Christian Conservatives Consider Third-Party Effort

Christians have always done better when they were in the minority.  That’s the sentiment I heard a well known church historian once express, and I think he meant they even did better as the persecuted minority.

Once they have worldly power they don’t know how to handle it.  They so often lose sight of the call of Christ to be salt and light in the world to attract others to the righteousness that cannot simply be achieved by conformity to the written law.  They forget that Jesus calls them to be like God and bestow equal benefits on both “the evil and the good.”

This threat of religious right leaders to form a breakaway political party and thereby ensure defeat of any incremental hopes they might have for their moral agenda, as much as I might disagree with much of it, reminds me of Sledge Hammer, the main character in a satirical TV comedy where he came across as a lovable, right-wing detective who always chose the most violent and extreme options to solve any problem.

It’s quite possible this threat is political posturing on the part of James Dobson, but these kinds of political activities are exactly the kind of prominent display that are turning people away from Christ instead of drawing them to him.

Religious Right Christians need to decide whether their role in society is to be Salt or Sledgehammers. Are they followers of Christ or do they all have a Messiah-complex?