Greetings! Just in case you can't get enough of these introductions, here's another one. I'm Michael Geertsma, a producer at Back to God, and I'll be occasionally contributing to Think Christian. Currently, I work on two other projects—Spotlight, a radio program for people around the world who speak English as a second language, and Walk the Way, a daily radio spot and video blog that challenges Christians to actively engage their faith and “walk out” the way of Jesus. I'm really excited to have Think Christian become part of what we're doing, and I look forward to all the conversations we'll be having here!
Well, today is election day, and while it may seem a bit cliché, many would argue that this presidential election is more significant than any in the recent past. Journalists and pundits have written that this is the most important election of our lifetime. Personally, I have been bombarded with email forwards, Facebook group invitations, TV ads, phone calls, yard signs and heated discussions that all seem to suggest that one candidate or the other is truly our “only hope” for the future.
And given the current political climate, the volatile economy, the war in Iraq and the overall state of the Union, it is easy to see why people are putting so much weight on the result of today's vote. Admittedly, I have fallen prey to the hysteria, and I often find myself thinking about how terrible it might be if one candidate gets elected—or how wonderful if the other is elected.
But as Christians, should we believe the hype? Is a presidential candidate really our only hope? According to Focus on the Family's “Letter from 2012 in Obama's America,” yes.
This letter is a sad commentary on the current state of the relationship between Christianity and politics. Thankfully, dozens of Christian bloggers, writers, thinkers and pastors have spoken out loudly against this type of political fear-mongering. (Read Jim Wallis' letter to James Dobson, a beliefnet post on the backlash). Because the truth is, as Steven wrote on Monday, the church is much bigger than the United States of America. And we are called to do things that are much more significant than throwing our collective weight behind a presidential candidate.
We are the hands and feet of Jesus Christ in a broken world. Sure, voting and getting involved in the political process can be a small part of that—but we can't use politics to abdicate ourselves of our responsibility to be loving, to fight injustice, to feed the hungry, to heal the sick and to constantly look to God's word for his guidance about the important issues we face every day. When we limit ourselves to slandering or blindly following politicians, we fall far short of the plan God has for us in this world. When we put trust in a politician as our “only hope,” we are forgetting where our real hope lies.
I am reminded of Third Day's song “My Hope is You,” where Mac Powell writes:You are, O God, my salvation Guard my life and rescue me My broken spirit shouts My mended heart cries out...On this election day, the “most important of our lifetime,” I hope that we can find some truth and comfort in those words. Yes, voting is important. I believe that it is one of the most important things we can do in our role as citizens of a democratic society. I plan to vote today, and I hope most of you plan to as well. But as you do, remember that our real source of hope, comfort, inspiration and truth transcends politics.<p>My hope is you Show me your ways Guide me in Truth In all my days My hope is you
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Comments (22)
I agreed with brother Steven's post a couple days ago, but I will respectfully disagree with Michael's quote, "...voting and getting involved in the political process can be a small part of that." I think it's more than a "small" part.
Yes, I will continue to serve my Savior despite what the government does or does not do, but I think some people are throwing the baby out with the bath water in minimizing the importance of choosing our leaders. In our form of government, we are "Caesar," and our choices will affect our opportunities (and freedom) to openly proclaim and promote the cause of Christ.
The balance may be difficult to discern (I'm still struggling with it), but there is a balance for which to strive...
BTW, my hope is ALWAYS in Christ. I'm just a realist.
Many have spent hours researching and examining the issues. I agree with Annie. Save the letter and review it in 4 years.
We are blessed to live in a country where we have a say in the government. If we fail to make our voices heard, we have no one to blame but ourselves for the results.
I agree with you that we are blessed to "have a say in the government". But also keep in mind that we must make sure our allegiance is to God first and not to Caesar.
