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by
Eugene Cho
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January 29 - February 16, 2021
It’s the temptation to build the structures and institutionalism of Christianity but without a parallel commitment to Jesus.
using Jesus to promote nationalism is simply not the way of Jesus. This is the danger of cultural Christianity that eventually, and predictably, produces cultural Christians rather than disciples of Jesus.
the oldest sin in humanity has been to conform God into our image.
if we’re never offended, convicted, disrupted, or stirred by the Holy Spirit, it’s quite possible that we’ve conformed Jesus into our thinking, liking, and … image.
that truth telling, confession, forgiveness, and reconciliation could be possible.
dangerous difference between cultural Christianity and following Jesus Christ.
Christ follower is to be faithful amid tension.
To stay engaged, to remain hopeful, to love anyway, to walk with integrity, and to bear witness to the love, mercy, and grace of Christ.
They matter because politics inform policies that ultimately impact people.
Rather, it’s a bastardized and infected form of cultural Christianity.
the idea of American exceptionalism can be a dangerous guise for American supremacism.
How would we endure life under a person who so clearly did not share our values, our Christian values? How had our prayers not been answered?
We accuse, vilify, and expect the worst from people who do not share our political mind-sets. Many of us have become alienated from family and friends because of this toxicity.
Rather than asking about one’s politics, we should be asking about our understanding, imagination, and embodiment of the beauty and power of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
we’ve allowed our politics to inform our theology rather than our theology and worship of the Christ informing our politics.
all while understanding that the political system is not our ultimate hope
When Christians pledge blind allegiance to a political power and its leaders and cannot objectively evaluate what a politician states or espouses, we travel down a dangerous path. We cease to see the world informed first and foremost by the life and teachings of Christ. Instead, when we allow political allegiances to identify us, we distort the Bible to justify our politics and allegiances. Put another way: this is idolatry.
To love God and to love our neighbors as ourselves. To live in the radical way Jesus taught us to live, as expressed through the Sermon on the Mount.
But objectively speaking, we should acknowledge that President Trump is night and day different from the kind of moral leader that conservative Christians have always sought.
Private conduct does have public consequences.
The state of our politics is a reflection of the state of our souls. 20
It is impossible to have one party that fully encapsulates what it means to be about the kingdom of God.
But when we’re more obsessed with winning and being right, when we’re more obsessed with power and privilege, more obsessed with winning culture wars, and when we act and speak in ways that are completely antithetical to what we say we believe as followers of Christ, people—fellow Christians and non-Christians—can’t help but see the dissonance.
And we wonder why we often don’t understand one another. The point is, we’re attempting to have conversations in America about critical issues, but so many of us have no friendships or relationships with people of other races—and probably even fewer conversations with people of other faiths or with people who don’t share our viewpoints.
Jesus went through Samaria with a determined and resolute mind to break down barriers of hatred and cultural, ethnic, and racial prejudice to replace them by building bridges of forgiveness, reconciliation, peace, love, and hope.
Before all of our best arguments, let’s first show love. That’s what we’re supposed to be known for, after all.
I can’t imagine any other institution that can gather people from all backgrounds, ethnicities, and stories—and even political inclinations or affiliations.
Therefore, we must work to remain in friendship and fellowship. As Christians, we need to agree that the most significant aspects of our relationship are not our politics, our political views, or our political affiliations but that we are connected together as brothers and sisters in Christ.
Politics has its role. But Christ is the most significant aspect of our community.
Help me understand what you believe. 2. What brought you to those conclusions?
Active listening is the practice of taking in someone else’s words before mentally preparing a response, and it is not easy.
Love serves, washes feet, sacrifices, forgives, embraces the hurting, and welcomes all to the table. This is the gospel lived out.
My street-preacher moment of life is an example of what can happen if we ignore the effects of society and politics on people simply because they don’t have the direct eternal impact of saving souls.
It didn’t dawn on me until later during Holy Week that Jesus didn’t just enter Jerusalem and go straight to the Cross. In between, He confronted corruption and hypocrisy, overturned tables, healed the blind and sick, hosted a meal for His imperfect friends, and washed feet.
The kingdom of God cannot be contained by our political parties or religious institutions.
Because they did not actively pursue justice, they were actually supporting slavery by their inaction.
What does being pro-life mean for kids? For immigrants? For the disabled? For groups of people who are often at the losing end of the criminal justice system? For the elderly?
Nearly one in four women in America have had abortions, after all. 11
can’t imagine prosecuting a single, poor woman for having an abortion, potentially jailing and separating her from her family.
Should there be legislation banning the procedure, or should it only be a deeply personal, ethical choice?
how much could we reduce the incidence of abortion if we invested in resources to make young women more financially stable? Do our politics support that?
Because I believe every single man, woman, and child—including the pre-born—is created in the image of God. I believe in the sanctity and dignity of life from womb to tomb.
To be pro-all-life is to acknowledge the systemic injustice that operates against indigenous and black and brown people in our culture.
To be pro-all-life is to be broken by the fact that LGBTQ youth are three to six times more likely to attempt suicide. 16 And the list goes on …
the midst of all this, we must pray for the presence and power of the gospel, pray for hearts to be transformed. And we must love well.
we are enamored with a gospel that comforts us, but we are rarely drawn to a gospel that disrupts us.
Indeed, the most powerful message one will ever deliver is a faithful life.
must realize that political parties and candidates may distort, manipulate, cajole, emotionalize, tug, and use whatever other tactics to “speak” to our faith.
I took to Twitter and to my fifty thousand followers and made a stand for justice,
let’s make sure we’re getting the full story and not just seeing a facet of it—or worse, not falling for some preposterous conspiracy theory.
