YeshuaRedeemed
Revelation 3:10
I don't identify with liberals or conservatives. I am a centrist, and don't know who to vote for. Do I have to vote for a POTUS if I don't support any of the candidates? What is a centrist Christian to do?
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Christians: Is it okay to be a centrist politically?
- Thread starter YeshuaRedeemed
- Start date
Kangaroo Feathers
Yea, it is written in the Book of Cyril...
I would argue that a non partisan, evidence based centrist political stance is the ONLY option for a non hypocritical Christian.
Axe Elf
Prophet
Don't worry, you can't vote for a POTUS even if you tried. The electoral college are the only ones who can do that.
Terrywoodenpic
Oldest Heretic
In almost all countries Liberalism is the centrist position, and the one I identify with.
In the USA you do not have a left wing Socialist party to balance the right wing GOP.
There is almost no gap between a right of centre Democrat and left of center Republican.
Compared to other countries the Democrats are all slightly right of centre.
I don't think there is a Centrist Christian, or any other political party Christian. You are simply a Christian. There are Christian values that Republicans share, Christian values that Democrats share and Christian values that Independents share.
Faithofchristian
Well-Known Member
The only advice that I can give, is find out which political party platform is in line with God.
GoldenThread
Member
Christians don't get involve in the politics of the kingdoms of this world. Our kingdom is not of this world, rather it is with God.
It is not immoral to vote, but it really shouldn't be a priority or a distraction from building God's Kingdom of love here on the Earth.
Let your light shine before men so they can see your Good works and Glorify your Father in Heaven. All that we do is for God and His glory, which brings God's kingdom here on Earth.
Vote for this Kingdom.
In peace
Terrywoodenpic
Oldest Heretic
In the UK the Church of England used to be called the conservatives at prayer.
To day, though it is still their church of choice.
The church leadership, and the church on the ground, has taken up a powerful social platform.
Politically there is now no discernable social or political difference between the Anglican Church, and the positions of the non conformists churches like the Methodists who have always supported the Labour and socialist membership.
For some years now the "Conservative" have been thought of as the "Nasty" party.
The Conservative still hold a fair proportion of members of the Anglican Synod, though they are largely out voted in both the houses of the bishops and the clergy as well as the laity.
http://faithdebates.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Clergy-survey-Press-Release.pdf
This survey seems to give some academic support to my views given above. though it highlight the differences of the Evangelicals with in the church. However I find the Evangelicals in the church take the same position as they do in other churches, namely a more "fundamental" dogmatic and biblical tradition, which sits rather uncomfortably with in the more relaxed and wide theological beliefs of the church. In our group of parishes we have one priest that identifies as evangelical, to a large extent his views are humoured by the others.
However his general disdain, for the authoritarian red tape of the church organisation, is probably shared by many.
To day, though it is still their church of choice.
The church leadership, and the church on the ground, has taken up a powerful social platform.
Politically there is now no discernable social or political difference between the Anglican Church, and the positions of the non conformists churches like the Methodists who have always supported the Labour and socialist membership.
For some years now the "Conservative" have been thought of as the "Nasty" party.
The Conservative still hold a fair proportion of members of the Anglican Synod, though they are largely out voted in both the houses of the bishops and the clergy as well as the laity.
http://faithdebates.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Clergy-survey-Press-Release.pdf
This survey seems to give some academic support to my views given above. though it highlight the differences of the Evangelicals with in the church. However I find the Evangelicals in the church take the same position as they do in other churches, namely a more "fundamental" dogmatic and biblical tradition, which sits rather uncomfortably with in the more relaxed and wide theological beliefs of the church. In our group of parishes we have one priest that identifies as evangelical, to a large extent his views are humoured by the others.
However his general disdain, for the authoritarian red tape of the church organisation, is probably shared by many.
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I am a practising Christian of the Roman Catholic variety and identify politically as a centre-left liberal. I usually vote either Labour, Liberal Democrat or Green Party.
In all honesty, I cannot imagine myself ever subscribing to a Trumpian-style, nativist agenda. There is simply no aspect of his worldview or that of the GOP as a whole, which fits the ethical framework presupposed in the New Testament or the Christian theological tradition. The only form of 'conservatism' that I can quasi-accommodate my value system with is that typified by Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats in Germany, since it touts itself as a 'compassionate conservatism' in the context of a social market economic model.
Owing to this, the affinity which tends to exist these days between "alt-right" social movements like the Jordan Peterson crowd and Christianity - or even comparatively more moderate conservatism, as in the Tory Party and old-style Anglicanism here in the UK - has long bewildered me.
If you take the teachings attributed to Christ or his early evangelizers like the Apostle Paul on their face, they strike one as the least propitious ground upon which to formulate a reactionary social agenda. As the Jewish scholar Daniel Boyarin once explained, in his 1997 study A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity, early Christianity proclaimed the doctrine of a "universal human essence, beyond difference and hierarchy" and called for "autonomy, equality, and species-wide solidarity".
