Crazy!

He is saying, you should not lead with authority! Why? This is more than just a lesson of humility. This is a lesson on Christian leadership. Lord it over others, I believe, is the way the world leads, and as a consequence, and by the simple command of our Lord, it is sinful for the Christian to lead this way.

It is sinful not because it is wrong, though a case can be done for its wrongness. It is sinful because it disobeys a command of our Lord and therefore misses the mark of Christian leadership: "it shall not be so among you".

If we lead, according to Jesus, then we must serve like slaves, or bondservants. I have said before that the word translated here as slave is from the Greek doulos.

If you had told a first Century Jew that slaves were full of authority and therefore leaders, they'd have laughed at you! I think the irony was not lost to Jesus' disciples, and His words were as perplexing then as they are now.

Now, this is not to say that all authority is evil, but an authority that forces and commands others to do as you will is definitely evil.

Philippians 2 tells us that Jesus "emptied Himself by taking the form of a servant". Here is that doulos word again! It is not that Jesus didn't have authority. That He has is undeniable to the Christian. But in order to lead, He had to serve, and in order to serve, He had to empty Himself!

In other words, in order for Jesus to lead, He had to empty Himself of authority, and lead as a servant!

Leading, therefore, is not a position of authority. Leading is a position of servitude.

See where I'm going with this?

The third passage from Ephesians commands man to "love your wives". How? "as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her".

How did Christ give himself to the church? By emptying Himself and serving, and giving His life as a ransom for her!

Now, leadership demands not that we have authority, but that we have initiative.

To lead is to have initiative, and to lead as a Christian is to lead in service, to take initiative in service.

Why is the task to take the initiative given to man, and not woman? Isn't that unfair? Isn't this more or less a more "gentle" form of patriarchy?

I don't think so, and here is why.

Man are asked to take initiative out of the simple fact that in society, historically speaking, and even true today, are the ones who have more power and authority. This was an undeniable fact in Jesus' days, and it is an undeniable fact today.

Women, sadly, are the ones whose society bestow less power to. This is unfair, and I'm not advocating for this.

Therefore, since men have more power given to them by society, it makes more sense to make the demand of them to lead, and by leading, to empty themselves. To lead is to give up voluntarily that power, and offer it to the powerless.

Crazy huh?

I think what Jesus is saying here is this: you guys are used to having all the power. Guess what? I'm asking you that if you want to lead, you must give it up and become a servant.

To ask women to give up what little power they had would be unfair. Therefore, it is the task of the men to lead, and by leading, to give up that power in service to the powerless.

This is not patriarchy. This is the subversion of Patriarchy, and it is beautiful.

The Pharisee prayed every morning what is called the three morning blessings, thanking God for not making him "a gentile, slave or a woman".

The Kingdom of God comes and subdues these blessings and declares: The Kingdom of God is also for the gentiles, requires its leaders to be slaves and to give and offer their lives to the powerless, including, in Jesus' days the woman.

Rev. Eric Law says that Jesus, in His encounters with the rich and powerful, preached the gospel of the cross, and to the poor and powerless, He preached the gospel of the resurrection.

This means that to the rich and powerful Jesus is asking them to give up that power and give it to the poor (sell all you have and give it to the poor) and to carry the cross and follow Him.

To the poor, He already calls them blessed (blessed are the poor, for theirs is the Kingdom of God).

It would be wrong and unfair to ask the poor to give up their power and preach a gospel of the cross to them, for they are too familiar with the cross.

I believe Jesus is doing something similar here with leadership.

God calls the powerful to lead by giving up their power and become servants. If men were and continue to have more power then God will continue to ask them to give up their power in servant leadership.

Relationship and the sharing of powers
Lastly, how do all of this relate to relationships between a man and a woman?

Man, in a relationship, is asked to lead. This is how I interpret earlier passages of Ephesians 5, where man is seen as the "head".

This sort of leadership, however, has to be closely tied to Christ's leadership. If man is to lead, he is to do so like Christ, by loving his wife and giving himself to her like Christ did to the church.

In doing this, man becomes the servant, and by becoming the servant, he is "emptying" himself and sharing the power with this wife. This takes tremendous courage and vulnerability, for here they become vulnerable to their wives.

The wife, in return, honors this servant leadership and shares that power back to the husband, and an intimate circle of power sharing is created, where one doesn't "lord it over" the other, and thus obeying God's command, but where the man leads by serving and emptying of his power, and the wife "submits" by honoring the husband and sharing the power back.

In this vision, both man and woman share power by giving up power.

When we give up and share power, we are exalted. The Scriptures gives firm testimony of this. Christ, in that same passage of Philippians, is exalted above any other name, since He was willing to empty Himself.

The Virgin Mary in the Magnificat proclaims that He "casts down the mighty from their thrones, and lifts the lowly".

The mighty shall be brought down, and the humble shall be exalted. If we have power, whatever our circumstances, then we are called to give it up in service of others, and God will take care of the exalting.

Leadership is one way to do that.

