Posted on 10/08/2016 6:51:19 AM PDT by Kaslin
Here’s a poll number about presidential politics that may shock you: About half of self-identified Christians of voting age did not cast a ballot in the election of 2012, according to the Barna Group. That’s 40 to 50 million men and women who probably say they love America but still failed to exercise the simplest and most basic form of citizenship.
Pundits and pollsters are predicting similar electoral apathy on Nov. 8 – perhaps in even greater numbers. Personally, I’ve never seen such apathy among Christians for the two major party presidential candidates.
Christians who stay on the sidelines usually fall for one of four myths, and as a result, have a smaller and smaller influence with each election cycle:
Myth #1: God doesn’t care about politics
Myth #2: It’s not my problem
Myth #3: Choosing between the lesser of two evils is evil
Myth #4: Politics doesn’t matter
We urgently need to shake ourselves out of believing these myths. Good people can’t sit this one out. We must never forget that punching that chad or pulling that lever or filling in that circle on Election Day is an indispensable part of our responsibility as Christians.
Saying “God doesn’t care about politics” is a kind of “get out of argument free” card when under withering assault from the secular elite. It is the equivalent of saying, “Yes, I am a Christian but the one true God doesn’t care about politics, so please don’t judge me by the political viewpoints of my fellow believers.” But here’s the rub: God cares about politics because He cares about everything.
Washington, D.C., and your state capital are not black holes where no concern need be taken for God’s glory. As Pastor Adrian Rogers said, “It is inconceivable that God would ordain government and then ask His people to stay out of it.”
Myth #2: “It’s not my problem.”
Let’s say you walk in the breakroom at work and it’s a mess. You could magnanimously clean it up, or use the occasion to inspire others to an ethic of cleanliness. But most of us would be tempted to say, “I didn’t make this mess – let someone else deal with it.” It seems entirely fair and reasonable to respond this way.
In terms of community, though, the problems faced by some are ultimately going to be faced by all. Problems that aren’t solved while small become bigger ones we’ll have to face later.
In America, the people – not government employees – are in charge. It’s not enough merely to refrain from bad behavior. No one has ever received a good citizen award by virtue of disciplining himself to not rob convenience stores. Public virtue means choosing to do good, at personal expense, as an example to our fellows and for the sake of those who come after us. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
Myth #3: “Choosing between the lesser of two evils is evil.”
Of all the objections Christians lodge against political involvement, this one sounds the most noble: “I refuse to traffic in evil, and politics is evil; therefore my passivity is virtuous.” You’ve probably heard it even more this election cycle as people bemoan candidates who seem to take every opportunity to display how distasteful they can be.
It’s true, of course, that politics is evil. We live in a fallen world and Christians are fallen, too. We’re not the pure few who bear the weight of evil perpetrated by others. Proclaiming that a person running for office is the “lesser of two evils” is to deny at some level the truth about our own state before God. As theologian RC Sproul often says, all of us are really a lot more like Adolf Hitler than we are like Jesus Christ.
If we let our discouragement become cynicism, then cynicism becomes apathy, apathy becomes indifference and indifference enables evil to win the day.
Myth #4: “Politics doesn’t matter.”
Virtue has a public component, not just a private one. Unwise political policies have destroyed the lives of tens of millions of people. Wise policies have brought freedom to tens of millions.
Properly conceived, politics offers a platform from which to encourage virtue, and virtue is at the heart of good government. The big things America is proud of – the freeing of oppressed peoples around the world, the welcoming of the “poor, huddled masses yearning to be free,” the right of people to live their lives and carry out their business without the threat of unlawful search and seizure – all of these are political products that came about only when good people got involved in politics.
It’s safe to say that there is not a single act you take in any given day that is not either facilitated or hampered by political decision-making at some level. Most of us have never really thought about it, and that, quite frankly, is part of the problem.
Don’t skip voting. Don’t let your lack of enthusiasm for certain candidates keep you from going to the polls and supporting good people and good measures and voting against bad people and bad measures.
Remember, to not act is to act. If things get worse, and we’ve not exercised our simplest, most basic responsibility as citizens, we have no one to blame but ourselves.
When good men fail to act, evil prevails therefore I find that it’s my duty to do my part to go to the voting booths to prevent an evil person from assuming the highest office of the land.
*** About half of self-identified Christians of voting age did not cast a ballot in the election of 2012,***
I still believe it is because Romney was a Mormon, not my first Republican choice. Given the choice of a mormon and Obama, many just stayed home. Others held their noses and voted for Romney, and we still ended up with 4 more years of the worst president in modern history.
Especially Catholics who discern between venal and mortal sins.....surely they can make the same discernment between trump and Clinton....
Politics will matter when the fed forces their way into the church and dictates the language and ideas spoken within the church.
This is the typical mentality of not caring about politics until it begins to affect you, but by that time, it’s too late.
People get the government they deserve.
Sometimes God may test us as he did Hezekiah to see what is in their hearts.
“31 However, regarding the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, whom they sent to him to inquire about the wonder that was done in the land, God withdrew from him, in order to test him, that He might know all that was in his heart.”
I think we are being tested every election cycle to see what is in our hearts, and the people suffer because of their own poor choices.
Today we are saddled with the worst because more people wanted an incompetent in office than wise leaders.
Unfortunately they take the rest of us with them..
