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Showing posts with label evangelical conservatism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label evangelical conservatism. Show all posts
On the night before the Democratic convention in Charlotte, at the tip of America's bible belt, more than 40 evangelical, Baptist and other Christian churches will host a massive church service in the 20,000 seat Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre.
"Charlotte714," as the Sept. 2 event is being called, was inspired by bible verse 2 Chronicles 7:14, which instructs that if people "turn from their wicked ways," God will forgive their sins. The group's website says that with the country's focus on Charlotte that week, in a "morally degenerating culture," it is an opportunity to organize a service that will help "[God's] church return to Him."
So a bunch of evangelical Christians are going to show up at the Democratic convention and pray for people to "turn from their wicked ways".
And I'm assuming that this same group of evangelical Christians will also be having a similar event prior to the Republican convention in Tampa, right?
I mean, why should a group of churches be at one political party's gathering, apparently implying that said party is "wicked" and "evil", and not at the other party's gathering?
Are these evangelical Christians implying that because one political party is "wicked", that the other one must be "good"?
I wouldn't dare make a judgment about any person's condition of his or her soul. But all the same: these Christians, however well-meaning they may be...
...well, they just don't get it. About how corrupt and fallen and broken this world is. Including the United States of America. Especially the United States of America.
These people expect that this country will have a "miraculous turn-around", if only the right people get elected into office. Funny thing: I've seen firsthand "their people" get into office. And nothing happened. Nothing substantially good anyway.
These people perceive themselves as holy warriors in the "Culture War". They should take off the blinders and realize that the Culture War has been lost and it's their OWN fault as much as anyone else's.
If these evangelical types were at all consistent, they would be planning and staging an event no less as massive at the Republican convention also. But, we all know that's not going to happen. And I wouldn't want them to be at the Republican convention any more than I see how they will do any good at the Democrat one.
These people are trying to save the world with political power, and they have become so blinded by might - by their own - that they either can't or they won't acknowledge how they themselves have driven America away from God.
We can serve God, or we can serve power. But we cannot serve both.
In the first place, no one knows when Christ will return, no matter how many books or tapes they have produced to say they do. In Acts chapter 1, Jesus was asked by His disciples if He would, at that time, set up His kingdom. The first words out of His mouth were, "It is not for you to know." Oh, we can speculate, surmise, and make educated guesses, but that's the best we can do. It's time we were honest enough to admit it: only God knows when Christ will return. In fact, Jesus said, "But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only" (Matthew 24:36).
In the meantime, millions of Christians across America are trying to play God. They talk as if they know when Christ will come. It's actually worse than that. They have the attitude that they have no personal responsibility to defend freedom and resist despotism. They seem to look at God as some kind of glorified fireman, who is obligated to rush in at the last minute to rescue them from a burning fire--a fire that they helped ignite, or at least, refused to put out themselves when they had the opportunity to do so. It's the old, "God would not let that happen in America" syndrome...
And later on Baldwin adds this...
I believe the real reason why so many professing Christians are so apathetic and indifferent to what is happening has nothing to do with the teachings of Scripture, Bible doctrine, eschatology, or anything of the like. It has everything to do with old-fashioned laziness. Today's average Christian just flat does not want to be bothered. He has a comfortable house, an easy chair, television, and a set of golf clubs in the closet. He takes two or three weeks' vacation every year, goes to church on Sunday (a church that does not intrude on his comfort zone, of course), pays taxes, and votes for his favorite "pro-life" Republican candidate every two years, and assumes that he is a "good" Christian and "patriotic" American. He is neither!
I reported last April about the seething rage that a lot of "conservative Christians" were already venting against Barack Obama. And speaking of which, over the past few days I've heard even more thoughtless fury out of Ron Baity's WPIP... but there's gonna be more about stuff like that coming in the next few days, so I'll hold my piece 'til then. Well unfortunately, my guess then that this rancor would "get worse"... is rapidly coming to pass now that Obama is officially the President of the United States of America.
