Reducing this to this political party or that political party so fundamentally misses the point that it's tragic.
This is political only in the sense that Elijah and Ahab's issues were political. Yes, it was political when the prophets of Ba'al tried to call down fire but failed, but Elijah called down fire from the One True God--and indeed, fire came. It was political when Moses ascended the mountain, and his brother Aaron, and the people, at the base of the mountain decided, on their own, to make a golden calf and worship it as though it were YHWH.
In the sense that the political and the religious are often impossible to separate, it is political.
But in the same way that it's akin to Elijah and the false prophets of Ba'al, or Aaron capitulating to the demands of the mob to make a golden calf; the heart of the issue is idolatry, false worship, and the central problem of sin in human beings which drives us to abscond with the True God, and turn toward our own false worship.
"These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me."
With lips we declare the praises of God, in many churches worship looks like a vibrant, highly emotional, exciting, loud experience. People may even be moved to dance, or feel deep feelings. And after, they may feel like God was really moving, "you could feel the Spirit" some might say.
I'm sure the people felt really strong feelings when they beheld a golden calf and gave thanks to it as though it were the God who led them out of Egypt. I'm sure the mighty prophets of Ba'al felt very strong feelings, working themselves in a frenzy, to call down fire. I'm sure the Pharisees felt very strongly, had a great religious fervor and zeal, when they used the money that should have gone for taking care of the elderly and instead used it to spruce up the synagogue.
"These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me."
The heart is about the orientation of our whole person. The reason why the Prophet Jeremiah said, "The heart is deceitful above all else, and desperately sick, who can understand it?" he wasn't talking about the emotive; but the deep deep sin that resides in the core of our humanity--a humanity so sick and twisted that it is at its core antithetical to God. The same reason St. Paul writes "There is no on righteous, not even one" and "There is no one who seeks God", quoting the Scriptures that say the same.
The God-oriented heart is about doing things God's way; and the way of God is, as it has always been,
"Cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the cause of the widow."
Without that, then our worship is not only bad, it is an abomination. It is detestable to God, He finds it abhorrent, it makes Him want to vomit. That's what He said to the Children of Israel, "If you defile the land, it will vomit you out" and it's what He has said to us, "Because you are tepid, neither hot nor cold, I will vomit you out of My mouth".
This isn't some political pizza topping discussion. This is actually serious.
God will vomit us out, and it doesn't matter how intensely we offer our modern equivelant of burnt offerings is. Without a heart that is bent toward God, that hungers for righteousness, that is broken for the stranger, the immigrant, the oppressed, the widow, the orphan, the poor, the hungry, and all who are in chains--then we are vomit.
-CryptoLutheran
