Not too long ago, my pastor said something to the effect of “You should really support Israel”. This is my own paraphrase, and it doesn’t do justice to his more gentle demeanor, but it still caught me off guard, as I immediately found myself wondering, “What does that even mean?”
Do I support the decisions of the Israeli government? Do I support the actions of the Israeli military? Do I support Israeli foreign policy? Do I support Israeli domestic policy? Do I support the Israeli invasion of Gaza? Or do I simply support the right of Israel to exist? A lot of churches have their heads so far up their asses on Conservative issues that they fail to realize that supporting the government of Israel is very different from supporting the people of Israel. This, of course, is by design, and recently there was even proof of a campaign by the Israeli government to target pro-Israel ads at people who could be geo-located to Christian churches in the United States. It’s not even a conspiracy, go look it up! It’s like saying that to be pro-America, you must support everything the American government has done. Insanity!
(This post is not about Israel, though for what it’s worth, I don’t know enough about their actions to do any more than support their right to exist. I don’t yet have strong opinions beyond that.)
I have yet to hear anybody in the church dive into these details. What’s odd is that political opinions are welcome in the church, but analysis of history and philosophy really isn’t. I guess that’s too complicated – too ‘extra-biblical’ – but broad, sweeping political opinions are encouraged, as long as they are the “right” ones.
I tend to rag on Conservatives a lot because I’m surrounded by conservative ideas, pundits, and the occasional parishioner who thinks they are doing God’s own work by being staunchly and narrow-mindedly Republican. I fucking hate it. I probably should pick on Liberals more often, though, as I disagree with them more overtly on many key issues, but since I’m not surrounded by liberal ideology, it technically annoys me less frequently.
The sin of the Right is to think that God is behind all of their beliefs, and because God is behind all of their beliefs, these beliefs cannot be questioned (it is also a sin of the Right to reject science when it tells them what they don’t want to hear, and to accept science when it tells they what they do want to hear). The sin of the Left is to bully everybody with an ad hoc (and sometimes insane) morality of compassion, which they use to label those who disagree as “horrible” and “un-Christian” for not believing that every ounce of human endeavor should be spent coddling the poor and disenfranchised, because supposedly Jesus would, and if you are not 100%, you are 0%. I have a friend who used to post very political things on Facebook, who would criticize Christians for tithing to churches, then turn around and blame Republicans for not supporting charity. At the time, my church literally ran a food bank. (So in other words, “Christians are bad if they don’t support the causes that *I* do”)
Most people don’t adhere to these extremes, but it’s popular to get close.
What’s frustrating is that “left” and “right” look different in different countries, but God seems to always – magically – support the beliefs of one political party or another within the country the person lives in. It makes you think it probably has more to do with people wanting to think they are right, rather than anybody actually doing the difficult work to find the truth, or at least a rough approximation of it.
That my friends and I sometimes disagree doesn’t bother me at all. If my friends shared all of my opinions, it would mean I had boxed myself into an echo chamber, and ceased to grow as a person. What bothers me is when people think they know everything: “Everybody should own a house”, “my diet is the only true diet and every other diet is horrible and unhealthy”, and even, “You should really support Israel”.
What restores my faith in humanity is when people have the guts to admit when they don’t know something, or don’t have all the answers. Granted, when we vote, for example, we can’t ignore what’s in front of us, whether we fully understand it or not. There is a time and place for action based on partial information, so I’m not trying to suggest that pure political passivity is the answer, but I wish people were more keen to accept the limits of their understanding, rather than plowing forward with a belief because their pundit of choice told them to.