As much as I disagreed, even admit to have disliked the man, I did include George W. Bush in my prayers for the past eight years, for all the good that it did. When 9/11 happened, I held him up in prayer along with everyone else involved in the tragedy one way or another. 'Course, since then I've realized that it's a futile gesture to pray for God to grant wisdom to those who adamantly refuse to acknowledge that they require such wisdom... but that didn't stop me from doing it anyway. Just as I pray that the American people as a whole might seek that wisdom needed to govern ourselves. Just as I will also keep Obama in my prayers.
So let me tell you why Farah's stance is horribly wrong. Why it flies in the face of the teaching of Christ Himself. And that if the Christians of this land do harbor such bitterness in their hearts, then they do so at the peril of the America that they claim loyalty toward.
It's regarding what is chronicled in the Book of Matthew, chapter 22... and it has nothing at all to do with what most people think when they read this passage.
Matthew 22:15-22 tells us that...
Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. "Teacher," they said, "we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are. Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"
But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, "You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax." They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?"
"Caesar's," they replied.
Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."
When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.
That's one of the most quoted - and among the least fully understood - passages out of the entire Bible. It's been used to justify quite a lot of things over the years, from an overzealous desire to separate all things spiritual from anything pertaining to government, to the obscene notion that Christians must somehow "shut up" and let the state roll over them without apology.
But none of that has anything to do with the point that Jesus was brilliantly making to those trying to trap Him.
In Palestine of the time of Christ, there was nothing more hated among the people than how their country had come under the yoke of the Roman Empire. Pompey annexed the land for Rome in 63 B.C. and then a few years later the puppet government of the Herods began. Israel's dream of a Messiah came in the form of a military leader who would vanquish the Romans and return the country to the heirs of Abraham...
...but the people of Israel would have never lost their land to begin with if they had stayed a people faithful to God, instead of putting their faith in worldly politics and their own military might. It was a brief but bitter civil war between the Hasmonean rivals Aristobulus II and Hyrcanus II that so weakened Israel as a nation, that after a century of independence there was practically nothing to stop Pompey and his boys from taking over.
Had the people of Israel not fallen for the lusts of political power, they would have most likely had solidarity enough as a nation to stave off Roman rule.
That is the harsh lesson that Jesus was teaching. He reminded the Pharisees - who shared much of the blame for the civil war - that it was their own fault that they had chosen to "render unto Caesar", and sought the institutions of this world, rather than put God first in all things.
As we know well, the lesson was lost on the Pharisees. And it so incensed them that they all the more sought to destroy Jesus.
And so it is, that what this passage (the same story is also shared in Mark 12 and Luke 20) is telling me as it applies to our own day...
...is that the same Christians who are bitter and angry about how they have "lost power" in America really have no one to blame but themselves.
And it also tells me that they aren't going to win anything by trying to "over-compensate".
It was wrong for the Christians of this land, in the name of God, to seek after political power. It is still wrong. And I believe that it is more than accurate to say that after all this time, we should realize that God has not blessed our efforts. The Republican Party is not the anointed vessel of the Lord, George W. Bush was not divinely appointed to be President (to believe so invalidates the concept of free will) and so-called "Christian leaders" like James Dobson and Pat Robertson stand revealed as wanting nothing more than to "sit at the king's table".
In none of this have I seen it recommended at all that perhaps what this country needs, if there is to be an America to pass on to our posterity, is for those who most loudly boast of following Christ, to surrender their lust for power, to cast themselves down in humility and penitence, and sit among the proverbial ashes and finally, at last, and for real, turn their hearts to God!
But that is not what I am seeing Joseph Farah and other "Christian authorities" telling us to do. What they have in mind, is the furthest thing there can possibly be from coming humbly before the Lord, and asking Him not only for forgiveness for seeking after our own hearts but also for the sin of pursuing the folly of our own "understanding".
The "conservative Christians" of America are the ones who have the least excuse to complain about whatever they believe might have happened to this country. They looked to the idols of worldly affluence for their deliverance... and God only played fair by handing them over to their lusts.
