The Problem with Politics

If I were to write all that needs to be said about this topic, The Problem With Politics, I would certainly exceed my space limitations on Blogger. However, one person's quotes in today's Greensboro News & Record live blog coverage of Obama's visit to the Gate City sums it up pretty well.

A 49 year old graduate student arrived at the War Memorial Auditorium at 5:10 this morning and was the first person in line to get in. She said, "I want to look into Barack Obama's eyes," she said. "I want to have a personal experience with him." She went on to say, "I'm really ready for not just change but absolute change."

Herein lies the problem: Politicians promise, sometimes explicit and other times implicit, to deliver FAR more than they possibly can. Absolute change will never occur through the political process. Absolute change can only occur through the renovation of the heart that is only possible when one has a "personal experience," not with a charismatic politician, but with the King of kings and Lord of lords, Jesus Christ. It is not until an individual looks into His eyes that they will undergo absolute change. And when that change comes over several individuals, a family experiences change. When several families experience this kind of change, communities are changed. When several communities are changed, cities are changed. When several cities are changed, states and nations are changed. When several nations are changed, the world changes. So our hope for change is only in Christ, and is found only in His Gospel.

A well-respected police chief of a major city once told me, in my very early days of ministry, "The heart of the problem is the problem is the problem of the heart." That police chief understood that external change cannot produce the necessary internal changes. Painting the barn on the outside doesn't change the fact that it is full of manure on the inside. An inside change is what we need, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the only way that change can happen.