Christ-Centered

Mark Shea on Christians and their politics.  Excerpts:

For the Christian, the only kind of conservatism that counts is a Christ-centered one.
The same can be said of liberalism. There is such a thing as a Christ-centered liberalism, as Servant of God Dorothy Day attests. Indeed, here in the US people such as death penalty abolitionist Joseph Ratzinger would be reckoned a crazy liberal by many Americans. The key is “Christ-centered”. Jesus had room for both Matthew the Tax Collector *and* Simon the Zealot. Keep our eyes on him, not on the power struggles of this world.

And some good thoughts from Pat Archbold on the priority of Christ over politics. Excerpts:

...I wished her well and then it struck me. Had I ever represented my Lord or my religion as well as I has just represented my city and my state? Had anyone ever looked at the way I lived my life and the way I treat others as a Christian and taken such notice or comfort? To my eternal chagrin, the honest answer is no.

My faith-formed politics and advocacy have had the front seat in my life and on my lapel for a long long time. It is only now that I realize that the faith that I allege informs those positions has taken a much smaller role, a role like Kevin Costner in insufferable film "The Big Chill." A young Costner played the role of the character that informs and motivates the entire screenplay, but his life and death ended up on the cutting room floor. Nobody ever saw it. The story is supposed to be about him, but nobody would ever really know. I fear that such is my faith, Jesus is supposed to be the main character but in reality He is mostly on the cutting room floor because He didn't help the story I have been telling.

Nobody would ever see Jesus in me precisely because I fail to see Jesus in them. I have been more interested in convincing people that lower taxes and smaller government benefit all than in convincing them that Jesus loves them.

I could convince swarms of merits of my beliefs on the proper role and function of government and yet not help a single person to get to Heaven. That stingy Scrooge could not fear a sadder and more impotent epitaph than "Here lies Patrick, he believed in smaller government."

I have warned repeatedly about the consequence to life and liberty that our chosen course surely portends and I still believe that. But I suspect something worse is coming, something much worse, something beyond politics. Can you feel it? I think I can.

I fear it, but I am reminded that there is no road to Heaven but by Calvary. And if in my fear and suffering I can remain gold, if I can help the many to see and trust in a Jesus that loves them by showing them what Jesus' love has done in my life, I will much better prepare them from what is coming than I have ever before...