Churches Moving Ahead of Nation on Tolerance

If you're a regular reader of Mr. B's you've noticed I've been a little slow lately with the commentary here on the Christian Counter Culture blog. A couple of things have slowed me down, including my oldest daughter's wedding in November. But the main thing has been a rather drawn out move from Florida to Chicago. I had to be out of my place in Florida two weeks before I could move into my new home in Chicago.

In between I was a transient, visiting friends and family in Kentucky and Michigan. Viewed from a political perspective I left a red state, stopped off in a red state that recently overwhelmingly elected a blue governor, then went to the deep blue state of Michigan where one house of the legislature is red and red governors are not rare, en route to the blue state Illinois, which also has been known to elect governors from the right.

Spending Thanksgiving with my family in Detroit, we ended the day with a spirited political argument with the reds and blues in the family showing their colors. It's a confused situation all around. Here's my father for example; he's both a retired UAW member and a lifelong Republican. Go figure.

My journey also has taken me into worship with a variety of churches: Methodist, Pentecostal and Lutheran. In God's houses I found more sensitivity to differing views on the nation's politics. The prevailing attitude is something like, "no matter how you feel about the war in Iraq, we need to be tolerant of each other and pray together that our troops will stay safe and the killing will end as soon as possible." Maybe it's a bit of a dodge, but it seems to express a desire for binding the church together. I witnessed the same on doctrinal issues over which people were once eager for a fight. Maybe all the fighting over politics has dulled the taste for fighting over insignificant differences within the body of Christ. I hope so. Leadership has to come from somewhere in our troubled culture, and the church divided can't get it done.