Steve's Letter: I'm Right & You're Wrong?

I grew up in a political family. Everybody was a Democrat but me.

They sometimes threatened to change their party affiliation, but it never happened. I can even remember my father sitting at the dinner table singing, "Once I was a Democrat and happy as could be. Now I'm a Republican and I wish Truman was a tree!" He would laugh. We would laugh, too, knowing that if the Democratic Party ran the devil on their ticket, my father (and everybody else in the family) would vote Democrat.

Some of my earliest memories are of my mother leaving early in the morning to serve as a Democratic poll judge during elections. Not only that. My late brother, Ron, was the District Attorney and ran as a Democrat against a fairly popular incumbent. Ron won every precinct except one.

I'm a Republican and that presented a problem.

It didn't start out of deep convictions. In fact, it was more my anger and authority problem. I was then a student at Boston University School of Theology and I had one particularly irritating professor who constantly made jokes about Goldwater. That, among some other things, ticked me off. I remember saying to a friend, "If that twit says one more thing about Goldwater, I'm going to vote for Goldwater."

He did and I did. I've voted Republican ever since.

Once I was in the "enemy camp" (that would be the Republican camp), I started defending "my side." Pretty soon it became a matter of conviction about politics, government and culture. I wasn't a Republican because I was ticked, but because...well...I was a real Republican.

That made family gatherings interesting.

When my mother was in the last weeks of her life, my wife and I went to the mountains to be with her. (We had a place for her to live in Miami, but God took that away during Hurricane Andrew so we moved to North Carolina.) That was a bittersweet time. I recorded our broadcasts from the back porch of the house where I grew up, used my computer and fax machine a lot, and depended on my wonderful staff at Key Life. Anna and I remained there as her caregivers until my mother's death.

During that time, the political parties held their national conventions. Given the fact that my mother and I had very strong political opinions, Anna made us both agree that, if we watched the conventions together, we would keep our mouths shut. (Anna was really afraid that blood would be shed!) To this day, Anna still gets tickled whenever she describes my mother and me as we sat on the couch (she at one end and me at the other), watching the conventions and trying our best to keep quiet. We groaned, grunted and made faces...but somehow managed to keep our opinions to ourselves.

Then there was my brother. I participated in his political campaign as well as wrote, produced and recorded political commercials for him. The theme I created was "An Opportunity for Excellence!" Frankly, those commercials were one of the reasons he won the election by such a wide margin. Sometimes I would go to Democratic political meetings with my brother and sit in the back. Nobody knew I was a Republican and I certainly wasn't going to tell them. My brother was incredible and there were times when it took all of the restraint I could muster to keep from jumping up and shouting, "Hey, guys, that's my kid brother!! Isn't he something else!?!?! Doesn't he shine!?!?! And just so you know, I'm a Republican. Deal with it!"

"Steve," you say, "that's nice and all, but why are you telling us this?"

Let me give you a text. Then I'll tell you why.

The text is Romans 14:1-12. As background, the issue here is animals that were sacrificed to pagan gods and whether or not a Christian could eat the meat that had been sacrificed. Paul said:

"One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables. Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him. Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand. One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind....Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God;...each of us will give an account of himself to God."

Last month, I told you I was working on three sermons: Why Can't We All Get Along?, Why Can't We All Agree? and Why Can't We Sing the Same Songs? And to each of those sermon titles, I've added, Without Losing Our Convictions. I've preached the first one and I'm working on the second.

Now back to my biological family. There, my mother wasn't primarily a Democrat; she was my mother. In my family, I was not defined as a Republican, but as a son and a brother. I worked for and stood by my brother during his political campaign not because I changed my political views, but because he was my brother. On the Fourth of July, we saluted the same flag, went to the same parade, and experienced the same thrill of patriotism because we were Americans...and we went to those parades together because we were family.

Last month, I referenced Rob Bell and the controversy over his book, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. After I read that book, I became convinced that Rob Bell is saying something to the family that we all need to hear. Have I changed my convictions? Are you crazy? Do I agree with Rob Bell about everything he wrote in that book? No, I don't. But I'm defined by my family relationship with Rob Bell. If I dismiss him, I dismiss Christ who is in him.

I could use a thousand examples of the divisions that characterize God's family. Frankly, I wouldn't give a rip except for the fact that the prerequisite for awakening in America and the world is not how obedient we are, how spiritual we are, how hard we work, how much we pray, how correct our theology is, or how pure we are. (Are you kidding?) Awakening, according to the Jesus and the Bible, always follows love for the family (John 13, John 17, 1 Corinthians 13, Philippians 2 and 1 John 1, among others).

Back to the previous question: Why can't we all agree?

The reason we can't agree is because I'm right and you're wrong. And if you weren't such a cretin, we would agree. Therein is the problem. You aren't a cretin. You're my family.

There was hardly anything about my brother's death that was positive. He was my closest friend and I still miss him. I've often kidded that the only good thing about my brother's death was that when he got to heaven, he found out that Jesus was a Republican.

That, of course, was a joke.

But when Paul said something similar in Romans 14, it wasn't a joke. Paul said, in effect, that Christians are never going to agree on a great variety of subjects. Judgment here and now is way above our pay level. Only God can and will do that. We all, as Paul said in 1 Corinthians 13, "know in part and prophesy in part" and think "as a child." We all struggle to "see in a mirror dimly." We're never going to agree on anything but Jesus.

Jesus told us to love one another and he would work out the rest.

He told me to remind you.

In His Grip,