108. Political Spirit
Many people like to talk about politics. Politics are often an easy conversation starter because it gives everyone something to talk about and argue over. I do remember talking about political parties with my friends and asking my parents whom they are going to vote when I was in grade 7. It certainly gave me an illusion that I was becoming an adult because all adults I knew seemed to have an opinion about politics.
Politics happens when there is a diversity of opinions and one party wanting to push “their” ideas and agenda over the other. That is why politics involve at least two parties that differ in opinions. So parties involved in politics are all trying to gain power and authority over the other. And once gained, they try to leverage them to continue their dominance.
This is why politics are not limited to political parties. In every human organization, there is politics. That is why there is “office-politics” or “church-politics”. It may not be visible but it is not difficult to find political “spirit” in action.
Politics rarely unites people but divides them. When you see someone who is very angry at other political parties, you are seeing the evidence of that. Christians can be lead by the political spirit as well.
Political spirit always categorizes a group of people with a certain opinion as bad. In their view, they don’t simply have a bad opinion. They are bad. They are the enemy to beat. This is a sign of being driven by the political spirit. Many churches split because of a few people who are driven by such political spirit, dividing good and bad people solely based on their opinions.
God did not give us a political spirit. He gave us the Holy Spirit.
Holy Spirit always unites. Those who are lead by the Holy Spirit can identify differing opinions but refuse to identify the people with those opinions as enemies. Holy Spirit helps us to find something common in the midst of differing opinions.
For that reason, I’m very thankful for our SLT (Strategic Leadership Team). We strive to pursue “alignment” not “agreement”. That is why we vote as often as Jesus and the Apostles did. (By the way, they never did!). We try our best to align ourselves with what we discern as God’s will regardless of our differing opinions. We’ve made some big decisions in the past few years and every time we were able to come to alignment and commit ourselves to it. I attribute our church health to the wonderful leadership team we have who are trying their best to be lead by the Holy Spirit, not the political spirit.
