God is Neither on the Right nor the Left

I hate the "us vs. them" mentality. And it's everywhere. Everyday.

Republicans vs. Democrats. Conservatives vs. Liberals. Blacks vs. Whites. Pro-Choicers vs. Pro-Lifers. Straights vs. Gays. And on and on it goes.

It wearies me.

I like what Brennan Manning has to say, specifically with regard to religious and political disparities:

Homophobia and racism are among the most serious and vexing moral issues of this generation, and both church and society seem to limit us to polarized options.

The anything-goes morality of the religious and political Left is matched by the sanctimonious moralism of the religious and political Right. Uncritical acceptance of any party line is an idolatrous abdication of one's core identity as Abba's child. Neither liberal fairy dust nor conservative hardball addresses human dignity, which is often dressed in rags.

Abba's children find a third option. They are guided by God's Word and by it alone. (I would disagree a bit here by saying I'm also guided by the Holy Spirit.) All religious and political systems, Right and Left alike, are the work of human beings. Abba's children will not sell their birthright for any mess of pottage, conservative or liberal. They hold fast to their freedom in Christ to live the gospel--uncontaminated by cultural dreck and political flotsam, and the filigreed hypocrisies of bullying religion. Those who are bent on handing gays over to the torturers can lay no claim to moral authority over Abba's children. Jesus saw such shadowed figures as the corrupters of the essential nature of religion in his time. Such exclusive and divisive religion is a trackless place, Eden overgrown, a church in which people experience lonely spiritual alienation from their best human instincts.

--Brennan Manning, Reflections for Ragamuffins

Why must we all be against one another? Doesn't God say that it is not people (flesh and blood) that we fight (wrestle) against? We obviously don't take that seriously. Just look around--behold all the division!

How sad. How grievous. What a waste of time and energy.

I know. I'm being a Pollyanna, not realistic. Sure, I can see that. I realize there will be no peace on earth until the Lord's return. But can't we try to pull in the reigns a bit and try to be a little less judgmental? A little less defensive? A little less tense? A little less patronizing?

Just a little wish of mine.