I was very young when I first experienced a crisis between my religion and my politics.

The most vivid moment in this emerging crisis was March 19, 2003, the night before I turned 16 years old. This was the same night I spent glued to the television as I watched invading U.S. troops launching bombs into the darkened cities and outposts of Iraq, a sinking feeling rising in my stomach. Despite months of urging for patience and diplomacy, and without Congressional approval or popular support, U.S. political leaders launched a long-standing war with no clear justifications, attainable goals, or strong international allies.

Not that the addition of any of those elements would have reduced the sinking feeling in my stomach. I had been raised in a Southern Baptist home with a heavy dose of right-wing politics. I was to go to church every Sunday with a Bible in hand. I was to support the principles of trickle-down economics and the belief that everything I earned on my own accord should indeed be mine to keep.

Yet as I watched the bombs raining down that night and the buildings crumble, it seemed the foundations of my worldview started to crumble as well.

I saw that the rigid Bible beaters who helped elect the president were some of the same supporters for his move to go to war in Iraq. I saw that confirmed in the words of a president unafraid to use religious language to support his political aims as he prepared the United States for war – words like these from his 2003 State of the Union Address:

“Once again, we are called to defend the safety of our people, and the hopes of all mankind. And we accept this responsibility…We do not know – we do not claim to know all the ways of Providence, yet we can trust in them, placing our confidence in the loving God behind all of life, and all of history. May he guide us now. And may God continue to bless the United States of America.”

Herein lay my crisis. How far removed were the actions of this administration, one naming and claiming God’s providence for its actions, from the God of Jesus who said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”

This led me to much bigger questions about the words Jesus spoke and the churches that speak for him now in the public square. For all the issues that Jesus Christ addressed – poverty, healing, peacemaking, taxes – why were they only concerned about the issues of abortion and sexuality? Why weren’t they saying more about this war, a war that clearly violated the commands to love enemies and turn the other cheek? Why were they allowing politicians to use them and their language for God to affirm their own political maneuverings?

The list of questions grew longer and longer. With no one to answer for them, I abandoned both the Southern Baptist way and the way of right-wing politics. For a short time, I would give up all faith in God for social change and care for the poor, relying solely on my political allegiances to accomplish these ends in the world.

A few years later, I would discover that by being held in creative tension, religion and politics could allow social change to thrive in our democracy. I found religion to be the guiding moral voice that can keep politics from making extreme measures such as war (if religious people are up to the task). And I found politics to be the profound recognition of each individual’s moral worth to one another and to the greater common good. I found in my Baptist heritage serious considerations for engagement in politics, religion, and society.

With this story in my heart, I am preparing to lead a seminar next week at a summer youth camp for young people who are perhaps going through this same conflict of faith and politics. I adapted the title for my seminar from a sermon entitled “How to Be Christian in an Election Year” by Dr. Stephen Shoemaker, senior minister of Myers Park Baptist. I think the adapted title shows a little more of the danger of losing faith in the heated political climate of election years.

Since we find ourselves in an election year and we are always in need of reminding, I’d like to share some of the conclusions I will be sharing in my seminar – some of which have again been adapted from Dr. Shoemaker’s sermon. Here are my answers to the question “How to stay Christian in an election year”:

1. We acknowledge our dual citizenship as Christians and reaffirm that our primary allegiance is to Christ and citizenship in the kindgom of God. We recognize that we follow a God that is beyond all nations, all politics, and political parties. We follow a Jesus that is not aligned with a political movement or party. Jesus was not a political Messiah, though his ministry did have very drastic political implications. And so we recognize the primacy of God in Jesus Christ to inform our politics.

2. We recognize that no one political person or movement can claim the authority of God. There is no one moral party that aligns every political position with God’s ways. Both right and left, Republican and Democrat, have visions of moral leadership, but they are both incomplete. With this affirmation, we understand the limitations of our politics to achieve God’s kingdom, and we realize, just as Derek Webb sings it, “We’ll never find a savior on Capitol Hill.”

3. We honor the American principle of separation of church and state. This principle has made significant contributions to the flourishing of religion in America. Set right alongside our freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and petition, these ‘first freedoms’ establish the entire moral worth of a human person. We should relish in the freedom it creates and we should be ardent defenders of it as well, for it is always vulnerable to abuse.

4. We celebrate the creative power of diversity and commit to dialogue with one another. The power of democracy is found in the belief that every person should have a voice that matters in the government we create together. What is rapidly eroding in recent politics is the ability to compromise. Similarly, in religion we are losing the ability to listen to one another, even when we don’t agree. In both realms, we need a renewed sense that diversity is a good thing.

“Jesusland” image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Jesusland.svg