"The Chinese called in their debt last Tuesday. Yes, that debt--$25,000,000,000--the amount we borrowed from them to finance the Mideast wars because McCain thought we could invade Syria and Iran without raising taxes. Looks like the first thing they want is Taiwan; the next thing is this year's corn harvest; the last thing is a list of everybody who goes to church. And you can't exactly say "No" to someone who owns you lock, stock and barrel."
I think this would be a good time for the Christian community to rethink their involvement in politics. There is a very strong argument to be made that Evangelical Christianity has been used to support some of the worst excesses of Bush and the neoconservatives, that we made it possible, largely because there are so many people who think that God is a Republican. I was one, but after seeing what the last eight years have wrought, no longer.
Christ wasn't very involved in politics, neither did he use that as an excuse. He just worked. How about us Christians do the same. Let's just work!
Christians: Let's Get Political in the sense that we are the instruments God uses to shape the world and let us not set too much store by the promises of politicians. You can change much more by engaging and challenging the world as Jesus' did than by marking "X" under Obama or McCain!
My hope in Christ means that I will certainly pray for Barak Obama that God will bless his administration and that he will be a good president. But it is what he has or hasn't done, and what he will or won't do, that means more to me than anything he has said. I voted, but on the outcome I am still undecided.
The point I was trying to make in my previous comment is that arrogant certainty has two sides. Accusing FotF of being such without paying much attention to what they are saying and why is just the other side of the coin, being arrogantly certain that God is not on their side. FotF's critics in this instance are really playing the same game they accuse FotF of playing. FotF and other conservative Christian groups have been as much fodder for "fear mongering" on the liberal side as they have been producers of it:
http://www.beliefnet.com/News/...
Arrogance does come in many incarnations. Most institutions, demographics, movements, organizations, exhibit some. However, I don't need to catalog all the other arrogance in the world to condemn FotF for its very own peculiar arrogance, which I find revolting, and a marked contrast to the very appropriate advice they offer in their genuine field of expertise, family life. I'm not a member of NARAL, Planned Parenthood, Sojourners, and I'm not a liberal. I'm not playing balancing games. I'm talking about a specific brand of speech in the name of Jesus which I don't embrace. If you do, that's your choice. We are each responsible to God, not to each other. We can, however, benefit from exchanging perspectives.
As for the pro-life perspective that you are sick of, I understand it this way: The legal status of abortion on demand is a problem because by it abortion is promoted as a solution to unwanted pregnancy. Unfortunately abortion is a choice that undermines all others because it "eliminates" (kills) the problem at its "source" (unwanted fetal humans). If we were to legalize and accept euthanasia for the poor, where would be the incentive to alleviate poverty? If human lives are only worth protecting if someone "wants" them, we are in serious moral decay. Not long ago I saw a teenage mother on the TV news being sentenced to 10 years in prison for shaking and severely injuring her 7 week old daughter. Why such a severe punishment when a few months earlier she could have aborted the girl with no questions asked? The question of where we draw the line here is a serious one because it is a line between life and death. While legal means are not the whole answer, or even the primary one--we must primarily provide support for life choices--the legality of killing the unborn severely undermines other choices. It also undermines child support (if the abortion decision is completely up to the woman, the pregnancy is completely her responsibility), parental involvement (because minor daughters don't require parental knowledge or consent to get an abortion), and protection from sexual abuse (because abortion is the easiest way to hide one the most obvious unwanted consequences of such problems). The list goes on... abortion accommodates and creates more serious problems than it solves. More and more women are starting to realize this. Read The Cost of Choice: Women Evaluate the Impact of Abortion (edited by Erika Bachiochi) for a sampling.
