My Remarks on the Evangelicals for Harris Call
The Kingdom of God flourishes as the image of God flourishes—in everyone.
I walked down the aisle at a Sunday evening camp church meeting on August 21, 1983. It was about 9:30pm at a campground in Cape May, New Jersey when I gave my life to Jesus. I was baptized in a stream on the side of a mountain at the Creation Music Festival in high school. I was raised up in the faith by my local church and discipled in Young Life’s high school ministry, Cru’s undergrad ministry, and Intervarsity’s graduate ministry. I eventually joined the staff of Intervarsity where I served for 10 years as a campus minister.
I am an evangelical.
Through Young Life I learned faith can be super fun.
Through Cru’s Here’s Life Inner City ministry, I learned God loves the poor and marginalized.
Through Intervarsity I learned that I LOOOOVE the scripture.
Here’s what that scripture taught me:
People matter—all people matter--because the image of God matters, because the Kingdom of God matters:
On the first page of the Bible, at the pinnacle of the first Creation story, God says “let all humanity be made in my image and likeness of God and let them have dominion.”
This was a revolutionary act. Never before in the history of civilization had the image of God been understood to be placed inside every single human being. It was usually only thought to be vested in the kings and queens—the royalty. But here, the scripture declares all humanity is vested with the inherent dignity we would usually give to royalty.
Also, on the first page of the Bible, God gives all humanity the call and capacity to exercise dominion (aka “stewardship”, aka the ability to exercise agency—to make choices that impact the world).
So, on the first page of the Bible the scripture tells us: What it means to be human is to be made in the image of God. And what it means to be made in the image of God is to be given the ability to exercise agency—the fastest and surest ways to limit agency are through oppression and poverty.
So, when we govern in ways that limit or erase or crush the capacity to exercise agency, then we are participating in the crushing of the image of God on earth. We are waging war against the Kingdom of God.
This is why Mark proclaims at the top of his Gospel: Repent and believe, for the Kingdom of God is at hand. Jesus—the king of the Kingdom of God—is at hand.
This is why Jesus quoted Isaiah 61 in his first sermon in Luke 4—only 30 years after a Roman general came through the territory and crucified 500 people per day because they tried to mount an insurrection against Caesar: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives.”
This is why Jesus said in Matthew’s record of the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the shalom-makers, for they will be called children of God.”—the truth-tellers, the justice-doers, the equitable ones.
And it is why in Jesus’s last sermon he said if you take nothing more from me take this: What you do to the Least of These—the hungry, the thirsty, the overpoliced, the sick, the immigrant and asylum seeker, and the abject poor—you do it to me! To me! To the king of the Kingdom of God!
The Kingdom of God flourishes as the image of God flourishes—in everyone. Why? Because the Kingdom of God exists wherever there are people who actually follow Jesus. Who actually follow Jesus. Who actually do as Jesus called them to do.
What you do to the Least of these, you do to the Kingdom of God!
The scripture taught me that.
Now, can we talk here? Kamala Harris is not running to be the Messiah. She is running for president of the United States of America—the leader of the executive branch in a democracy—a form of government that aims to protect the inherent dignity of all—especially the Least of these. Democracies do this through the rule of law (not dictators), through institutions that place checks and balances on executive power to prevent the rise of a dictator.
Donald Trump has been clear. He aims to dismantle democracy. He has said it: He will be a dictator on day one. He even told us: “Evangelicals, vote for me. You’ll never have to vote again.”
Vice President Kamala Harris will not bring heaven to earth and we don’t need her to do that. Jesus already signed up for that job. We need our next president to move us in the direction of the vision—of the hungry being fed, the thirsty having clean water to drink, the immigrant being welcomed, the sick being cared for, the overpoliced being set free, and the poor having enough—we need our next president to govern in ways that bless the image of God in all—not curse it.
So, I will cast my vote for the candidate who has the best opportunity to move us in the direction of that Kingdom vision—And that candidate is Madame Vice President Kamala Harris. And I look forward to pulling every lever of our great democracy when she enters office, in order to push her on the issues where we disagree.
So, what must we do? We must pray for our nation. We must pledge to vote for the Image of God. And we must serve our neighbors.
Amen.
President and founder of FreedomRoad.us, Lisa Sharon Harper is a writer, podcaster and public theologian. Lisa is author of critically acclaimed book, Fortune: How Race Broke My Family And The World—And How To Repair It All.
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