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Summer Reads, Part 4

Let’s start with a question. Don’t worry, it’s multiple choice (or, ‘multiple guess’, as I called it at school.)
1 Someone’s political ranting appears on your Facebook page. Do you

a. immediately rant back at them, hoping to relieve them of their profound ignorance and foolishness, and save their souls?


b. Find yourself kind of agreeing with them, but choose to attack them anyway, because they bat for the other team?


c. Calmly say to yourself, “Hmm. I’ve never thought of it like that...” and think deeply about the matter, doing some research to educate yourself?


d. Refuse to respond online, but throw the furniture, unfollow the other person immediately, find a news source that confirms your opinions, and be washed in the soothing fact that you are 100% correct?


e. Current affairs are so depressing and infuriating that I never consume any news media because it’ll just make me upset.

If you answered C you win. Not just this quiz, but the game of life. The earth is yours and everything in it.


If you answered anything else, you need to read this week’s book selection: Truth Over Tribe: Pledging Allegiance to the Lamb, Not the Donkey or the Elephant, by Patrick Miller and Keith Simon.


As the provocative title suggests, this is a book by Christians, for Christians, and calls all of us to raise our eyes above the traumatic political environment we live in, to see the Jesus whose truth transcends party loyalty.


Miller and Simon try to be objective, fact-based, and Christ-centered. I think they have succeeded. I spotted no ‘hidden agenda’ in the book. What agenda there is is clear and open: Our ultimate allegiance must be to Christ and his kingdom and not a political party or personality.


This is a challenging message for most of us. We’ve been taught that our team is right and the other is not just wrong – but wickedly so. We’ve been told that the consequences of electoral defeat are so extreme that we are justified in doing anything in order to get the good team into power. So, it is OK to do politics in ways that are unChristian or to accept policies that harm our consciences, because the ends justify the means. Miller and Simon say, ‘not so fast’.


Standing up against one’s team is hard and depressingly few Christians are clear-sighted enough to do so. This book will help you to have courage to put the Lamb on the throne, where he belongs.