In a recent comment to a post about happiness, my friend, Dan, made this comment, intended, I'm sure, to be satire: "Man has trumped even God, he has elected Obama!" I appreciated the humor. And it got me thinking.
In American politics there is a well-known group known as "the Christian Right". Truth be told, they're really a diverse group, but they are there. (I'm saying "they" rather than "we" because apparently I'm more "centrist" than "right". Go figure.) This "Christian Right" is concerned about the political structures and conditions of the country and are working hard in the political arena to mobilize to change things to what they believe is the best. And what have they achieved? Well, when President Obama and the Democrat majority Congress got elected, they achieved failure. Now the Christian Right are wringing their hands and warning people about the dire consequences of these people in charge and their ideas. The feeling I get is not a humorous statement like Dan intended, but a real fear that the president and his people can do irreparable damage to the country and its people.
Now, I understand that the Body of Christ is just that, a body. Some are called to do this and others are called to do that. Some are preachers and some are evangelists and some are ministers and some are servants. And the list goes on. Some are actually called to be involved in politics. I get that. But I would hope that none of us would make the mistake of thinking in any seriousness that Satan won and Obama is going to do damage that God never intended.
I think, when I put it that way, you can begin to get the picture. Let me flesh it out. "There is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God" (Rom 13:1). (Okay, let me let Paul flesh it out.) We live in a republic where we get to influence government with our vote. And living here as we do, it is our God-given responsibility to do so. And when Christians knowingly voted for the most pro-abortion president ever (as an example), it is true that we failed to meet our responsibility. There are unpleasant things that can and might happen in this country. I won't deny it. But don't think for a moment that the president, the Congress, your governor, or even your city council is going to be able to disable the will of God and produce something God never intended.
Don't misunderstand. There might be unpleasant things ahead for America. Nations, unlike people, do not face a final judgment in front of God. If a nation earns God's judgment, it's a temporal judgment. And America is working hard to earn that judgment. It might get uncomfortable for us, even fatal for the nation. We need to pray for our leaders. We need to vote for what's right. We need to be models of what's good. All that is true. But don't think for a moment that salvation for America is found in the political system. And don't think for a moment that bad government means God is no longer in control. In the end, the only thing that will happen is what He wills. Count on it. The question will then be, "Do you trust Him?"
5 comments:
It was rather interesting for me to read that post. Thanks for it. I like such themes and everything that is connected to this matter. I definitely want to read more on that blog soon.
As a Believer, do you think that votes on propositions and candidates always result in what God wants in those cases where a plurality of the voters are Christian? You say that voters “failed to meet our responsibility,” so I reckon your answer to my question is ‘No.’ But does God have a responsibility to speak clearly to voters, or at least to Christian voters?
One of the first chinks in the armor of my childhood Christian faith was the realization, along about 1974, that Richard Nixon surely was not the very best person--out of the millions of US citizens meeting the eligibility requirements--to be our president. Why had God not spoken to the Christians in the voting booths in the 1972 election, to get them to write in the name of the person He wanted to be in the office of president?
When Arizona put the lottery up to a vote, I voted ‘No’ because I don’t think government should be in the gambling business. The ‘Yes’ side won. If a plurality of Arizona voters were Christian, does that suggest to Believers that God likes the lottery?
(I know a Christian who says, “I buy lottery tickets to give God the chance to make me wealthy if He wants me to be wealthy.” But that’s a topic for another day.)
Lee: "As a Believer, do you think that votes on propositions and candidates always result in what God wants in those cases where a plurality of the voters are Christian?"
Let me answer clearly and without equivocation: Yes. Now for a couple of clarifications:
1. The phrase "a plurality of the voters are Christian" seems to suggest more than is reasonable. In no case in America in the last 50 years could it be said that Christians -- genuine Christians -- have been a majority. "A plurality" suggests "the greater number of votes", and that hasn't happened in my lifetime.
2. There is a misconception (as I said in that link there) that "what God wants" is only pleasant or moral or nice or ... something like that. God has ordained (not caused, but allowed by His will) sin in the world. He has ordained that bad things happen. He has intended for good those things that humans have intended for evil. We like to think in cut-and-dried, black-and-white schemes. God is a bit more ... complicated.
You will have to define your terms for me on this one, like "the Christian Right". In my opinion this is a term made up by those who hate labels so that certain people can be vilified. No problem for me, the label that is, I'll accept it for myself in the interest of clarifying discussions, but what I don't understand is your position of being a centrist. This term was created for the purposes of demonizing those who speak out, but it ultimately applies to those who do not have a megaphone and think that homosexuality is a sin, abortion is the taking of an innocent human life, that we didn't evolve spontaneously from nothing and that we are accountable ultimately to no ultimate authority. I'm almost certain that your positions on the truth of these truths places you squarely in the officially demonize-able camp of the religious right. In today's lexicon a centrist is a person who could care less if a person dies of hunger materially just so long as he starves spiritually.
Yeah, I'm never quite clear on what "Christian right" means either. I call myself a "centrist" because I've taken several of those online tests you can take that ask you a bunch of questions to determine where you are on the continuum from fascist to totalitarian. "Republican" typically falls closer to the center than "fascist" and "Democrat" falls closer to the center than "totalitarian". According to the three tests I took I fell in the almost identical place every time ... very close to the middle. All of them told me "There is no political party that represents your views." Mostly I found it amusing, not definitive, but it was a political/economic test, not a morality test.
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