According to Meeks, the original baptism was a "performative" ritual utterance in which, "a factual claim is being made, about an 'objective' change in reality which fundamentally modifies social roles" (1973, 182).
Christianity was the most radical movement to arise out of both the Second Temple Jewish and the Graeco-Roman world, encapsulating both the most egalitarian intuitions of their respective civilizations while also going significantly beyond them to new horizons. To reference the scholar of late antiquity and New Testament Studies Professor Larry Hurtado:
When it comes down to it, the attraction of right-wingers to Christianity really has to do with the fact that, in the words of Boyarin, "Christianity is the most powerful of hegemonic cultural systems in the history of the world". Christianity became dominant and a power-magnet, despite its lowly, rural and grassroots origins. In the words of the historian Tom Holland, "Today, the question of how and why a crucified criminal from an obscure corner of the Roman empire had come to be enshrined, within a bare four centuries, not just as a divine patron of the empire, but as one who had decisively routed all his rivals for the title, toppling gods from their ancient thrones and terminating their priesthoods, is one that — understandably — continues to preoccupy historians."
There is a strong strain of triumphalism at the heart of the Trumpian Christian melange - indeed, one of the pro-Trump Christian groups is named, "Church Militant" and equates him with Constantine the Great, which says it all. ‘Unlike any religion known to the human race at the time,’ the atheist New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman writes, ‘Christianity thrived by killing off its opposition.’
I honestly think it's about power and viewing oneself as the heir to a hegemonic set of values that once rigorously defined Western societies, which is deemed to be under threat and needs reassertion. A siege-mentality. It doesn't appeal to me even slightly...not even a teeny-tiny little bit.
In all honesty, I cannot imagine myself ever subscribing to a Trumpian-style, nativist agenda. There is simply no aspect of his worldview or that of the GOP as a whole, which fits the ethical framework presupposed in the New Testament or the Christian theological tradition. The only form of 'conservatism' that I can quasi-accommodate my value system with is that typified by Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats in Germany, since it touts itself as a 'compassionate conservatism' in the context of a social market economic model.
Owing to this, the affinity which tends to exist these days between "alt-right" social movements like the Jordan Peterson crowd and Christianity - or even comparatively more moderate conservatism, as in the Tory Party and old-style Anglicanism here in the UK - has long bewildered me.
If you take the teachings attributed to Christ or his early evangelizers like the Apostle Paul on their face, they strike one as the least propitious ground upon which to formulate a reactionary social agenda. As the Jewish scholar Daniel Boyarin once explained, in his 1997 study A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity, early Christianity proclaimed the doctrine of a "universal human essence, beyond difference and hierarchy" and called for "autonomy, equality, and species-wide solidarity".
According to Meeks, the original baptism was a "performative" ritual utterance in which, "a factual claim is being made, about an 'objective' change in reality which fundamentally modifies social roles" (1973, 182).
Christianity was the most radical movement to arise out of both the Second Temple Jewish and the Graeco-Roman world, encapsulating both the most egalitarian intuitions of their respective civilizations while also going significantly beyond them to new horizons. To reference the scholar of late antiquity and New Testament Studies Professor Larry Hurtado:
That the poor should be as worthy of respect as the rich; that the starving should have a claim on those with the reserves to feed them; that the vulnerable — children, prostitutes, slaves — should not be used by the powerful as mere sexual objects: all of these novel Christian doctrines must surely have had some influence on ‘the triumph of Christianity’ among the teeming masses of Roman cities.
When it comes down to it, the attraction of right-wingers to Christianity really has to do with the fact that, in the words of Boyarin, "Christianity is the most powerful of hegemonic cultural systems in the history of the world". Christianity became dominant and a power-magnet, despite its lowly, rural and grassroots origins. In the words of the historian Tom Holland, "Today, the question of how and why a crucified criminal from an obscure corner of the Roman empire had come to be enshrined, within a bare four centuries, not just as a divine patron of the empire, but as one who had decisively routed all his rivals for the title, toppling gods from their ancient thrones and terminating their priesthoods, is one that — understandably — continues to preoccupy historians."
There is a strong strain of triumphalism at the heart of the Trumpian Christian melange - indeed, one of the pro-Trump Christian groups is named, "Church Militant" and equates him with Constantine the Great, which says it all. ‘Unlike any religion known to the human race at the time,’ the atheist New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman writes, ‘Christianity thrived by killing off its opposition.’
I honestly think it's about power and viewing oneself as the heir to a hegemonic set of values that once rigorously defined Western societies, which is deemed to be under threat and needs reassertion. A siege-mentality. It doesn't appeal to me even slightly...not even a teeny-tiny little bit.
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