New York Times op-ed: It’s Easy to Put ‘Jesus’ on Your Bus. Practicing Faith Is Harder., by Jane Coaston:
On Thursday, I saw tweets featuring the debut of a campaign bus for Kandiss Taylor, a Republican candidate for governor of Georgia. It is emblazoned with what is evidently her platform: “Jesus, Guns, Babies.” That’s it. No further explanation needed, or perhaps more accurately, no further explanation given. …
As someone who has covered politics, I can appreciate the brutal simplicity of Taylor’s messaging. But as a Christian, I’m … depressed by it. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the savior of all, who was born to the Virgin Mary and suffered and died on the cross at Calvary for the sake of the sins of humanity. I believe he then rose from the grave, and as the Nicene Creed, an ancient statement of faith, puts it, he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.
I believe that as much as I believe that the sun will rise in the east and set in the west. I read the Bible regularly (from Genesis to Revelation to the Acts of the Apostles, my favorite book of the Bible) and I think a lot about my faith and its role in my life. Suffice it to say, faith is hard — faith in the unseen, faith in something that encourages you to act against your first instinct, faith that, no matter what you want to do, tells you what you should do instead.
It is not hard to be a Christian in America since the majority of Americans identify as Christian and virtually every public institution bends over backward for us. But it is hard to live a Christian life — to exist as a person who has a belief in an eternal savior but spends a lot of time wondering what that really means. …
Performative religiosity is just as old hat. Few people were more adept at understanding the power of displaying belief for political reasons than Donald Trump. In 2016, Trump said, “Nobody reads the Bible more than me” …
Taylor and her bus seem like a new nadir. A campaign based entirely on “Jesus, Guns, Babies” sounds like a parody, like what a TV writer would think a Georgia Republican voter wants — a little too on the nose.
With that list, she’s not even pretending to have read Scripture or to have engaged with Christianity in any way. She’s got three words, and that’s all she thinks she owes voters. She’s on Team Jesus. She’s even got the bus ready. In a way, it’s so honest about how dumb our political process has become — how crass and empty — that I almost admire it. …
I’m reminded of Matthew 6:5-6, in which Jesus explains to his disciples how to pray, telling them that there is no need to do so publicly, showing off their religious devotion for the purpose of garnering attention (or polarizing the people around them). Christ tells them: “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. Truly I tell you, they already have their full reward. But when you pray, go into your inner room, shut your door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. And your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” And, I would guess (but never assume), that these instructions include “Don’t put Jesus’ name on a campaign bus.”
