A reminder that God is not partisan

Sojourners would like you to remember that God is not partisan.

In an online petition, the progressive faith organization calls on political figures to stop claiming a special mandate to speak for heaven or for claiming that one party alone is the true home of the faithful. In that, it may be argued that the petition takes a few swipes at Bush, owing to the presumption, real or imagined, of the Right that the faithful owe their votes to the GOP in the national election next month.

Still, I wholly agree with the basic thrust of the petition: There are moral issues that Christ calls us to work toward that each major party systematically ignores.

Politicians and politically minded folks regularly use religion as a means of building support for themselves, their candidates or their issues. I've seen and heard faith used to rally opposition to same-sex unions, to oppose stem cell research and abortion, to call for reforming public education, and even to suggest that one presidential candidate is somehow superior to another.

It really gets sickening after a while. It was as absurd for George Bush calling Jesus Christ his favorite philosopher, as it was for Howard Dean to call Job is his favorite New Testament book, and probably more pretentious.

People of conscience, religious and not, are going to have stands on all the issues our nation is fighting over; and it's a given that God cares deeply about these and other issues facing America, including those that don't get mentioned.

If politicians are going to be brazen enough to invoke God's name to justify their candidacy, then they need to pursue the things that God names as his priorities, not just the hot-button political issues of the day.

And both sides of the political debate, Right and Left, need to remember that there are legitimate differences of opinion on several of these issues. Greg Hartman is opposed to same-sex marriage; I support it, and I'm proud to call him a brother. To some, abortion is the overriding issue that trumps all others; while I am unabashedly pro-life, I consider other issues as well -- and still we stand in prayer for one another when the need arises, and would share Communion if the chance arose.

It's not an issue of whether we're a Christian nation. It's whether those who declare themselves followers of Christ are going to pursue the standards of justice laid out in Scripture, whether we will see care provided for the orphans and the widows among us and whether we will be servants of the least Americans, or only of the strong and powerful.