The Third Way: Jesus

Obama or McCain?

There's gotta be another way. I know these two guys are running for president this year, but I could care less. If you have read my blog for a while you know that I don't vote, and over the past year I have stopped pledging allegiance to the flag. I stand, I'm quiet, but I don't recite a thing, and my allegiance is definitely not to the United States of America. My allegiance, my devotion, shouldn't be to a presidential candidate, or a political party, or even to a country like the U.S. of A., my allegiance should be to God, to Jesus.

Many of you know that much of this journey was influenced by Shane Claiborne's book Irresistible Revolution. Claiborne wrote another book with Chris Haw called Jesus for President. It's different, it's more academic, but just as powerful. The authors call us, as Christians, to do what Apostle John wrote about in Revelations 18:2-5 and 11-14:

"Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great!
She has become a home for demons
and a haunt for every evil spirit,
a haunt for every unclean and detestable bird.
For all the nations have drunk
the maddening wine of her adulteries.
The kings of the earth committed adultery with her,
and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries."

Then I heard another voice from heaven say:
"Come out of her, my people,
so that you will not share in her sins,
so that you will not receive any of her plagues;
for her sins are piled up to heaven,
and God has remembered her crimes.

What is interesting is that John uses the same words here as would be used for coitus interruptus. If you are not sure what that is, look it up. John (and this was a dream spoken from Jesus) said that we should literally "come out of her," we should not be of nations, our allegiance should not be to Babylon, to Rome, to China, or to the U.S.A. As Christians, we need to re-evaluate our role in the empire. Jesus said: "Give to Cesar what is Cesar's and to God what is God's." (Matthew 22:21) As Claiborne points out "Jesus knew that the way out of Rome's grip lay not in appealing to Rome or in trying to overthrow Rome but in resurrecting Yahweh's alternative economy right under Caesar's nose."

The apostles of the early church understood this as well:

And they would become known as the Way. Their community was more than just a group of people who shared religious beliefs. They were a group of people that embodied a new way of living, the way out of the empire, where slavery, poverty,war, and oppression were normal. . . . The credibility of their gospel would rest on the integrity of their lives. For they were now to be the body of Christ. Jesus would live in them. (Claiborne and Haw, Jesus for President, p. 137)

Both Obama and McCain claim to know Jesus, and maybe they do, but they both look the same to me. The interesting thing is that if Jesus ran for president in this "Christian" nation of ours, he would lose the election, probably in a landslide (and he wouldn't pick up one of the red states). Why? Because his campaign slogans would be "love your enemy," "be meek!," "show mercy," "be persecuted," and the rest of the Beatitudes. Those wouldn't get him elected, they would probably get him thrown in Gitmo.

So when you ponder your ballot this November, write in Jesus, because whoever wins, McCain or Obama, Democrat or Republican, they will still be running a nation that looks strangely similar to Rome or Babylon.

I like this song, check it out: A Savior on Capital Hill by Derek Webb