The Root Sin of Christian Conservatism and Liberalism

This is an issue that has been brewing in my mind, one of which I am unmistakably passionate about. It is an issue that causes lots of disappointment and distress in my dealings with Christianity as a religion.

I am talking, of course, of the polarity of Christianity in the United States, where parties seem to gather around a political spectrum that, while influenced by Christianity, it is nonetheless unChristian.

From this polarity emerges the oddity of western Christianity and its many manifestation that are normally categorized as "Conservative Christianity", "Moderate Christianity" and finally "Liberal Christianity".

These 3 parties of Christianity seem to be at odd with each other, with endless rhetorical riots directed at each other, schisms and a good measure of tribalism to go along the way.

The irony of the matter is that they all are equally guilty of the same sin: adapting and ultimately confusing, Christianity with culture. It is idolatry, pure and simple. Christianity is constantly being sacrificed to the gods of our culture.

Profiles of Conservative, Moderate and Liberal Christianity

These descriptions are going to be caricatured to make a point, and I understand that most individuals don't fit neatly into any of these three categories, but more likely than not, have a share of these three profiles.

It seems to me that to be a "good conservative Christian" one must adhere to a package of beliefs that are far from Christianity: patriotism and patriarchy, nationalism and the support of wars, the defense of our borders, and the right to bear arms. Love of Jesus is proclaimed in one breath, and nationalistic and xenophobic proclamations at the next, all with the most comical and tragic ignorance to the contradictions.

The Kingdom of God in conservative Christianity is about "saving souls from damnation" and evangelism takes center stage. Social justice issues are often ignored.

To be a moderate Christian is simply to choose a middle of the way road, an almost uncompromising stance on issues, and cherry picking from both conservative and liberal values. The moderate Christian views the commitment of both conservatives and liberals as pure "fanaticism" and is repulsed by their passions. Lukewarmness is the rule of the faith.

The Kingdom of God for moderates is about "live and let other lives, do no harm to others and mind your own darn business, we are here to have a good time and God wants us to enjoy our lives, so chill"

To be a "good liberal Christian" there is also a good and intimidating long lists of issues: you must fight for social justice, care for the poor (while at the same time creating a lifestyle that leaves no space for the poor in their lives), creeds and dogmas are at best softened or at worst disregarded as "superstitious" and "medieval". Evangelism is neglected, and what I like to call "the idolatry of justice" is prevalent. To be a liberal Christian is simply to be an activist with some religious language and practices. There is an almost desperate need to transform Christian values and ethics in a way that conform almost perfectly with progressive values and ethics.

The Kingdom of God in liberal Christianity is about "transforming our world around us and bring about the Kingdom through social and political reform".

The problems with these parties of Christianity are manifold. The biggest issue is how much these parties align with our political values. Christianity then, is heavily compromised and adapted by the culture you feel most comfortable with.

The Answer: The Gospel and the Kingdom of God

My question is: Where is the Kingdom of God in all of this? Where does the culture and values of the Kingdom of God enter in? Is the Kingdom of God Democrat or Republican?

I am going to use a Scripture passage that conservatives love to use against liberals, even though they are just as guilty of it themselves:

[Jhn 18:36 ESV] 36 Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world."

The Kingdom of God is "not of this world". As New Testament scholar N. T. Wright has pointed out, the best translation would be "My kingdom is not from this world". The Kingdom of God does not originate from this world, with all the diverse cultures and political values, beautiful as they might be.

Whenever we see the "Kingdom of God" being modeled by values of a particular political system, then it stops being the Kingdom of God and it starts being something from this world, with some religious values added to it for good measure.

This is not to say that the Kingdom of God is apolitical. If anything, it is extremely political. Otherwise, why would Jesus use political language to describe it?

What it is, however, is a culture not to replace all cultures, but by definition, a "counterculture" that is at times (but not always) in contradiction to our collective cultures. The Kingdom of God will never cease to be counter cultural. It is an endless revolution, and this revolution will one day be firmly and permanently installed at Jesus' return.

If the Gospel is not continually challenging conservative, moderate and liberal cultures and values, then it is no longer the Gospel. Making our values and culture bed partners to the Gospel is nothing short of idolatry.

Yes, Kingdom values sometimes resemble conservative and liberal values, but they do not originate from them.

We should care for the poor and social justice because we are Christians, and Christ cares for those things, not because we are liberals or progressives. We should care and do Evangelism because we are Christians, and believe Jesus is such a wonderful person that we can't help but share it with others, not because we are conservatives and duty bound to save others from hell. We believe the creeds, in Christ's incarnation, atoning death, and bodily resurrection not because we are conservative fanatics and irrational, medieval or spiritual neanderthals, but because we trust the witness of those who died to communicate this faith.

It is time for Christians to stand up and become what we are called to be: little Christs, imitators of Him, who offended both conservatives, lukewarms and liberals, and was at the same time attractive to them all.

It is time for us to die to ourselves: to our values and cultures, and be reborn to the counter cultural, always revolutionary, ancient and yet ever new, Kingdom of God.