political heresy

I just don't get why people hate McLaren so much. It's not that I'm in love with him. I know very little of what he stands for. But if I take the below at face value, it's very good ... this is his response to "What encourages you, and discourages you, about the church and its involvement in the political realm?" posted in Out of Ur. It's rock solid ... and yes, I'll be one of those going down with the religious right.

My big concern is that with the collapse of the religious right there isn’t a mature and responsible Christian response that will fill the gap in a constructive way.

And I’m also concerned that the religious right will have left such a bad taste in the mouth of both the political world and the culture at large that there will be a reaction against any expression of faith in the public sphere. So this to me is a danger, but we have to do what we can.

What we should be asking is, how do we help our government be the kind of government that is pleasing to God? What I would hope is that people who are in the Republican Party who are followers of Jesus would use every bit of their energy and power to help the Republican Party reflect more and more the values of Jesus. And that Democrats who follow Jesus would do everything in their power to help the Democratic party do the same thing more and more. Now in that way, you are actually more aligned, you’re a stronger ally, with your fellow Christian in another party than you are with the people in the same party who have no higher allegiance than their partisan agenda.

He adds this sad but true commentary ...

[B]eing a follower of Christ has become, in a way, a subset of being conservative or liberal.

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