Hey, He's done it before. He didn't want Israel to want a king either, but when they clamored for one He instructed Samuel to accede to the will of the people.
But as we also know from that particular tale, sometimes God has a way of taking our own iniquity, and making it work to give Him all glory and praise.
Those who claim to follow Christ in this land, might have just such an opportunity before them...
...that is, if they want it. If they are willing to do what is necessary.
2009 is only a few scant hours old and it's already seen my first published work for the new year. In today's News & Record (the big paper serving this region) out of Greensboro there's this letter, "Political power presents a false god for Christians", written by Yours Truly.
Here's the full text of it...
My thoughts regarding the recent election were confirmed when the son of a prominent local minister told me, "Why can I not have both?" when I remarked that the Christians of America can pursue Christ or pursue power, but they cannot pursue them together.
Who is to blame most for the election of Barack Obama? The self-professed "conservative Christians." The ones who have for many years made an idol of political influence. Instead of the God of heaven, they have turned to worshiping a "god of fortresses" bereft of sincere love, mercy and grace.
These are the people who most claim that they are doing "the work of the Lord." But in reality they show the lost of this world anything but why Christ came to us. Their lust for power does not demonstrate anything different than what the people of this world have seen already.
My fellow Christians: You are worried about the outcome of a mere election? Then you are not worried about what truly matters at all. Stop sheepishly following the hucksters like James Dobson and Pat Robertson. God cannot bless our lust for political power. It is time to let it fall away and die.
On another note, it was announced in the News & Record this past week that Elma Sabo and Becky Layton are retiring from the editorial department of the newspaper. I've been reading Elma for many years and had the pleasure of talking to her a few times, and I certainly wish her all the best in her future projects. And as for Becky Layton: hers was the voice that I heard on the phone, back in 1991, regarding the first piece of writing that I ever submitted for publication. Since then we have wound up chatting more times than I can remember, not just about the letters and other pieces that I was turning in but about other stuff too. She has been a fine front lady for the News & Record editorial department, and a very neat person through and through. And it is sad to know that I won't be hearing her voice on the other end anymore but I also wish her only the best in whatever she winds up doing from here on out :-)
Bush also says that evolution is not incompatible with the Bible.
Adding to his statement that he is "not a literalist", Bush also hedged immensely when he said that the most important lesson in the Bible is that "God sent a son". Ummmm... Georgie baby, if you studied the Bible at all, you would know that God sent His only Son.
I saw firsthand eight years ago that the Cult of Bush was anything but Christ-like. Bush and his faithful do not worship God: they worship raw, naked power. Bush just happened to say the right words and the "evangelical conservatives" - who are by far the dumbest bunch of fools that I have ever seen in my life and yeah I called 'em "fools" - fell right in line and sung his praises.
And now, just a few weeks before leaving the White House, he finally shows them, in no uncertain terms, that he is not like them at all.
I would say that I hope the "evangelicals" would learn their lesson from this, that they would finally engage the minds that God gave 'em... but I'm expecting them to just find another smooth-talking politician to latch onto.
I figured this was going to happen if Barack Obama won the presidential election: self-professed "conservatives" would be quick to blast Obama and the Democrats for violating the Constitution... when in fact those same conservatives have turned a blind eye at every opportunity during the past eight years when "their guy" George W. Bush did the same.
That's the kind of hypocrisy that I cannot forgive. And so far as the "Christian" ones go, it tells me that they are not interested in the truth at all.
Chuck Baldwin agrees, writing in his latest essay. The "Constitutional crisis" that many conservatives claim is there because of the dubious nature of Obama's birthplace is diminished, because these conservatives refused to condemn their own just as equally...
Many conservatives seem to be obsessed with this controversy, calling it a "constitutional crisis." The fact is, however, we have been in a "constitutional crisis" for years! The problem is, most conservatives only get worked up over a potential abridgement of constitutional government when it serves their partisan political purposes. In other words, when a Democrat appears guilty of constitutional conflict, conservatives "go ballistic," but when Republicans are equally culpable of constitutional conflict, they yawn with utter indifference.
