Que Sera Politics: “Who Do We Think We Are?”

“Thou shalt not tempt the LORD thy God” 

Matthew 4:7

As an employee of a major oil company, a friend had spent many years in the Middle East.  One day he remarked, “You won’t find any skid marks in Saudi Arabia.”  A religion major during student days at an American Midwest liberal arts college, this writer immediately recalled that the religion of Islam is highly fatalistic.  A female vocalist and actress of the 1950s put it this way: 
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“Que sera sera. Whatever will be will be.

The future’s not ours to see. Que sera sera.” [1]

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There is a major difference, however, between the blind “faith” of Islam and the Christian doctrine of predestination.  While the Judaeo-Christian scriptures of the Old and New Testaments inform us that God’s ways are higher than our ways, and his thoughts higher than ours [2] nowhere are believers commanded to act without thinking or to think without acting.  Christian faith, Soren Kirkegaard notwithstanding, is not a blind leap in the dark but rather the most rational of acts.  The prophet Isaiah exhorted Israel, “Come now, let us reason together . . .” [3]

This writer recently witnessed a community club event in which a young bicyclist, time and again, suspended high in the air after leaving the ramp, rotated 360 degrees backwards before landing either on the elevated platform, the downward ramp, or the blacktop below.  Relating this to an acquaintance, the writer was told that a former stunt biker was now a quadriplegic living at home under his father’s care.  Who do we think we are?  America is playing Russian roulette.

While Christians are warned to beware of any “philosophy” which is contrary to Christ, [4] they are commanded to think reflectively and to use sober judgment before acting.  The Bible is not a book to be applied randomly by closing one’s eyes and putting one’s finger on a verse as though that is the way for determining the will of God.  Verses must be understood  within the context in which they were written with care to view the part in light of the whole of Scripture.   The Bible represents a progressive revelation, consisting of a series of covenants between God and men, beginning with Genesis in the Old Testament and concluding with Revelation in the New Testament.

While we think biblically and critically about major political issues we are facing in America, we are reminded in Ecclesiastes that “there is nothing new under the sun.”   History has a way of repeating itself.  Our present dilemma with the United States Supreme Court, for example, brings to mind the Court’s Dred Scott ruling of 1857 in which Negro slaves were ruled to be “property” and not “persons.”  (Recall that Jefferson in his first draft of the Declaration of Independence had called for the abolition of slavery.)  Bearing a striking analogy to the present  political wake following the United States Supreme Court definitions of marriage and human life itself, the following statement in A History of the United States depicted Republican thinking in the aftermath of the Dred Scott decision:
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Republican anger at the Dred Scott decision was intense.  Party leaders denounced the court’s reasoning and proclaimed that when the party came to power it would take action to have the decision reversed.  Presumably they meant to “pack” the court and bring a new case.  A typical Republican reaction came from the Chicago Tribune: “That bench  full of Southern lawyers which gentlemen of a political temperament call ‘august tribunal’ is that last entrenchment behind which despotism is sheltered; and until a national convention amends the Constitution so as to defend it against the usurpations of that body, or until the court itself is reconstructed by the dropping off of a few of its members and the appointment of better men in their places, we have little to hope for by  congressional action in the way of restricting slavery.” [5]

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Little wonder that the Chief Justice of the existing U.S. Supreme Court vehemently opposed the majority decision with the question: “Who do we think we are?” [6]

If “a government of the people, by the people, and for the people,” is not to “perish from the earth,” [7]  Christians must provide greater civic involvement.  As the “salt of the earth,” [8] “the light of the world,” [9] and the yeast which leavens, [10]  Christians dare not shirk their God-given civic responsibility.  Their constitutional right peaceably to assemble, to voice their moral/political concerns, to have a part in the selection of political office-holders, and even to run for office themselves, if qualified, must be exercised.  They will give account to the Lord who called them for the manner in which they employ their talents and carry out their civic  responsibility.  Pastors and elders must set the example for their congregations in that regard.  Politics and piety go hand-in-hand.  Silence in the face of moral decay is not golden.  For evangelical Christians to remain aloof from politics in a nation such as ours is to sell out our country to the highest bidder thereby stripping her of her moral undergirding.  How could “no-fault” divorce, for example, become the law of the land unless the majority of evangelical Christians were lulled into thinking that Que Sera had become our new national anthem?

God honors personal and family time devoted to thanksgiving, repentance, prayer, and Scripture.  Lives are built when hands-on skills are learned during work and play.  A holiday break from the  electronic world liberates time and space for the luxury of the here and now, even mealtimes of food and conversation as a family, enabling security, trust and hope, in small things while preparing for the big things that are sure to come.  Who do we think we are?  God knows.  Let us live simply as His cheerful, obedient, faithful children.

Endnotes

 
[1]. Doris Day introduced this song to the American public in 1956 in the movie The Man Who Knew Too Much.

[2]. Ephesians 1:11

[3]. Isaiah 1:18

[4]. Colossians 2:8

[5]. T. Harry Williams, Richard N. Current; Frank Freidel. 1960. A History of the United States [To 1876] New York: Alfred A. Knopf

[6]. Amber Philips, “John Roberts’s full-throated gay marriage dissent: Constitution ‘had nothing to do with it’” Washington Post, June 26, 2015

[7]. Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address quoted in Charles Adam’s When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession, p. 197

[8]. Matt. 5:13

[9]. Matt. 5:14

[10]. Matt. 13:33

Sources

 
Adams, Charles. 2000. When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for southern Secession. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

Hitchcock, Alfred, Director.  1956. The Man Who Knew Too Much. (Movie) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049470/

Philips, Amber.  “John Roberts’s full-throated gay marriage dissent: Constitution ‘had nothing to do with it’”             

Washington Post, June 26, 2015  www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/06/26

Williams, T. Harry; Richard N. Current; Frank Freidel. 1960. A History of the United States [To 1876] New York: Alfred A. Knopf

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About the Writer

David Clark Brand is a retired pastor and educator with missionary experience

in Korea and Arizona. He and his wife reside in Ohio. They have four grown children

and seven grandchildren. With a B.A. in the Liberal Arts, an M. Div., and a Th.M. in

Church History, Dave continues to enjoy study and writing. One of his books, a

contextual study of the life and thought of Jonathan Edwards, was published by the

American Academy of Religion via Scholars Press in Atlanta.