Michael Spencer hits the nail on the head with the problem of being too politically focused, whether you believe your politics are correct or not. Christians focusing on the political realm for the salvation of the world will develop a pessimistic attitude towards the future and cause them to lean towards solutions which do not always fall in line with the Kingdom of God.
How we spend our thought life affects what we are passionate about. There’s no way around it. I know that when I spend little time thinking about the Kingdom of God, Scripture, the Church, that I spend little time acting on anything to do with the Kingdom of God, Scripture, or the Church.
Michael Spencer asks this:
How many conservative Christians are listening to multiple hours of Rush Limbaugh every week? I wonder how many include a couple of hours of Fox News Channel’s conservatives, Hannity and O’Reilly, on that menu. I wonder how many regularly listen to Marlin Maddux’s “Point of View” program, or Pat Robertson’s “700 Club.” How many surf Newsmax.com, Conservative News Network or WorldNet Daily.com, the tabloids of conservative web journalism? If we were to take the total hours devoted to these–and many, many other–conservative information and opinion outlets, how would it compare to the amount of time spent under the teaching of scripture? How would it compare to time spent in acquiring a Biblical vision of God? Does the total amount of time spent by that same random evangelical in “the renewing of the mind” with the Word of God come even close to the amount of time spent seeing the world through the eyes of conservative pundits and journalists?
And he notes this about his own life:
I’ll step to the front of the line and say that I have spent hours a day with these folks when I could, and in the same week spent minutes in personal devotion times. And it showed up in what I thought was important in that week. It showed up in what stirred my mind and emotions. It showed up on the thermostat of optimism that controls my energies in ministry. It showed up in my classroom demeanor, preaching, evangelism and worship. And the result was not a good one.
Those were the weeks I looked at my students and saw troubled youth listening to rap instead of young people God brought from the ends of the earth to sit under my ministry. Those were the weeks I was disgusted at what was on television instead of being thrilled at what was in Psalms. Those were the weeks I thought about the war in Iraq and not missionaries in the 10/40 window. Those were the weeks that I was mad over whatever hacked off Bill or Rush or Sean and not all that excited about the Holy Spirit showed me in the greatest news broadcast of all time. I was upset at how the government was spending my money, and not troubled at all at how I was using God’s money in my checkbook.
Read the entire article, I’m Not a Conservative Christian.
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