(snip)
But, again, most conservatives care little about the Constitution's requirement that a President be a "natural born Citizen." Like liberals, most conservatives are afflicted with a very debilitating disease that I call Selective Constitutionalism. They only want to apply constitutional government when it helps Republicans or hurts Democrats. Most of them really could not care less about adherence to the Constitution. If they did, they would have been up in arms for the last eight years as President George W. Bush repeatedly ignored--and even trampled--the U.S. Constitution.
Where were these "constitutional" conservatives when George W. Bush was assuming dictatorial-style powers and contravening Fourth Amendment prohibitions against warrantless searches and seizures? Where were they when Bush was ordering our emails, letters, and phone calls to be intercepted by federal police agencies without court oversight? Where were they when Bush was obliterating the Fifth and Eighth Amendments? Where were they when Bush overturned Posse Comitatus by Executive Order? Where were they when Bush dismantled the constitutional right of Habeas Corpus? Where were they when Bush lied to the American people about the invasion of Iraq and took the United States to war without a Declaration of War from Congress? Where were conservatives when Bush turned nine U.S. military installations over to the United Arab Emirates? Where were they when Bush ordered his Department of Transportation to open up America's airlines to foreign ownership? Where were they when President Bush nullified (using "signing statements") over 1,100 statutes he did not like? Where were they as President Bush and his fellow Republicans reauthorized one of the most egregiously unconstitutional pieces of legislation in modern memory: the USA Patriot Act? Where were they when Bush signed the blatantly unconstitutional McCain/Feingold Act? I could go on and on...
Baldwin is correct, again. But to those who are looking more for rationale supporting their ideology than daring to question whether that ideology is even right, it won't matter.
Focus on the Family is going broke. The ministry ummm... "organization" is being forced to lay off 202 employees, supposedly after campaigning for Proposition 8 (the "gay marriage" ban) in California cleansed its coffers of over half a million dollars. It still has 950 employees though.
(What does any outfit like Focus on the Family need with more than a thousand employees?! I know of a few others who get by with much less overhead.)
Maybe if Focus on the Family was more responsible with its own house, it might have some legitimate clout. That's been pissed-away though, and a lot of it has to do with silly stunts like "boycotting" businesses that don't use the word "Christmas" enough (read Kevin Bussey's thoughts on that, which I agree with him on most things anyway but on this point I especially have to concur.)
I've written about it before here and I'll do it again: I once came very close to going to work for James Dobson at Focus on the Family. It was a long time ago. Now I thank God that He didn't send me off to Colorado to be an employee of that shyster. Focus on the Family has completely lost sight of the things that are supposed to matter most to us as followers of Christ. Dobson? He's prostituted his principles and sold out the soul of his ministry (if not his own as well) to "sit at the king's table" and hope for a little shred of worldly power. Don't believe me? That fool Dobson doesn't have vision enough to see past his fixation with the Republican Party (yeah I called him a "fool": deal with it) and "winning elections", each one he cries out is "historic" and "too important for Christians to miss out on".
Dobson and Focus on the Family are as much part of the problem with this country as an out-of-control Congress and President Bush wasting our money, an incoming President-Elect who is going to be just as bad, and the whole damn complacent "media" that lets them get away with it. I've no sympathy for Dobson or Focus on the Family and if they go down in flames, so much better for the people in this country who are sincerely following after Christ for the right reasons.
And now, writing in Jewish World Review (a very good publication, I might add), Cal Thomas doesn't just echo those same sentiments, he articulates them far better than I could.
Thirty years of trying to use government to stop abortion, preserve opposite-sex marriage, improve television and movie content and transform culture into the conservative Evangelical image has failed. The question now becomes: should conservative Christians redouble their efforts, contributing more millions to radio and TV preachers and activists, or would they be wise to try something else?
I opt for trying something else...
