Reformed Christianity Has Nothing to Do with Ultra-Right-Wing Politics
Commentary by Andy Pope | FāVS News
At the time of this writing, it has been seven years since I stepped off a bus in Moscow, Idaho, and began a new life.
Though I was born in Moscow in 1953, I had only lived here for the first year of my life, when my dad (a career Navy man) was teaching ROTC at the university. I knew nothing about this town except that there was a college here, so I was curious what Moscow would be like.
I was immediately struck with how nice everybody seemed to be. I was greeted with an amazingly warm welcome, in a spirit of cooperative goodwill I found lacking in most Bay Area cities. I even thought the people I’d just met might have been fellow Christians. They behaved lovingly toward me, even though I was a total stranger, in a manner I have lifelong associated with how Christians ought to behave.
Before long, I learned that not only were they not Christians, but that many of them were vehemently opposed to Christianity. After a while, I realized that many of these people based their views largely on reports of a certain megachurch and its derivative churches, purporting to embrace Reformed theology.
I found this quizzical. I had been a member of Faith Family Presbyterian Church in Oakland, California, where Pastor Larry Austin was a hard-line Calvinist, as devoted to the doctrines of grace as any other Reformed Christian.
I and one other person were the only white people at this otherwise all-Black church. There were pictures of Barack Obama all over the walls. Solid Reformed doctrine was preached in a way that inspired me, for I too have those leanings.
In Moscow, on the other hand, I found people associating Reformed theology with things like white nationalism, misogyny and slavery. While I cannot speak for the doctrine of that particular megachurch or its derivatives, I can truthfully attest that nothing in Reformed doctrine speaks to anything of the kind.
But to talk to some of the people I’ve met in this town, Reformed Christianity is practically synonymous with such hogwash. I even get the feeling, especially among some of the younger people I’ve encountered, that Christianity in general is seen as more of a political movement than a religion.
There are more than a few people in Moscow with whom I have struck up some very positive friendships or business relationships. Yet for many of these friends, the word “Christian” is used in an almost derogatory way. At the very least, it carries a negative connotation in their minds. To hear some of them talk, you’d practically think all of us Christians were the enemies of humanity. I find it baffling they even like me at all, being as I am a professed Christian, and a rather outspoken one at that.
But people like myself did not become Christians because we were eager to hop onto a political bandwagon. We became Christians because we were inspired by the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.
Now I consider myself to be a pretty friendly old guy, with a few noticeable quirks that make me conspicuous. I travel mostly on foot, I talk to myself out loud, and sometimes even find myself praying out loud — the way I do when I am alone in my apartment.
But the Christians who are most conspicuous in this country are those who shout the loudest — and much of the shouting has absolutely nothing to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
So I would like to urge all my non-Christian friends and neighbors to seriously consider the teachings of Jesus that many of us were brought up on in a bygone era, and to ask themselves if the teachings in the four Gospels are by-and-large damaging to our culture, or if this wisdom has actually benefited and strengthened our culture over many centuries.
I’m fairly certain that a discerning person, reading the Gospels with an open mind, will choose the latter. It is sad that Christianity has become associated with an ultra-right-wing social movement. Jesus would have nothing of the sort.
