I announced on my blog that I'm seriously considering running for the state legislature (NE) and was warned that it's a few years too late to hope to do any good. Here's my reply. [crossposted from
PublicChristian.com ]
Thanks for your comments on my running for State Legislature. All the input was intelligent, thoughtful, and valuable. I'm still very much into the process - an exciting process - and expect to know quite soon whether this is worth pursuing. It looks like it is.
Some of your comments treated the idea as honorable and probably appropriate for a person like me to pursue. Some comments treated the idea as honorable, but past its time. "It's too late." The economy has been destroyed and there will be little or nothing government can do.
I. It is really too late?
It could easily be. I can verify many of the claims and arguments in the anonymous comments, and can add some others. So can anonymous, I'm sure - anonymous is known to me and is a very intelligent, aware, Biblically informed, and caring person.
Humans seldom really know such things for sure, objectively, until after the fact. Today we might be 20 years past too late. On the other hand we may be able to achieve another century or even many more of keeping this race and this civilization going. There were at least a couple of times in Biblical history when it really was too late, and people were advised to just escape if they possibly could. (See Jeremiah's life, and the experience of the church during the besieging and destruction of Jerusalem by Rome in AD 70.) Credible prophets pointed it out - though Jeremiah, for example, refused to escape; and Jesus went deliberately into the mouth of the beast.
But there's also Jonah's experience with Ninevah. He preached coming destruction (very much deserved!); they repented; and God "changed his mind".
Then there's this instruction to Jeremiah: "speak to all the people of the towns of Judah who come to worship in the house of the LORD. Tell them everything I command you; do not omit a word. Perhaps they will listen and each will turn from his evil way. Then I will relent and not bring on them the disaster I was planning because of the evil they have done." [26:2,3]
And Daniel's instruction to Nebuchadnezzar: "O king, be pleased to accept my advice: Renounce your sins by doing what is right, and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed. It may be that then your prosperity will continue." (4:26]
As you know, the Bible is full of that idea.
II. SO: "How should we then live?"
1. If you are NOT certain it's too late to affect the course of American politics, economy, etc., then I think you - I at least - have to stay involved and do all we can to enable &/or create a better future. It's not dishonorable to go down with the ship while doing your best to prevent the sinking.
2. If you ARE certain it's too late, you may be entirely right. Comparable disasters have happened repeatedly throughout history and can happen again - no doubt worse this time around. You still might choose the course in #1; it has a certain true nobility to it.
OR you might work to get yourself and others into a more sustainable situation for when the society around you collapses. That might mean leaving the country - although I suspect in this modern world the crises will follow you. It might mean making some sort of creative special arrangements for surviving here - Christian "survivalists." But as anonymous says, when the people have guns but no food it ain't gonna be pretty. And there are non-Christian survivalists who have thought of most of the `safe' places or strategies, so you'll likely have to hope you can get along with them. Of course, with radioactive and otherwise poisoned air, polluted or absent water, determined totalitarian governments - it could be pretty nasty.
III. SO this guy will go with #1. Keep hope alive. Do all you can within society, as long as you can, with all your heart.
And frankly, I do still have hope. "Hope against hope." Hope that examines all the negatives, which are VERY great and intimidating, and still finds reason to invest, to be involved, and to labor on.
IV. My hope has two sources.
First, I believe in the insanely persistent and powerful grace of God. I believe in the power of repentance (change of values, change of actual direction). I believe in the power of reconciliation. I believe in the power of love. I believe in the power of a caring and intervening God.
Second, I believe (very surely if less ultimately) in the American people and in our American heritage. It sometimes takes an awfully long time (awful is the right word!), but when the people stir they have been known to bring down governments and dislodge deeply entrenched evils. I think they are beginning to stir. It may not work. But there is an immense amount of heart out there, and an incredible reservoir of brains and of ability to work very hard for clear goals. It's amorphous. It's unpredictable. It's sometimes not too elegantly done. But it is a very real hope. It has in fact made America the hope of much of the rest of the world for much of the last 200 years.
Right now, we stink (morally, intellectually, even physically) to high heaven. But we have the ability to repent - significantly change direction - in our actual deeds. I do see signs of that. I pray God to enable and protect that.
V. Let me end with quotes from four of the comments you left:
First, from anonymous:
Jesus is coming back to reign on earth. There will be mortals around, planting vineyards just like the prophets tell. This world will come to good. We will not be the ones who institute this. It will be the Lord.
Do all the good you can now, in this life and at this time, but don't expect the US to keep afloat for more than 4-5 more years. The government is lying to us all. They have utterly bankrupted us already with deficit spending to make wars.
From William:
If you were doing this as an American, who happens to be a Christian, and who brings with you the Christian value of caring about others, I would say that it was an excellent idea. Knowing you, I don't think we need to worry about "Christian political activism" .... You already do spiritual ministry in a non-religious context .... I think that Jesus' teachings lead you to care about others, and that has a lot to do with you considering this. I think the strength you get from your beliefs will be necessary at times, if you succeed.
From rix:
I believe God is capable of terrible wrath. But I also believe God lets events play out, & in that I find much hope. It is a difficult process for the world to accept that humanity really does mean the whole world, not just this side of the river. We may well be passing through a darkness now on our way to a great light. As long as a Christian stays fixed on that light, participating in the community large or small is a good thing. But do it as a citizen.
From Barb:
True Christian political activism, like that of Martin Luther King, is something Christians should do. One of the many things that made his ministry so great is that he worked for all of us .... I think in some way we all do Christian ministry in non-religious places ... Some of us do it daily in corporate America .... And some of us do it in the face of the hypocrisy being passed off as Christianity by the religious right. It's not an easy thing to do, but it always was `hard teaching'.