Too many conservative Evangelicals have put too much faith in the power of government to transform culture. The futility inherent in such misplaced faith can be demonstrated by asking these activists a simple question: Does the secular left, when it holds power, persuade conservatives to live by their standards? Of course they do not. Why, then, would conservative Evangelicals expect people who do not share their worldview and view of God to accept their beliefs when they control government?
The essence of Thomas's piece is of such brilliance, that I sincerely believe that every self-declared "evangelical"/"conservative" church in America would do well to read it from the pulpit... and take his wisdom to heart. Click here to read the rest of his column.
I originally had much more to say about this, but I'm going to dispense with the flowery rhetoric and cut to the heart of the matter...
The so-called "evangelical conservative Christians" had damned well better look in a mirror if they want to see who is most responsible for Barack Obama winning the race for President on Tuesday.
And now there is no reason to be angry, and no rationale for "blaming God" for Obama's victory, as I have seen too many Christians seriously doing. God had nothing to do with Obama winning. If anything, He let the people of America have what they wanted... and He absolutely played fair with many of those who profess Him as Lord.
"Christian conservatives" paved the way to Obama's historic win because they sold out their values for sake of worldly power.
People like James Dobson and the Focus on the Family crowd: they are the some of the ones most at fault. So too are many of the "preachers" that I have read and found myself listening to on the radio (like WPIP and Ron Baity of Berean Baptist Church out of Winston-Salem). They decided long ago that reaching the lost of this world wasn't their biggest priority. Instead they wanted to "sit at the king's table". Websites like Free Republic (yeah I'm looking at you Jim Robinson, ya first-order hypocrite) became too fixated on obtaining power. They lusted for the power they thought they could have so much, that they didn't bother to ask themselves if they should have had it to begin with. And still others, like Presidential Prayer Team, turned the office of President into a high priesthood of material might: something that would have horrified the Founding Fathers. So it is that in the past eight years George W. Bush - a man of weak character and no sincere Christ-like qualities - became such a paragon of virtue that it became on par with blasphemy to object to his "wisdom".
These and many others became so obsessed with destroying the enemy (like "liberals") that they became the enemy.
They rejected the God of Heaven and instead chose to worship a god of fortresses. They, quite honestly, chose the god of this world and what he was offering them.
They chose against putting their faith in the God of Jesus Christ.
That's not to make a judgment against Obama's spiritual condition at all. But because of the spiritual condition of many of his enemies, Barack Obama is now going to be their President.
They brought this on themselves. And if they have any shred of conscience, the self-proclaimed "Christian leaders" like James Dobson and Pat Roberton and their ilk will stop looking for excuses and already trying to regain power in 2012, and turn their own hearts toward repentance instead. Not for sake of temporal advantage, but purely because they desire God's will... without trying to bend Him to their wishes.
Across the country, rather than stand on principle, hundreds of thousands of pastors, Christians, and pro-life conservatives capitulated and groveled before John McCain's neocon agenda. In doing so, they forfeited any claim to truth, and they abandoned any and all fidelity to constitutional government. They should rip the stories of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego out of their Bibles. They should never again tell their children, parishioners, and radio audiences the importance of standing for truth and principle. They have made a mockery of Christian virtue. No wonder a majority of the voting electorate laughs at us Christians. No wonder the GOP crashed and burned last Tuesday.
Again, it wasn't Barack Obama who destroyed conservatism; it was George W. Bush, John McCain, and the millions of evangelical Christians who supported them. And until conservatives find their backbone and their convictions, they deserve to remain a burnt-out, has-been political force. They have no one to blame but themselves.
I have said it many times over the past several months: there is no faith to be had in politics. The Christians of this land would do well to understand that, if they want there to be anything of America at all to bestow to their children.
In case anyone's wondering: currently I'm registered as a Republican. I helped a friend run for statewide office this election season as his treasurer, running on a platform of parental choice in education. Prior to that I ran for office myself, partly regarding issues of fiscal conservatism. In my opinion Ronald Reagan was the last real President that America has had and I'm very thankful that I got to drive to Washington D.C. a few years ago to pay my respects as his casket lay in state at the Capitol.
