I was trying to find this New York Times article that Tom had linked to sometime ago about the inner workings of government. I couldn’t find it, but you could tell that Tommay was slightly frustrated and cynical about politics in Washington as the whole article was about how complex and frustrating the whole process is.

Now, for some this is a huge reason to not get involved in the messy affairs of daily politics and I really got the feeling that Tommay was feeling pretty depressed and hopeless about it all. But that’s the thing. Why is it that many Christians feel this way about politics but don’t think twice about the inner workings and complexity of say the economic process?

If you don’t think that economics is on the par with politics then tell me what you think of this article: Jesus and Competition

Politics, in my opinion, is as economics is--an inescapable feature of human life. Yet we don’t hear the same level of cynicism or complaints about corruption or calls for withdrawal from the economic process. In the end, as Paul Marshall says, in a book I’m presently reading on politics,

“...politics is more like raising children than raising hell. It’s more like gardening than grandstanding and more like work than warfare. It requires that realizing that politics will not bring in a utopia or even anything remotely like it. It will neither conquer sin nor change human nature. Nor will it create a society which will not need reform the instant after it is reformed. But politics can make a difference in whether our schools are better or worse, whether it’s safer or not to walk home on a dark night, whether people are healthy or hungry, whether or not we will live more at war or more at peace. While such struggles and policies are full of victories and defeats, they have no final victory or final defeat wherein we could properly and finally say, “we have won” or “we have lost.” Politics is a part of ongoing life in the world to be pursued patiently and faithfully."