Tempting Faith

David Kuo was the deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, an agency which channels federal dollars to various religious charities. Like many former political insiders, Mr. Kuo recetnly published a book entitled Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction. He charges that his office became a political tool used to rally evangelical voters to get GOP politicians elected. At the same time, so Mr. Kuo alleges, Bush officials like Karl Rove have mocked Christian leaders behind their backs, calling them “ridiculous,” and “just plain goofy.” He believes that religion was used as a politcal tool to rally support and turn out voters. In a 60 Minutes interview, he said—

It was spiritually wrong. You’re taking the sacred and you're making it profane. You're taking Jesus and reducing him to some precinct captain, to some get-out-the-vote guy.

Now Mr. Kuo is indeed tying to sell a book, and you do that with “shock and awe.” Any tell-all book is to some degree more “based on true events” than it is “the whole truth” because it is always one’s person’s take on the most newsworthy (read seedy) parts of their experiences. I am not suggesting that we take Mr. Kuo at face value.

But this does serve to remind us that there is a fundamental difference between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of men. The kingdoms of the world operate based on exercise of power; men of power use power to gain more power. (I know all about this p;olitcal stuff because I used to watch West Wing). Jesus says that the “rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them” (Matt 20:25). That is not the way of the kingdom of God. At some fundamental level, the kingdom of God and man run at cross purposes. There is a difference between a leader who is a person whose conscience is informed by God (we need more of those ) and the politician who uses the gospel of God as talking points to placate part of the electorate bent on getting their way (we have had enough of that).

Kuo had a brush with death (a brain tumor caused a seizure which led to a serious car accident) that caused him to re-evaluate his priorities. he suggests that core Christian beliefs and values have compromised by the focus on politics. His solution is an interesting one. He suggests that Christians need to fast from politics for two years—everything except voting—and spend that time and money getting inolved with charity work and showing the compassion of Christ. He says, “We need to spend more time studying Jesus, and less time trying to get people elected.”

You might not agree with Mr. Kuo’s assessment of our present administration, but it’s hard to argue with that final point. The power that transforms comes from God, not from politics.