I never vote for the party though. I've voted for Republicans and Democrats and Libertarians and independents and a lot of people in between since I first registered to vote several years ago (the day after my eighteenth birthday).
I would never vote for Barack Obama. The man's social spending ideas are a catastrophe waiting to happen. Neither can I ever vote for John McCain: this is a man bankrupt of any principle and I absolutely cannot believe that so many professed "conservatives" are now lining up to support him. This was the Senator who pushed through McCain-Feingold, fercryingoutloud. And as I've said before: any man who dumps his wife just so he can have a younger woman, does not have the moral fiber to be given the responsibility of the most powerful office on Earth.
Now y'all know where I'm coming from. Which brings us to the matter of Sarah Palin. A woman who I have had great admiration for.
Until now.
And trust me: this has nothing to do with what is going on with her family at this moment.
When McCain announced that Palin would be his running mate, I didn't know what to make of it. That Palin, who had previously expressed support for Ron Paul (a candidate as unlike McCain as there's apt to be) would now hitch her wagon to McCain didn't make any sense to me. And after considering it at length, my first assumption was that Palin is a very good governor, who has no idea what she is being drawn into and is perhaps not ready for this at all.
Let me put it another way: I thought that Palin was being used as a tool by the McCain campaign. As one friend put it, Palin as a running mate was analogous to putting lipstick on a pig. She's got a tremendous reputation and is by widespread acclaim "easy on the eyes", but she does nothing to change the fact that John McCain himself has a horrible record on so-called "conservative" issues. Palin, many have told me over the past few days, is only meant to be a distraction from the real John McCain.
Then I started, for the first time, to take a seriously hard look at Sarah Palin's record as mayor of Wasilla, and then governor of Alaska.
And you know what?
There's no way that I could support Sarah Palin now, even if she were to run for President herself (which I earlier had suggested I wouldn't mind happening).
In fact, the notion about Sarah Palin being a heartbeat away from the most powerful position in the world, is now downright scary.
It was her record as mayor of Wasilla that sent the first red flag popping up in my mind. When she was sworn in after being elected in 1996, the town of Wasilla, Alaska had no debt. When she left, the town was twenty-two million dollars in the hole. We're talking a town with a population of about five thousand souls. My own hometown has about three times that amount, and I don't think it's ever been that much in the red.
Where did all that money go on Palin's watch? Much of it went to a new sports and entertainment complex. A bit went to a new park. None of it apparently went to actually improving the infrastructure of Wasilla or toward urban planning. I'm now hearing plenty of horror stories about how the town is a cacaphonic sprawl of bad streets, run-down buildings and big-box retailers like Wal-Mart.
But think about it: Wasilla went from owing no money, to owing $22 million during Palin's tenure. Does that sound like sound economic conservatism to anyone?
Then the tales came out Palin's dictatorial style: how she set down a policy that no city employee could talk with the press without her permission, and how she fired the town's respected librarian and lost a police chief (in addition to several others who she tossed out) because she believed they weren't "loyal" enough to her. So forget financial discipline: now we're dealing with matters of personal discipline and humbleness as a public servant. Palin apparently thought that since she was now mayor, she could be "the decider" of Wasilla. She quickly filled the vacant positions with people that she had previous relationships with. It began a pattern of cronyism that continued into her time as Governor of Alaska and is now come back to haunt her in the form of a state trooper firing scandal.
Maybe some of this could be attributed to being "young" and "fresh" on the job. Some eagerness to over-excel. Kinda like how Barney on The Andy Griffith Show is always getting in trouble because he wants Mayberry to be like a big city rife with organized crime. That's a heap of fun if we're watching a Sixties-era television comedy... but in real life, when the pattern persists from small-town mayor to state governor, it stops being funny or excusable.
