Wednesday, February 20, 2008

MY 2008 CANDIDATE OF CHOICE

In the blogosphere, I'm hearing a lot about why christians [as a body of believers] should support this candidate or that candidate or this party or that party because_______. [Fill in the blank.] The 'filled in blank' answer many christians advocate is either abortion or family values. Because this candidate/party does/does not hold to a particular view of abortion/family values christians are right/wrong to support/not support him/her. And so it goes.

My pro-life position [I am opposed to abortion on demand] is, however, much broader than simply a one issue kind of pro-life. I have a pro-life position which includes providing services for those who are pregnant, those who are alone, those who are poor and those who are in need of a new place to live their life. [Immigration] It is the championing of the lot of the abused, used, discarded, or just generally forgotten people, including the unborn. [Here I need to say..get 'Same Kind Of Different As Me'. Google it. find it. Read it. It's worth the effort.]

Add to that... my single greatest desire is to extend my pro-life position to an eternal perspective with the gospel being the single greatest tool [read that "only tool"] to extend that perspective...and you see my dilemma.

I can say, at this point, no candidate or party completely satisfies my own perspective of what is needed to accomplish this. So I'll just have to find and vote for the party or candidate that I believe is our best hope for keeping the doors of our nation open to my perspective and vote accordingly.

As to family values, my conviction is it is best when those come from, you guessed it, the family. I read one person who correctly said in my judgment, "You don't get your 'family values' from the President, a political party, or, God help us, from the Congress." As I said, I agree. I believe we are to get family values from living out truthful, biblical relationships in family life. I don't see a lot of that in any political party's candidate OR religious leaders for that matter. [Maybe this is why so few churches and organizations are led by men and women who, from my observations, have healthy relationships that are real, open and non-secretive...their families aren't that way.] [Here is where the book 'Subtle Power Of Spiritual Abuse' helps so much. Google it. Get it. It's worth the effort.

I guess what I'm saying is...if Christians could be known for our work in relieving the needs of the poor and downtrodden, removing racial hatred and the gender bias that exits in our churches, as well as our culture, while reaching people in that same culture [and the world] with the true claims of the gospel, [as opposed to the dummed down version that promises wealth and health guaranteed OR believe just like me on every issue and you got the real thing] we would be on our way to impacting the world in which we live in ways that politicians and political parties never will. Until then we Christians may be more of the problem than the solution regardless of which party or candidate we promote.

Because of this world-view I hold.. I can never be single issue oriented. Maybe this is why I'm looking for candidates and parties [political] that would best help leave doors open for my ultimate view of what it is to be pro-life. It is also the reason I don't want my Christianity to be tied to a particular person OR party. I have one Lord and He [excuse the expression] 'ain't' Democrat or Republican.

Paul B.

6 comments:

Kevin Bussey said...

Amen,

I don't think any party has positions that please Jesus.

Anonymous said...

I think Jesus is the ultimate answer to the problems of the world we live in. If every person were to come to know him, have perfect understanding of His teachings, and live in perfect harmony with those teaching would this not solve most if not all of our problems? I do not see the New Testament bible characters involving themselves much with politics are looking to them to solve their problems. They were about spreading the good news and trusting the Holy Spirit to change peoples hearts thereby changing their actions because they wanted to change rather than being obidient to some piece of legislation because they would be crucified if they didn't. Therefore I agree with your next to last paragraph in that if we were to act like what we are we could accomplish much more than ever possible by any political involvement. By that I don't mean we should not vote.

Paul Burleson said...

Kevin,

I think you may be correct in your assessment. Jesus was more into touching people than shaping programs.


Bobby,

Well said.

Jesus seemed to say that a visit to the prisoners, a cup of water to the thirsty, a caring for the widow and orphans were all things we would be doing to Him. So if I really want to be a pleasure to the Lord maybe doing it to the least has real merit.

It may be that all of those things He mentioned are really just ways of loving people into the Kingdom being always ready to speak of His finished work on the Cross as we give an answer to those who are open to hearing of the source of that love.

I think that's putting the walk and talk together.

By the way, knowing Jesus and growing in our understanding of His Word and walking in harmony with those teachings is an ever evolving thing as you and I both know well. The perfection of all that will have to wait until He comes to straighten everything out. Until then we'll just keep knowing, growing, going and showing Him.

Thanks for stopping by and, for others who read this, Bobby Brown is one of those who sticks to me closer than a brother. He's my buddy and board member of VTM.

Anonymous said...

Paul, thank you for these well reasoned thoughts. One of the things I have been exploring in my reading over recent years is the idea of God's Kingdom. When we say that Jesus is Lord we are by definition saying that other so-called political leaders, parties and governments are not lord. This is the same the early Christians who in saying it were refuting that Caesar was lord. While this sort of "political" statement is not all that is meant, it certainly is included in the meaning. Unfortunately, we US Americans get our lordship confused in this area sometimes. This does not mean we cannot appreciate our country but it is our true Lord who we should look to for our rule.

Personally, I look forward to the day that Jesus rule will be complete "on earth as it is in heaven".

Paul Burleson said...

Traveller,

I'm not sure but what there is needed a fresh clear word from someone about the Kingdom idea that is so prevalent in scripture.

There may be more written than I'm aware of certainly, but, it seems to me that we are really lacking in emphasis. The 'now present' and 'yet to come' aspect of it all would be interesting to hear afresh.

Traveller, why don't you put some thoughts together? I'd love read them.

Chuck Andrews said...

Paul

Thank God we can’t reduce Him down to a political party or candidate. There would be very little to have faith in if we could.

Chuck