I don't want to append a comprehensive discussion of abortion onto a discussion of what is Our Only Hope in light of the recent election. We know that no president is Our Only Hope. We know that many who sing "My hope is built on nothing less, than Jesus blood and righteousness" voted for Barack Obama. I frankly don't think abortion is a significant ELECTORAL issue. The voters of South Dakota have TWICE rejected legislation on the subject. I personally do not believe that a human being with all the legal and moral rights of a person exists immediately after conception. I acknowledge that if you do, then there is no logical distinction between administering RU-486 and shooting a grown man through the head. Given that we do not have anything close to a consensus in our nation, we should refrain from trying to impose criminal legislation as a solution. By contrast, very few people would argue for, e.g., legalizing honor killings. We DO have pretty near a consensus on our current homicide laws. (I might quibble about the severity of punishment imposed upon a woman who kills a brutally abusive husband.) Your account of ways in which access to abortion can be abused is well taken. There should be ways to minimize those abuses.
As far as this not being an electoral issue, I don't see how you can blame people for making it one, for trying to "pack the Supreme Court" when it was the Supreme Court rather than the legislative process, that was used to overturn laws restricting abortion in most of the United States. What did consensus matter then? But when any Supreme Court nominee has to all but promise a Senate confirmation committee that they will uphold Row v. Wade in order to be approved, I don't see why anyone should be worried about packing the Court.
There probably is no way to reach 100% perfect consensus on when human life begins. There are some individuals, and some religious hierarchies or assemblies, who sincerely believe that from the moment a sperm fertilizes an egg, a human life is formed, which has all the rights to protection that any new-born baby, five year old, twenty year old, or eighty-one year old, also is entitled to. There are others who find that absolutely ridiculous. There are a much smaller number of people who believe that if a baby is hours away from healthy vaginal delivery, it remains the property of the mother, who is entitled to destroy it. (I don't call that an abortion, I call it a delivery, and unless the mother's life is in danger, or her health in a genuine sense of permanent disability, the delivery had better be performed AS a delivery). If we were summoned to gather at the base of Pike's Peak, where God Almighty would, among other things, inform us of exactly when human life begins and what laws and rituals this knowledge imposed upon us, there would of course be nothing to argue about. But that hasn't happened, and to my very limited knowledge, no summons to such an event has been issued.
It is precisely because there is no satisfying answer, that we need to stop demanding the law to provide one. The political and legal question is, given the great diversity of opinion on this subject, what exactly can we write into human, secular, political law, what actions can we entrust the STATE to make, with regard to the development of a fetus and consideration, if any, of whether to abort? In a democratic republic, that means, when may we, collectively, as a community, direct an individual what course of action they will follow, and what penalties we will impose upon them if they do not.
I find Roe v. Wade to be a very conservative application of well-established constitutional law to a specific question of state intervention vs. individual privacy. We all understand that the federal constitution bars the state from intervention in our personal lives. Considering the many difficulties you point to in defining when human life begins, the court made a reasonable division, recognizing that at the beginning, the fetus is far from a fully formed human being, and at the end, the new life ready for delivery is far from being a mere appendage of the mother. The court did not say abortion is a good thing, or particularly worthy of protection, it simply said that the government may not intervene in the decision in the first trimester, or prohibit outright in the second.
Distorting our political life prioritizing whether a president will appoint to the Supreme Court justices committed to overturning an existing precedent is very corrosive. The court is a coequal branch charged with protecting us from unconstitutional acts of both the legislative and executive branches. I would suggest that anyone who is on record either that any given precedent MUST be overturned, or MUST NOT be overturned for any conceivable reason, is unfit to sit on the court. They might play a valuable role as attorneys arguing before the court. Remember that the justices who decided Brown v. Board of Education were NOT grilled at their confirmation hearings as to whether they would overturn Plessy v. Ferguson, and if they had said they would, undoubtedly would not have been confirmed. It wasn't even on their minds at the time they were nominated. Same for Roe v. Wade in fact.
I would like to see the entire subject removed from politics. Every state already has laws prohibiting third trimester abortions unless the mother's life is in danger. Telling a woman "you must carry this pregnancy to term and raise the baby" is imposing considerable responsibilities -- I believe anyone who calls themselves "pro life" should step up to the plate and offer whatever support the woman needs to make that decision.