It was how Palin became mayor of Wasilla in the first place that finally convicted me to no longer be able to give her any credence as someone I would ever want to be within a hair's breadth of so much power. In what is usually a non-partisan, friendly election in small town America, Palin injected her mayoral race with "wedge issues" like abortion. She received heavy backing from the Alaskan state Republican Party. At one point she was apparently making it out that she was going to be Wasilla's "first Christian mayor".
How is abortion possibly an issue for a sleepy burg of five thousand people tucked away in a valley in Alaska? That's like trying to teach A.P. history in what's supposed to be a high school woodshop class.
Palin's campaign for mayor of Wasilla had little to do with actual issues, and too much to do with exploiting people's emotions. That's how she came to elected office to begin with: not by appealing to intellect, but by playing off of base psychology.
Which brings me to the final reason that I will share for now about why I cannot ever support Sarah Palin being in the Executive Branch of the United States Government...
...namely, that the Book of Revelation is not a foreign policy manual.
Understand this about me too: I'm a follower of Jesus Christ. I've been a Christian for going on a dozen years now. And even before then I saw how having a faith in God is not something that is supposed to be used as a weapon against other people or other countries. In my opinion, God has not blessed America because America doesn't care about God anyway. Too many self-proclaimed Christians in this land think nothing of exploiting God for their own temporal motives, however. That's something that I not only cannot stand, it scares the hell out of me.
So now witness Sarah Palin, as Governor of Alaska, speaking before a church service and telling the congregants that the war in Iraq is a "task that is from God"...
Anyone else see that movie Jesus Camp? Anyone else think that Sarah Palin seems way too much of that same mindset?
As Christians, we are supposed to represent the Kingdom of God to those that we come in contact with. We are meant to do so by loving them, in spite of their beliefs or what their opinion is of us. We are called to love even our enemies. That doesn't mean that we don't defend ourselves when we must, because I believe that is a moral right for individuals and families and nations. But we were never given an ordained duty to seek out and destroy our enemies in the name of Christ! That's just more of the world's way, and not God's at all. And it is the absolute height of arrogance to assume that God's plan is our own plan enough that we have a license to believe He will grant a blanket blessing on all of our endeavors.
The more that I read of Sarah Palin, the more that I cannot but believe that the woman is an adherent of Dominion Theology. As a theology professor of mine put it ten years ago, that's something that "will beat a path straight to Auschwitz". And as I've studied it since then, the less that I've been able to deny that he was right.
If for no other reason, this alone is why I cannot trust Sarah Palin. God Only can judge her heart, but in my mind the woman is way too infatuated with the power of God and not nearly enough with the love of God.
That won't deter a lot of the so-called "evangelicals" from adoring her, from supporting her without question however. I've even heard a few of them quite seriously declare that Palin is a modern-day "Deborah for America". They're the ones who still believe that America has a special place in God's divine plan for the world. They're also the ones who tend to hold that God allowed George W. Bush to be elected so that it would "help" to eventually trigger Armageddon.
Don't think that I don't know what I'm talking about here. I used to attend a school that was eventually taken over by such apostles of the Apocalypse. And Sarah Palin, now that I've examined her, is precisely the kind of politician that they have been hoping and praying for. Maybe... maybe... even more than George W. Bush turned out to have really been.
These people have forgotten that what makes America special is her virtue. And in the name of God, these people - who should have been the most virtuous - gave up their virtue for sake of a little power in the fleeting span of their lifetime.
And now it is a question of whether there is any virtue left for their children, and their children's children.
And it looks like they're ramping-up to sacrifice even more.
Suddenly, the idea of a John McCain presidency, which I've always felt would be a disastrous continuation of the policies of Bush, threatens to become something much worse than most of us have yet imagined.
There is nothing "conservative" about Sarah Palin, I must sadly conclude. If anything, she seems cut from the neoconservative cloth that espouses bigger government and glorious empire. To her credit, Sarah Palin seems very much to be an all-American wife and "action mom". I certainly respect her strong stance for the Second Amendment. But her track record as an elected official indicates that if given far more power, she would continue the precedent that the current White House administration has set for detaching the American government from the American people.
