Not Red, Not Blue... Purple

An interesting article from the God's Politics Blog on religion and politics.

The view is that it should not be an either/or situation between the right and the left, but a blending. Rather than having churches divide like the states between the 'Red states' and the 'Blue states', churches should find room for both sides, becoming Purple.

The whole article is brief, and worth a read. Exerpts:

I was at Church of the Redeemer, an Episcopal church in Cincinnati, Ohio. There, amid Ohio’s fractious political environment, one woman remarked, “We’re not really red, and we’re not really blue. We’re sort of purple.”

Purple is more than a blend of red and blue, a right-left political hybrid with no color of its own. Purple is an ancient Christian symbol. Early Christians borrowed purple, the color of Roman imperial power, and inverted its political symbolism to stand for their God and God’s reign. Christian purple - the color of repentance and humility - represents the kingdom birthed in the martyred church, unified around a crucified savior, and formed by the spiritual authority of being baptized in a community of forgiveness. By choosing purple to represent this vision, they purposefully picked a political color to make the point that their politics would subvert those of the empire.

I hope for more purple churches - not just pure blue ones. I do not want to be part of a political movement that is the mirror opposite of the Religious Right; I want my politics to follow in the way of Jesus.

I could not agree more.

GP