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Politics
A Prayer
O God of earth and altar,
Bow down and hear our cry;
Our earthly rulers falter,
Our people drift and die;
The walls of gold entomb us,
The swords of scorn divide;
Take not Thy thunder from us,
But take away our pride.
From all that terror teaches,
From lies of tongue and pen;
From all the easy speeches
That comfort cruel men;
From sale and profanation
Of honor and the sword;
From sleep and from damnation,
Deliver us, good Lord!
Tie in a living tether
The prince and priest and thrall;
Bind all our lives together,
Smite us and save us all;
In ire and exultation
Aflame with faith, and free,
Lift up a living nation,
A single sword to Thee.
- G. K. Chesterton
Eugene H. Peterson, Where Your Treasure Is (William B. Eerdmans Publ. Co., Grand Rapids; 1985), frontispiece
Resource
- Integrity of Heart, Skillfulness of Hands, Charles H. Dyer & Roy B. Zuck, editors, (Baker Books; Grand Rapids, MI, 1994), pp. 361ff
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Lord of Politics
If Jesus is Lord then he must also be Lord of our politics. That’s an unarguable Christian truth—that everybody argues about… Too many of us Christians confuse political convictions with spiritual convictions. Insecure with ambiguity, we assume people of one Lord, one faith and one baptism must also promote one political agenda. That assumption leads the church into trouble.
First, it prompts us to make judgments about people that ought to be left to God…
Second, when the church confuses spiritual and political convictions it is tempted to use political power to forward a “Spiritual” agenda.
Don Ratzlaff in the Christian Leader (Feb. 23, 1993), quoted in Christianity Today, February 7, 1994, p. 39.
Sigh Speaks Volumes
An elderly gentleman was sitting on a park bench, basking in the sun, when another elderly fellow sat down. They looked at each other for a moment but did not speak. Both men sat there, staring straight ahead. After a while, one of them heaved a big, heartfelt sigh. The other jumped up immediately and said, “If you’re going to talk politics, I’m leaving.
Bits & Pieces, June 24, 1993, p. 7
Quote
- The penalty that good men pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by men worse than themselves. - Plato
Source unknown
The Best of Will Rogers
Will Rogers was many things—cowboy, part Cherokee Indian, entertainer and tart observer of the American scene. From December 1922 until his death in August 1935, he wrote a column about anything that caught his interest. Although the following comments on government, politics and the state of the nation were made half a century or so ago, they are as timely as today’s newspaper. Some things never change.
Source unknown
Good Sayings
1. I love a dog. He does nothing for political reasons.
2. Congress is so strange. A man gets up to speak and says nothing, nobody listens and then everybody disagrees.
3. Never blame a legislative body for not doing something. When they do nothing, they don’t hurt anybody. When they do something is when they become dangerous.
4. I really can’t see any advantage of having one of your party in as President. I would rather be able to criticize a man than have to apologize for him.
5. It’s no disgrace not to be able to run a country nowadays, but it is a disgrace to keep on trying when you know you can’t.
6. It looks to me like any man that wants to be President in times like these lacks something.
7. They’ve already started arguing over who will be the speaker at next year’s conventions. What they better worry about is who is going to listen.
8. There should be a moratorium called on candidates’ speeches. From now on, they are just talking themselves out of votes.
9. A President-elect’s popularity is the shortest lived of any public man’s. It only lasts till he picks his Cabinet.
10. The promising season ends on Election Day. That same night, the alibi season begins and lasts for the next four years.
11. Our government is the only people that just love to spend money without being compelled to, at all. But the government is the only people that don’t have to worry where it is coming from.
12. Last year we said: “Things can’t go on like this!” And they didn’t—they got worse.
13. In Washington, yesterday, everybody I tried to talk to was a Presidential candidate. Both Houses spent all week arguing politics. Did you ever figure it out? They are the only people that are paid to do one job and do every other one there is but that.
14. Lord, the money we do spend on government, and it’s not a bit better than the government that we got for one-third the money 20 years ago.
15. This inflation was brought on by the actions of many peoples of the whole world, and its weight will be lifted by the actions of many peoples of the whole world, and not by a Republican or a Democrat.
16. With old inflation riding the headlines, I have read till I am bleary-eyed. We are living in an age of explanations, but no two things that have been done to us have been explained twice the same way, by even the same man.
17. When it comes to a showdown, Washington must never forget who rules—the people.
The Best of Will Rogers 1979 by Bryan B. Sterling, Crown Publishing, Inc., NY, NY
Definitions of Political Systems
1. Communism: You have two cows. The government takes both of them and gives you part of the milk.
2. Socialism: You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor.
3. Fascism: You have two cows. The government takes both cows and sells you the milk.
4. Nazism: You have two cows. The government takes both cows, then shoots you.
5. Bureaucracy: You have two cows. The government takes both of them, shoots one, milks the other, then pours the milk down the drain.
6. Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one of them and buy a bull.
7. In a democracy, everyone has two cows, then a vote is taken, and whatever the majority decides to do, you do, and that’s no bull!
Pulpit Helps, August, 1992, p. 8
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