Twitter was trending with an interesting hashtag recently.

It had the workings of activism.

I mean, the Senate was in the midst of the impeachment trial of President Trump. I’m certain the hashtag was intended to shame the Senate Republicans into acting in any manner, ever so slight, against President Trump.

#ILeftTheGop

This brought back memories to me. I shared a few on Twitter. Deleted a couple because they didn’t feel accurate. The one I left behind is closest to responding accurately.

#ILeftTheGOP because I couldn’t believe it when I heard it.

At that point in my life, I was a straight-ticket voting, Bible-thumping, pro-life, pro-gun, patriotic Republican. Things had begun to change in 2008. I heard this Congressman from Texas, this Ron Paul fella, talk a lot about how 9/11 was blow-back. In the wake of President Bush’s misleading on Iraq’s WMD stockpile I was intrigued, but still offended.

No lie, I was DEEPLY offended!

Who the heck does he think he is? How stupid can he be? He’s just blaming America.

I brushed him aside. I voted for Senator John McCain. He lost to then-Senator Barack Obama. I joined the TEA Party protests. I was an out-spoken birther. I even posted a Facebook video demanding that President Obama release his birth certificate. When President Obama did release the birth certificate, I was ashamed. I’m still ashamed of having taken part in what was the online equivalent of a lynch mob.

I Took Another Look

However, I was adamantly convinced that the Republicans had the only way that made sense. I was a single-issue voter. I voted for whoever was the most pro-life candidate even though I disagreed with what the GOP stood for on a lot of issues.

Then the 2012 Presidential debates rolled around. Like so many who shared my political philosophy, I watched the GOP debate on Fox News. In a discussion on foreign policy, Paul made this comment:

“Maybe we ought to consider a Golden Rule in foreign policy. Don’t do to other nations what we don’t want them to do to us.”

He could barely get through it due to the chorus of boos being emphatically hurled from the GOP crowd. I was shocked. I could not believe what I was hearing. Paul quoted Jesus Christ. You know, the One we call Savior and King who just happens to be the entire reason Christianity exists in the first place.

How could the Christian folks, who held the majority in the GOP, boo and chastise someone for quoting not only Scripture, but Jesus Himself, from the podium?

Shouldn’t Christians be roundly rewarding and applauding someone with that level of boldness?

I left the GOP that day, at that moment.

I couldn’t belong to, or vote for, a party that actively booed the words of Jesus Christ, regardless of who was quoting them.

Then It Happened to Me

I still inexcusably thought that political action was the most effective means to bring about change in our nation. So, I ran for office. Twice. In my second campaign, for the highest office in the State of Arkansas, I was invited to an online forum. The invite came from someone else who was running for the office on the GOP ticket who was hailed as the candidate for the Christian conservative. This person had served in some capacity for a church in the Southern Baptist Convention.

This person, when I espoused a governor’s office that practiced the Golden Rule in government, hurled the same insults at me that were hurled at Ron Paul for making the same statement.

Which brings me to my question.

Do the teachings of Jesus Christ have a place in public life, or should they remain a relic of a private faith?

If I am a Christian, do I have to lay my faith aside when I’m at work, at the store, in government, or anywhere else?

If Christ’s teachings are good for me individually, then they are good for us corporately as well.

Unfortunately, in America’s enculturated church, what I’m speaking is considered blasphemy. We are compelled to segregate the teachings of Christ from the way we act corporately. It is OK for me to do unto others as I would have them do unto me, so long as I’m the only one doing it.

*excerpted from my upcoming book, What He Said: Reclaiming the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount