LABC Update – Wednesday, October 26, 2022

Good Counsel in this Election Season (Excerpted rom Brian Kaylor, Word and Way)

Former U.S. Sen. John Danforth, a longtime Missouri Republican politician and Episcopal priest, urged those attending a Methodist church in Kansas to not make an idol out of politics. Danforth also warned of the dangers of “holy war” politics as he spoke virtually on Sunday (Oct. 23) at the Church of the Resurrection, a large United Methodist congregation that has multiple locations on both the Kansas and Missouri sides of the Kansas City metro area.

“There can only be one ultimate concern,” Danforth said. “For Christians, it’s the kingdom of God. When we make anything else ultimate, we violate the second commandment, we commit idolatry. In Old Testament times, people made idols of gold and silver. Today, we make idols of ideology and politics. Surely politics is important, but we should not make it our ultimate concern. It isn’t religion.”  

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Danforth lamented that “the center is gone” in Congress as “politicians target the extremes.” He argued that compromise, which politicians now rarely attempt to find, is what makes democracy work.

“By design, politics is how we coexist with conflicting interests and opinions. It’s not Armageddon, it’s not the way one side can achieve moral domination over another,” he explained. “But when, as now, politics consists of manufactured rage, when it is presented as a do-or-die competition between the just and the unjust, then it’s no longer a way to work things out. It’s a holy war where a compromise isn’t acceptable, only victory.”

John Lewis on voting – The vote is precious. It is almost sacred. It is the most powerful non-violent tool we have in a democracy.