Playing a different game

Paul Littleton has been reading Jeremiah and has come to the conclusion that the church ought to be playing a far different game from Republican and Democrat:

I think American Christians (on the right and the left) need to sit back, take a deep breath, count backwards from ten to zero and get a little confidence in the one who said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." If the left-wing nutjobs take over America it will not be because God has slipped off to the bathroom. If the right-wing wackos get their way it will not be because God got caught napping. And if worse comes to worse and some terrorist group infiltrates the U.S. killing you and all your children it will not mean that God lost control of things. It will simply mean that his plan did not work out exactly as you thought it would. But he'll still be God and victory will still belong to his people.

. . . Liberalism and conservatism, both politically and theologically, are simply two sides of the same coin. They both play the same game, by the same rules. They simply play for different teams. Saturday I will go watch the OU Sooners play against the Washington Huskies. They will be going for different goals, but they will all be wearing the same equipment, they will use the same number of players and the rules will be the same for one as for the other. The only thing separating them will be the colors of the uniforms and which end they're driving toward. But it will all happen on the same field of play and they'll all use the same rule book.

More often than not, however, God plays a different game by a different set of rules and invites us to join him. We can put on our team colors and play our hearts out, but that really isn't any different than the guy who scores a touchdown, points to heaven, kneels on one knee and thanks God. He's still playing a different game. Call it religious. Call it Christian. Call it what you want. It's still football. Jesus was often confronted by the religious people of his day and asked to take sides in their doctrinal debates. He always turned the debate on its ear, rewrote the rules, and invited his listeners to play a different game. At his trial the secular authorities invited him to play their game by their rules. He astounded them with his silence.

Amen.