This Op-ed piece appeared in Sunday’s New York Times. I have said many a time that neither the Republicans nor Democrats are God’s way. The social-gospel liberals who inhabit the Democratic Party are not the way as the Religious Right conservatives of the Republican Party are not the way. The way of Jesus is always a third way. We all need to hear what Wills wrote, else we as those who follow Jesus as the Christ will forever be taken down a path that does not lead to God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven, but down a failed attempt to accomplish the vain efforts of man. I particularly like Wills’ references to things being of “different orders.” I discovered this article by way of Titusonenine.
Gary Wills writes:
The New York Times
April 9, 2006
Op-Ed Contributor
Christ Among the Partisans
By GARRY WILLS
THERE is no such thing as a “Christian politics.” If it is a politics, it cannot be Christian. Jesus told Pilate: “My reign is not of this present order. If my reign were of this present order, my supporters would have fought against my being turned over to the Jews. But my reign is not here” (John 18:36). Jesus brought no political message or program.
This is a truth that needs emphasis at a time when some Democrats, fearing that the Republicans have advanced over them by the use of religion, want to respond with a claim that Jesus is really on their side. He is not. He avoided those who would trap him into taking sides for or against the Roman occupation of Judea. He paid his taxes to the occupying power but said only, “Let Caesar have what belongs to him, and God have what belongs to him” (Matthew 22:21). He was the original proponent of a separation of church and state.

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