Chick-fil-A Austin-TX (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
It’s not easy to keep quiet. My practice is to stay away from politically charged discussions. There are some who I may someday influence for the cause of Christ who would stray if they knew my stand on political issues. One of the first sermon series I did in our church plant during the last presidential election was called Going Purple. There are few things that cause division among people than politics, but our Christian communities need to be places where people can disagree on things and still worship together. Churches shouldn’t be blue or red. I remember a pastor pointing out that numbered among Jesus’ disciples were Simon the Zealot and Matthew the tax collector. Talk about extremes in political thinking! Zealots wanted to kick out the Romans and re-establish the kingdom of Israel while tax collectors were Jews who gathered up taxes that supported the foreign occupiers. I’m sure Jesus was intentional about this. The Bible doesn’t record it, but I wonder if those two hashed things out from time to time. Maybe they didn’t. Maybe the purpose and power of God among them helped them to see the greater cause? This thought prompts me to stay quiet in such times. However . . .
