Written by Daniel Morrissey
A disturbing post has recently appeared all over the Internet. The content of this post takes the form of a direct challenge: Who can create the best video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid burning in hell? The motivation: Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are expected to support a health care reform bill that might include pro-choice provisions.
Personally, I do not know if I believe what I am seeing. I do not want to believe that this post originated from someone who claims to be a Christian, though it seems to be the sad truth. Even if this press release is a sham put out by someone hoping to deface the religious right for political reasons, it is being taken seriously enough that it is quickly becoming the latest assault against what a true Christian agenda should be. Regardless of your feelings about the current administration and regardless of where you stand politically, as a human being, this has to rub you wrong.
Someone out there is exploiting the faith I profess in order to make a political statement and affect political change. That’s not OK with me.
I wish I could just let this go. I wish it didn’t bother me so much. I wish it was something I could just laugh off, but the sad truth is more people are listening to the Christian equivalent of religious extremists than they are to those carrying a message of love. Religious extremists sell more papers and get more face time on the 5 o’clock news. But their message is inflammatory and hateful. Their message is “We’re not happy with the political climate of our country because we didn’t elect who is in office. Let’s condemn them to hell.”
And that’s not the worst of it. This same press release offers prizes to those who come up with the best video of our congressmen enduring eternal damnation. Apparently, the first prize is an all-expense paid trip to Washington D.C. to attend a pro-life training seminar as well as a travel stipend and a seminar series advocating the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Before I go on, let me say that as a Vocational Ministry major staring down graduation in December, in my studies here at Harding, I have never met a professor who advocated condemning individuals to hell on the basis of their political agenda. I have never read anything in the Bible that leads me to believe that it is our duty as Christians to win over the world by putting certain people in office. I don’t care if it’s George Bush or Barack Obama who sits at a desk in the Oval Office; spreading the gospel of Christ is not something included in the Oath of Office taken by each new president. It’s not our government’s job to be an agent of Christianity — it’s ours.
As far as I know, some of the last words Jesus said before he went back up into heaven were spoken to his apostles: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations …” at the end of Matthew 28. Jesus is using the command form here while speaking directly to his disciples. Even though this passage was not written exclusively for us, as torchbearers of the Gospel, the principle still applies to us nearly 2,000 years later.
If there are any further doubts, I ask you to comb the New Testament and find one instance where someone was converted only after being overtly threatened with hellfire by those first pioneers who carried Christ’s message across the Mediterranean.
Let us not forget that our message is not one of judgment, but one of love.
