Not long after I came to Asheville, N.C., the Republican Men’s Club of Buncombe County invited me to their breakfast meeting to tell them about myself and my hopes for First Baptist Ashville’s future.
The man who invited me was a member of the church and someone I liked and respected.
He assured me that there was no hidden agenda and no intent to identify me with any particular candidate or issue.
We met in the backroom of a local restaurant. After the meal, my friend introduced me, and I began my talk in what I thought was a lighthearted way.
I said, “I was born in West Virginia and spent a lot of time there as a boy. I remember that, in my maternal grandfather’s kitchen, over the little table where he drank his coffee in the mornings, there were two pictures.
“Over his left shoulder was FDR who, according to my grandfather, saved him and his family from starvation in the Great Depression. Over his right shoulder was a painting of Jesus Christ, who, my grandfather said, saved him from sin.
“Every morning when I was at his house, those three faces – Jesus, FDR and Papa Fred – looked at me as I had my Cheerios. I can see those faces this morning as I speak to the Republican Men’s Club of Buncombe County, and none of the three is smiling at me.”
It was supposed to be funny, but I was the only one who thought it was.
In fairness, the men didn’t know me, so they didn’t know that, while I have strong political opinions, I also understand that God doesn’t play favorites with nations or political parties.
God is neither an American nor a Democrat nor a Republican.
I don’t believe that if the Democrats were unhindered by Republicans, that they would create a society characterized by the Sermon on the Mount.
I also don’t believe that if the Republicans faced no opposition from Democrats, that they would make a culture where everyone kept all of the Ten Commandments.
The fellows at the Republican Men’s Club didn’t know how little stock I put in either, or any, party, even though, at the same time, I think political involvement is an important responsibility for all of us.
I spoke to those Republican men in October 2001 when all of us were reeling from and grieving over the terror attacks, which had recently shaken our nation and the world. Laughter was hard to come by in those days.
As I left the restaurant, I thought how our political culture was making it harder for us to work together to solve our problems.
It was true both then and now that most Americans – when they aren’t forced to choose left or right, Democrat or Republican, blue or red – are middle-of-the-road pragmatists.
We want to work to solve our problems, make our communities safer and schools better, build and maintain a solid economic base, take care of people who can’t take care of themselves, protect people against discrimination, ensure equal and civil rights, and defend ourselves against violence and crime.
The more locally we can work on our problems, the better solutions we come up with, because we know each other, see each other in the grocery store, sit in the same bleachers at high school football games on Friday nights, and serve each other the Lord’s Supper on Sunday at church.
But, the broader the arena, the more polarized we become – to the point that, on the national level, the polarization is paralysis. It often seems that the only things that get done are the kinds of things that ensure nothing gets done.
All the posturing, position-taking and partisan name-calling on the national level have an effect on how we see each other closer to home.
We forget our commonalities and magnify our differences; we let the divisions of Washington, D.C., become divisions in our communities and families and even our churches.
These days, I think sadly, most churches are blue or red; there are hardly any “purple” churches left, and I think it’s a real loss.
I have a modest hope: I’d like for us to realize, or realize anew, that, as followers of Jesus, we are citizens first of the Kingdom of God and only afterward citizens of our nation.
Our primary loyalty is to the kingdom – the rule and reign, the will and way – of God made known in Jesus.
The agenda of that kingdom always transcends, sometimes judges and sometimes affirms, all our “political” arrangements.
For a Christian, there is nothing ultimate about politics, and a Christian recognizes that governments, political parties, economic theories and foreign policies, like all things human, “fall short of the glory of God.”
Guy Sayles is pastor of First Baptist Church of Asheville, N.C. A version of this column first appeared on his blog, From the Intersection, and is used with permission.
A consultant with the Center for Healthy Churches (CHC), he served previously as an assistant professor of religion at Mars Hill University, an adjunct professor at Gardner-Webb Divinity School and as pastor of several Baptist churches.
