Every day, one of us hears that the work of Vote Common Good is not legitimate because it crosses the line between church and state. We’ll set aside for a moment that Trump just boasted falsely to evangelical leaders that he had erased that line. For many, including people we love and respect, drawing that line is more a matter of choice than of law.
One of our allies recently sent us a story in a similar vein. We appreciated the response to rejection so much, we asked permission to pass it on:
I have invited my friends to engage more directly in politics, asking them to listen to a local politician in my home. One of my Christian friends responded to my invite by politely declining, citing her desire to stay out of politics and to simply focus on sharing Christ. Here is my reply:
But He calls us, too, I think—or at least me—to remove that artificial, man-made line between “sacred” and “secular” and to realize that our entire lives exist in His sacred space, the Kingdom of Heaven already begun here on earth. He calls us to live as He lived and taught, to resist Evil in all of its forms. And when someone as anti-Christian in belief and practice as Trump ascends to power, supported and applauded by Evangelical Christians (and many other types of Christians), and seeks to damage the poor, the sick, the refugees, the people of color—all of the very people whom Christ told us to serve just as we would him—it should be impossible for followers of Jesus to remain silent and passive.
It’s as if the Emperor Nero had adopted the name of Christ under which to perpetrate his vile deeds, while being applauded by most living Christians because he had joined their tribe and was now their protector. It would have been our obligation then, as it is now, to call out the contradiction, the lies, the betrayal. To lift high the name of Jesus as He is, our resurrected, all-loving, evil-allergic Lord. And to fight to serve and save the most damaged and the least fortunate. And to bring the rule of Evil to its quickest possible end, not by fighting evil with evil, but by overpowering it with good, as He directed.
This is my calling. I wish that you would join me.