What is a Christian?

An article today in the Minneapolis Star Tribune talked about home schooling and several families that were Christian. When the word Christian is found in a U.S. newspaper today, it frequently is referring to Christians who are politically "conservative". Many so-called evangelical Christians have been supporters of Donald Trump. Nowhere in the Bible does God direct people to be Republicans or Democrats. In the Bible, God definitely calls us to "love your neighbor as yourself".

In the 10th chapter of the book of Luke, Jesus uses the parable of the Good Samaritan to explain who is our neighbor. He basically says that anyone and everyone is our neighbor. I believe that means that we must do all that we can do help improve the lives of all humans on planet earth.

When the current U.S. president and his party propose to drastically reduce support for healthcare in the United States, when he has no hesitation to remove a variety of people from our country without using due process of law, when his cabinet members pursue policies that reduce vaccination rates in children and more people in our country die from measles and other preventable illness, when funding for the Centers for Disease Control is slashed, these are not the acts of loving your neighbor. These are selfish acts designed to advance the financial interests of a minority of our population. Part of the tragedy is that all of our population- even the rich- will be adversely affected by the policies of our current federal administration.

It is clear that the U.S. has a financial problem with our debt and our yearly national deficit. We certainly do need to balance our budget. But this can be done without destroying the federal government. It can be done without destroying the relationships with our allies. It can be done without destroying our economy or our democracy. The good people of our country must rise up and participate in the saving of our democracy.

All of us need to ask ourselves "What Should I Do?"