Conservative vs Liberal

I got pulled in to a conversation the other day with a pastor who wanted to tell me how horrible Barack Obama is, how evil people who get abortions are, and how terrible gay marriage is. We were trying to have a conversation on how to reach people for Christ and this is what came up. He then proceeded to tell me that he was going to run for a major public office- big surprise.
It was almost as if this guy’s commitment to conservatism and to a certain political party ran much thicker than his commitment to Christ.
I had a discussion with someone else about this previous conversation. I explained to him that as a minister- and as a Christian-I could not let my political opinions be my main soapbox, but that it instead always must be the Gospel of Christ.
The person I was talking to disagreed a little and said,” not neccessarily, people that already have conservative values will be the ones receptive to the Gospel.” What the heck?!
Basically he was saying,” there’s no point in trying to make the Gospel attractive to liberals and sharing it with them because they won’t be receptive to it.”
This mindset has been the problem of the Church for the last 50 years; that people need to be good people according to our standards, and then they will want to recieve Christ and enter the Church.
Biblical Christianity is the exact opposite. It says that ALL people are bad people who can be changed by the Gospel regardless of their political leanings. An it is the Holy Spitit who supernaturally compels them to Christ, not their conservative beliefs. Then once they have been saved by Jesus; Jesus changes them from the inside out. And Jesus doesn’t change them to be good little conservative Republicans-He changes them to be more like Him.
Now, is abortion and homosexuality wrong? Yes, but that is not our message as Christians. Our message is what we are for, and not what we are against. Our message is compelling people to come to Jesus so that He can save them and renew them regardless of who they are.
And that will never be accomplished by separating ourselves from the world because we think we’re better than it. It will only happen if we stick to the basics- that all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God, and out of His great love for us He graciously sent His Son Jesus to die for our sins so that our relationships and our world can be restored with and to Him if we put our trust in Him.