PC has already killed free speech. Even at church.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Edmund Burke
1. As you pointed out a lot of people had problems with him being Mormon.
2. “Richie Rich guy” in fact he acted naturally as a cartoon character of a rich guy! As Hucklebee put it ‘he acts & looks like the guy who fired me ( or laid me off!)
3. He came across on TV as “odd”. Odd in a way you couldn't put your finger on. Even the National Review in a tongue-in-check article described him as a space alien who liked earth & humans.
4. He couldn't articulate the conservative cause, and when he tried it sounded weird! Remember his “I am a conservatively conservative” statement (or something like that!). It's likely because his heart wasn't in it. I can understand having to govern Massachusetts as a liberal Republican because its Massachusetts. If he had been a conservative at heart he would have found a way to express that.
I voted for him because voting has two components. You give someone power & you deny someone power. Denying Zero four more years of power was far far more important then giving the ‘Mr. Perfect Haircut-Perfectly Dressed Weirdo’ GOP candidate power. I had experienced Zero, I didn't need to experience more!
I voted in 2012. And I deeply regret it. There is no Christian duty to show up and choose between what were different but essentially equal evils. We’re finding out as time goes on how much of a liberal elitist willard is and how low he is willing to stoop.
So somehow there was a Christian duty for us to vote for willard? That’s patently absurd.
I hate this thought, but in retrospect zero might have even been the better outcome amongst truly awful outcomes. Would the rise of nationalism such as we’re seeing now have happened if willard had been elected? I think not. What we would have had instead is open borders with the blessings of a so-called conservative in the White House. Strategically we would have been utterly screwed. Hitlery would be running and President willard would be preparing to hand power to her...because you just don’t say bad things about a woman. Even if that woman is the reincarnation of Lucretia Borgia. And after all, it’s Her Turn.
Drivel
If Christians don’t vote (for Trump) in 2016, they may just get us killed by jihadists.
That’s just plain regarded to say that
Especially after the fact
You have know way to know what would have happened if Romney won
You really need me to go down the list?
But we sure as hell know what happened be ause Obama won
Uniparty stooge.
Do we have any way to know he wouldn’t be worse? His recent behavior as a uniparty shill and globalist extraordinaire seem to point to worse rather than better outcome should he have been elected. If nothing else, zero has rallied nationalist opposition on the right. Something that almost certainly wouldn’t have happened if he had been elected. So election 2016 would have been between re-electing a gop-e globalist and a ‘rat globalist. I fail to see much of a choice.
I didn't vote for Romney in 2012 for two reasons. First, I didn't trust Romney to govern as a conservative if elected and I trusted Goode to do so. Second, the electoral votes of my state were solidly in Romney's column so my vote made no difference. The same is true this year. If I had to vote right now, I'd vote like I did in 2008. I voted for Palin and McCain came along for the ride. I could cast a vote for Pence without any hesitation and I guess Trump comes along for the ride.
The Dems and MSM saved this October Surprise specifically to derail Evangelical support for Trump. The aim is to dissuade Conservative Christians to stay home on election day, or vote for a third party candidate, not turn them to vote for Clinton. They know the Conservative resolve to stop Hillary, but they believe they can dissuade Conservative Christians to stay home.
The Dems and MSM have spent so much time excusing and covering up for Obamas and Clintons that they shouldn’t have any standing when making accusations.
That being said, any Christian who takes this bait and stays home on election day, or turns to a third party candidate, is begging for our nation to be destroyed on the alter of socialism, liberalism, and hedonism.
Trump recently accepted Christ as Lord. I believe that he has been forgiven for past sins. So should we not also forgive. Satan is the one who constantly brings up past sins to discredit our salvation. He, Satan, loves to declare us as hypocrites for past stands and actions that contradict our current good life.
Other than Hillary and Bill carrying a Bible, have we ever seen any moral or righteous stand by either of them? Have we ever seen any action or verbal expression by either them, or the current occupant of the White House, condemning Islam as Anti-Christ. The fundamental document of Islam declares itself to be Anti-Christ by stating that God cannot have a son.
All Christian of good conscience should look at the actions of the Clintons (actions not words), and the past actions of the liberal, progressive left (actions not words), and recognize how they have been conducting a cultural war on Christianity and Judaism over the last half century.
Our nation cannot be restored until the lawless actions (actions not words), and inaction (failure to enforce laws they disagree with) of the left are reversed, and our American Republic restored.
We are in a political war where the socialist, progressives, atheist, anarchist, and the forces of the Anti-Christ are on one side, and those who support our American Republic and the Judeo-Christian values and beliefs are on the other.
If the enemy wins this battle, our nation will, without revival, fall to a godless coalition that will fight over the remains after destroying ouy Republic.
Yes, we need a revival, but more importantly we need to preserve our nation as that “City On A Hill”, a nation dedicated to those freedoms and rights guaranteed under our Constitution. A government that can only exist when a moral people take a stand, and not abandon that dream exposed by our Founding Fathers. Christians and Jews who believe and accept God’s Word need to stand with our nation and not abandon the one chance to restore our Republic.
The forces that are aligned against us are strong, but we cannot abandon the fight based upon Trump’s past words, spoken during a moment of pride and bravado in private conversation.
We need to recognize that those who make the charges do not have the good of our country in mind, or the preservation of our Republic.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.