a week before

SOME THOUGHTS A WEEK BEFORE THAT DAY

I am deeply aware of the pending US election. I don’t mean to be, and perhaps at a political and economic level it may not have a great deal of impact on Aotearoa New Zealand, maybe even less here in the deep south. I really don’t understand economics particularly. Some benefit from high interest rates, some from low. A bit like farming, really—how’s poor God supposed to sort out conflicting prayers? Rain, or shine?

But I can speak of faith and spirituality. One candidate in the USA is seen by some to be God’s chosen servant. Hmmm. God operates on a “by their fruits you shall know them” basis. By “fruits” Jesus did not mean economic outcomes. I’m not saying Ms Harris is a card-carrying Christ-bearer. They are rare, too, in US politics, though Jimmy Carter was (and at 100 still is) regardless of whether he was a good president or not.

But a person who encourages Christian Nationalism, a dangerous distortion of the gospel (unfortunately all too common in Christian history), who boasts of philandering, who is a proven abuser of financial trust, and who has at best a cavalier attitude to truth (even more brazenly so than most politicians), is not God’s chosen servant.

Okay. I don’t think Ms Harris is God’s chosen servant either. Or Mr Luxon. Or Ms Ardern, or—I dunno—the list around the world goes on. Nelson Mandela was, perhaps? But I certainly think Mr Trump’s blatant manipulation of fundamentalist Christians in his country is deeply evil. 

Okay, I can’t speak for the economic outcomes of right and left in the USA ... or here. But I hope American Christians remain very vigilant, for there is a deeply demonic tsunami of belief that hugging a US flag, holding an upside down bible, marketing a bible (printed in China) renamed after oneself, with added inclusion of a national constitution … is in some way the gospel.

These are not the way of Jesus Christ.