Aliens in America: Day 7

Alien Activist?  

‘As aliens, live in reverent fear’ (1 Pet 1:17) 

Christian truth is relevant to everyone. We’ve a deeply satisfying answer to who and why humanity exists in the first place! Yet our vision of human dignity can also put us at odds with people who see differently. While we enrich some, we may also conflict with those who hold strongly to opposing versions of what it means to be human.  

This election is complicated: two candidates clash on what is just and beautiful for human dignity, each not above invoking God in their positions. Our task is to prayerfully discern what most aligns with our vision of humanity, or at least what position seems to restrain humanity’s unraveling.  

That’s not easy. But we must try!    

It helps to remember we are aliens who must be true to how we see reality and insist that our view isn’t irrelevant to political decisions. We just can’t insist our view prevails. What we can always do is try to show something of beautiful Jesus by kindly casting vision of human dignity from a Christian worldview. 

Archbishop Charles Chaput writes with characteristic wisdom and balance: ‘We will never build God’s Kingdom on earth. When people have messianic expectations of the state, the story ends badly. But never will we ever be released from the duty to sanctify, humanize, and bring Jesus to the public square in which we live.’ 

I experienced this a little bit from the beginning of my Christian conversion in the late seventies. Jesus redeemed me from a ‘gay’ sensibility in the very season that ‘gay’ rights in the public square leapt the guardrails of traditional ideas of marriage and family. Jesus and Church were restraining me amid the relentless push for full normalization of homosexuality in America. 

In 2001, the Massachusetts Supreme Court initiated ‘gay marriage’. This kicked off a 14-year state-by-state battle for the redefining of marriage in America. In 2004, District Attorney of CA Kamala Harris overturned Proposition 8 (the people’s choice for traditional marriage in CA) by presiding over the first illegal ‘gay’ marriage in San Francisco alongside then-Mayor Gavin Newsom. Eleven years later, ‘gay’ marriage was enshrined into federal law by SCOTUS.  

We did our best in those years to make known how marriage dignifies everyone, especially children, and how toying with marriage has unforeseen consequences, especially upon children. We engaged with anyone who would listen!  

And we helped restrain some states as they battled to retain the original meaning of marriage. Ultimately, we weren’t successful, but we were right. And as we cast vision of the beauty of man for woman and woman for man, Jesus transformed us more thoroughly into representatives of His image in humanity.  

My point? Our Christian witness related to the Imago Dei—human dignity—can impact everyone. For some, this is the fragrance of life; for others, it is the stench of death. We should lovingly extend that vision in the knowledge that we cannot force its acceptance but can and should make it known.  

In this way, we are aliens before we are citizens. Drawing salvation from Jesus, not Casaer, can help us make Him known in the public square. Understanding a little about ‘natural law’ and its contribution to America’s roots can be helpful here, as we shall see in tomorrow’s blog.  

‘Grant us grace, O God, to discern how to know the truth that is our freedom; help us apply that truth in an election that requires wise and discerning Christians. We need You, God, in order to be faithful to You. As aliens, endow us with our responsibility as citizens.’ 

‘Jesus, You are the King, and we are first citizens of Your Kingdom. Would you free us for You in this election season, not to hide but to shine? You’ve always asked nothing less from Your elect whom You have made ‘strangers in a strange land’ (Ex. 2:22). Here we are, a people who don’t know what to do but who look and listen to our King.  

“Father of all holiness, 

guide our hearts to You. 

Keep in the light of Your Truth 

all those You have freed from the darkness of unbelief. 

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son.”’ 

Amen