There is nothing about that which is the least bit conservative.
That's still not enough to prompt me to vote for Obama, however. Nothing could possibly entice me to do that. So this election year I'm either casting a write-in vote for Ron Paul, or writing in what is rapidly becoming the most sensible alternative to the mess that this country is hellbent on becoming...
In his article Baldwin argues what a lot of us have been saying for awhile: that too many Christians in America worship the Republican party and the power of government more than they give devotion to God, just as the children of Israel bowed to Baal. Baldwin chastises those who have supported George W. Bush and has harsh words toward any who might consider voting for John McCain...
I will say it straight out: any Christian or conservative who supports John McCain has no principles left worth defending!(emphasis mine)
Can anyone remember when George W. Bush ran for the White House in 2000, promising the American people that he would pursue a non-interventionist foreign policy? So much for that promise.
George W. Bush has orchestrated the most meddlesome, interventionist, and nation-building foreign policy of any President in modern memory. And Christians became his most vocal supporters. Now, John McCain gets in front of international television and jokes about bombing Iran, and once again, Christians stand up and cheer.
Christians have swallowed the Bush/McCain Kool-Aid as surely as did the followers of Jim Jones. They are drunk with denial and deception.
Bush promised the American people that he would promote less government spending. He then turned around and led the U.S. government to borrow and spend more taxpayer dollars than any President since Lyndon Johnson. And, again, Christians looked the other way.
Some Christians would say they are supporting President Bush because he is "one of us." Of course, this reasoning betrays logic. If George W. Bush is truly "one of us," he should be held to a higher--not lower--standard. That we would be willing to look the other way because Bush is "one of us" is repulsive to true Christian principles. Plus, it brings Christianity as a whole into disrepute with unbelievers. And this is exactly what has happened. Instead of unbelievers being attracted to Christ and His Word, George W. Bush--and the Christians who follow him--have turned unbelievers away from Christ. Bush and Company have made it harder--not easier--to present Christ to a lost and dying world. And that goes for people in foreign countries as well as people in America.
However, I am convinced that the reason Christians support President Bush is not because he is a professing born-again Christian. I say that because these same people are now also supporting John McCain, a man who has never professed a born-again relationship with Jesus Christ. Oh, he claims to be a "Christian" in a general sense, but what politician doesn't?
McCain is also a man who has consistently betrayed conservative principles throughout his political career. He has even lampooned and denigrated Christian people, calling them "agents of intolerance." Yet, today Christians are supporting John McCain. Why? It is not because of his religious profession. It is not because of a conservative track record. Why are they supporting him, then? Why are they willing to surrender their convictions? There is only one reason: John McCain (like George W. Bush) is a REPUBLICAN.
There it is: countless millions of professing Christians will eagerly abandon their commitment to constitutional government and Biblical principles in order to accommodate a Republican Presidential candidate. In the minds of many Christians, the Republican Party is more important than the U.S. Constitution. It is more important than conservative principles or even Biblical injunctions. In essence, the Republican Party has become an IDOL in the hearts and minds of many professing believers.
So, how can we ask God to bless America when God's children have set up the groves of idolatry in their hearts? How can we expect God to heal our land when Christian pastors, Sunday School teachers, deacons, ushers, and faithful church members place more loyalty and allegiance in a political party than they do in the very Word and principles of God?
As surely as the pagans of the Old Testament worshipped before the gods of Baal and Ashteroth, many Christians worship before the GOP. They are willing to sacrifice their children to the policies and practices of unscrupulous, evil politicians--as long as they have an "R" behind their names. They will turn their back on their pastors, their churches, their friends, and their commitments before they will turn their backs on the Republican Party.
To many Christians, God cannot work in America outside the Republican Party. God cannot bless America, except through the Republican Party. There is no success, no help, no assistance, and no redemption except through the Republican Party. If this is not idolatry, I do not know what is!
There's plenty more at the link. I don't usually copy and paste this much from another's article, but in this case I thought it's something that needed to be shouted from the rooftops.
