Why do American Christians impose their own political beliefs on God?

By David McElroy · November 6, 2011

Jesus wasn’t an American. He’s not a Democrat. He’s not a Republican. He’s not asking you to vote for a “pro-family agenda.” He’s also not calling you to elect politicians to achieve “social justice.” These things are news to some people.

There’s absolutely no reason to think God even wants you vote. You’re lying to yourself and to others if you superimpose your own political views onto God — no matter what your beliefs are.

It’s been common throughout history for nations to claim that God was on their side, regardless of what they called God and regardless of what the rest of their theological beliefs were. Whatever “our side” did was favored by God — or the gods or Allah 0r whatever they called their deity. If you’re a Christian and you’re doing this today, you’re engaging in blasphemy, because you’re claiming to speak for God — and you’re just making things up and claiming they’re from Him.

I don’t have the exact quote anymore, but I once heard talk radio host Ian Punnett say that for many people, God is simply themselves with a deeper voice. Sadly, that’s true.

For Christians who hold conservative political positions, they somehow manage to come to the conclusion that God believes exactly what they do. What a relief. God wants a strong government to control people’s morality, but He also likes invading foreign countries that have those dirty people who talk funny and aren’t much like us. (He obviously didn’t really mean those things about loving enemies, so it’s safe to ignore those things as we cheer people being blown up and prisoners being tortured by the U.S. government.)

For Christians who hold progressive liberal positions, they somehow manage to come to the conclusion that God also believes exactly what they believe. Who would have thought? This saves them the trouble of having to think about any conflicts between their own political goals and what God wants of them. God wants a strong government which takes things from “greedy people” and gives things to poor people. Jesus talked about helping poor people, so He obviously wants us to force other people to obey what He said. Right?

When you worship God in these ways — and define Jesus in these terms — you’re creating your own god. Whoever that is who you have in your mind isn’t the Jesus of the Gospels. He’s your own creation — and that god seems an awful lot like you — just with a deeper voice.

If you call yourself a conservative, I challenge you to find a single example in the Gospels in which Jesus suggested the use of force to get anyone to obey Him. (Hint: You won’t find such an example.) Jesus isn’t calling for the FCC to stamp out obscenity or for police to arrest gay people or use force to stop people from making porn. Those are your positions, not His.

If you call yourself a progressive, I challenge you to find a single example in which Jesus suggested that His followers use force to ensure that other people obeyed the commands He gave to His own followers. (Hint: You won’t find any.) Jesus doesn’t “love the public option” or favor universal health care or whatever else you want to superimpose on Him. Those are your positions, not His.

You do understand that government is simply force, don’t you? Without force, the coercive state couldn’t function, because it would have to depend on people’s voluntary co-operation. And if people are to be allowed to do what they want (so long as they don’t violate other people’s rights or property), well, the state isn’t necessary in the first place.

If you’re a Christian, God has called you to live in certain ways and be certain things. He’s called us to help the poor and to quit worshipping our own pampered and luxurious lifestyles. (On this particular subject, I highly recommend a book by my own pastor challenging Christians to live a “Radical” lifestyle instead of the modern American materialist dream.) God has called us to be holy and moral people. But you won’t find one single example of Jesus suggesting that a government enforce the commands that He gave to His own followers. No, that’s the part that you and your friends (and your enemies) have added all on your own.

A friend told me this week that his own pastor recently said during a sermon that people who don’t vote are “almost sinning.” This pastor believes that not voting is somehow a violation of the command to love our neighbor. In other words, we are supposed to show we love some of our neighbors by having people use violence (or threat of violence and punishment) to arbitrarily steal money from other neighbors. That’s not following God. That’s simply finding ways to pretend that God supports what you wanted to do anyway.

God calls Christians to do certain things with their lives. He never calls us to force other people to obey His commands. If you’re using the name of God to justify using the coercive state to achieve what you want, you’re not serving God. You’re falsely speaking in His name and adding things to the Bible that just aren’t there.

Stick to what Jesus actually said. We have a long way to go before we’re living as He called us to live. Even if it were legitimate to force other people to live in accordance with Jesus’ teachings — which it isn’t — don’t we have a responsibility to live it first? We’re a long way from obeying Him ourselves.

Let’s quit trying to pretend that we’re qualified to give people orders in God’s name. We’re not qualified to do that and we never will be.

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We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

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