Bushfish? No!

Better Living: Thoughts from Mark Daniels: "The Bushfish, you know by now, is a car magnet. Employing the most ancient symbol of the Christian faith--the fish, it attempts to equate the policies and person of the President with Christianity. An attack on (i.e., a disagreement with) Mr. Bush or his policies is seen as an attack on Christian faith, as though the President were an authorized political embodiment of God's political preferences.

The Bushfish marketers make the connection between GOD and GOP explicit by emblazoning the President's last name on the fish. In previous posts, I've mentioned two major objections I have to the Bushfish:"

Mark goes on with a third and I could probably think of many more. I join Mark in hearty rejection of the "Bushfish".

As much as I may advocate the Bush Presidency (just read my blogging past), there is NO equivalence between being a Christian and being a Bush lover, Republican or an American. In other words it is possible to be a Bush lover, Republican and an American and NOT be a Christian. And it is more than possible to be a Christian and not be a Bush lover, Republican or an American.

My learned seminary teacher Michael Horton taught me this with his story of inadvertently sitting down to breakfast with the local communist party leaders in East Germany during the Soviet Bloc years. It turned out that the head of the party was a Christian. Mike said he had never met a communist Christian. The man responded that he had never met a capitalist Christian.

The point is that the church is made up of people of every tribe, tongue and nation; and each of us have enough heresy in our heads right now to make us unfit for acting as an advocate for Christianity. Yet the grace of Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit is working in me and fellow believers in many different countries and political parties.

That's why I believe it is misguided to place an American Flag inside of a church. The church is for every human who wishes to draw near to God in Christ. It's not right to bind the conscience of someone from another country with symbol of a human government. I am a proud American. I believe that America is the greatest country on Earth. But I am a citizen of Heaven first. And one's citizenship in heaven is not dependent on voting for George W. Bush.

Let's not confuse Bush with the burning bush.