Separating from Our Current "State"?

When I reflect on the delicious symmetry of the United States' first African-American president being inaugurated just after the official federal holiday commemorating the life of a slain civil rights icon, I am struck at the great differences between the America of 1965 and the American of 2013.
In 1965, Lyndon Johnson had just been inaugurated as President, within six months of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 2013, Barack Obama will be inaugurated as President, within six months of the second of two major mass shootings.
In 1965, Martin Luther King was two years removed from delivering his "I Have a Dream Speech" - a message rife with Biblical and gospel illusions, which sought to encourage Americans to improve life in the US by expanding freedom for all men and women. In 2013, Barack Obama is three years removed from passage of his signature legislation, the Affordable Care Act, which seeks to improve life in the US by expanding access to medical care for all men and women.

Despite this parallel, of sorts, one thing is strikingly missing. Where Dr. King drew from a deep well of Christian imagery, of the moral righteousness of his cause, President Obama's appeals are more couched in terms of "fairness" and class politics than they are rooted in an open reference the Biblical mandate to care for the poor and widow among us. The President lacks much support from a group of people who hold a similar (if not exactly eye-to-eye) view of Scripture as do a great number of African-Americans (who are among his staunchest supporters).
Despite Romans 13's unflinching commandment to be in submission to the authorities instituted over us, many conservative Republican Christians (at least according to my Facebook feed) are having a hard time with increasing taxes, impending restrictions on guns, President Obama's re-election despite a concerted Repbulican effort to unseat him, failure of Republicans in the "fiscal cliff" talks, and other sacred cows of right-wing political ideology.
Is it time for a more thoughtful separation of church from state in our minds? Do we have too ready a political plan, and not a more deeply nuanced perspective rooted in the assurance that God is in control and has placed each person on the earth for a purpose. Are conservative Christians too aligned with party to consider with supporting causes that are destined to divide Republicans asunder and possibly result in the emergence of a new American party system? Politics are manifestly not the answer to all that ails America, but isn't the current stridency in political discourse leading us to drag the name of Christ's bride through the mud in the name of scoring some political points? I am increasingly convinced of the need for a new political party that will not stoop to the level of political enemies, but will run an honest, selfless campaign to enact legislation (perhaps in coalition with Republicans, perhaps with Democrats as each party pushes to include more of the extreme edges of their supporters).

I wholeheartedly ask that those who are interested would begin searching for new leaders; for those who can see past the rancor and for the need to accomplish real, lasting, definitively good legislation that is devoid of chicanery or privilege for those who lobby successfully. We are in dire need of leadership that can fill this time where our current "state" is disunity and disrepair.

Please pray for me

I will be giving an address during the first chapel of African-American history month entitled "Why African-American History Month Matters to White Christians Too". I need the prayers of anyone who happens to read this because it will be a difficult but important talk.

We shall have nothing to say...

Philip Yancey quotes Martin Marty regarding Christian input regarding the Holocaust: "I can only respond with silence. Non-Jews and perhaps especially Christians should not give advice about Holocaust experience to its heirs for the next two thousand years. And then we shall have nothing to say." In some ways, this sentiment occurs to me as the most appropriate answer for the white evangelical Christian church with regard to race issues. In too many past instances, the white church stood silent with regard to the need for a prophetic voice, courageously speaking out against the sin of racism. Due to its silence in the past, white evangelicalism has forfeited the right to complain or lament the lack of racial harmony in America. By failing to stand up for social justice, the white evangelical community now has to bite its collective tongue when it finds the tone of an increasingly non-white America to be less evangelical, or less Christian than they would like.

Test Post

This blog will serve as a face to the community and a discussion forum for issues concerning the intersection of Christianity, race, and politics. It will hopefully form the foundation for a robust, honest discussion of how Christians operate in the explosive fields of race and politics.