Can a godly candidate really win?

Everyone knows you can't win a football game or a war if all you have is defense. Yet in the war for our culture, we spend all our time reacting, responding and defending a shrinking piece of real estate. Wars are not won by retreat.

We've been working hard to slow the advancement of evil without any real advancement of good. In 2004, 19 million evangelicals who were eligible to vote didn't. Yet, with two-thirds of us sitting on the bench, we "values voters" still made up the largest voting block in the country. So, what did we do in the last election? In 2006, 9 million more evangelicals (28 million) stayed home. We have gone into full-scale retreat so that those who hate us and our values now control Congress – nice.

And while the White House is up for grabs, our "conservative leaders" are telling us to support one of the front-runners like Giuliani or Romney who treat our values with disdain. After all, "the polls" say … "the pundits" say … "reality is …"

I have a newsflash: The polls and the pundits don't determine reality. Reality isn't what you read in the headlines. Reality is the word of God. Don't believe me? Doesn't matter. Some things are true whether you believe them or not. But the giants are big! Do you have any idea how big our God is? Isaiah 40:22 gives us a glimpse:

It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in. Funny that the Bible said the earth was a "circle" even when everyone believed it was flat. What do you know, when "science" ...

There is a terrible problem with "Godly" and "moral" candidates. You have absolutely NO idea where they stand, on anything!

That is why people are so very timid about voting for such people. A candidate may claim to be "moral" and "religious" and be anything from a responsible, ethical, and upright individual, to a heathen swine like Bill Clinton. And Bill would be the first to say that in *his* church, the Bible says that anything he, Bill, does, is fine.

People who run on their being "Godly", "religious" or "moral" might be followers of Pat Robertson, the Pope, the Reverend Farrakhan, or David Koresh, et al. They might be Mormons, Scientologists, Buddhists, Muslims, Orthodox Jews, Zoroastrians, Christian Scientists, Quakers, ULC, or even Wiccans.

What the HECK do we know what they are or represent?

To the typical voter, it is almost scary when someone says they are "Godly", "religious" or "moral".

Now, if they say they are "ethical", that is different. It means they are saying they obey the written law. That is objective. Bill Clinton's church has no authority to say that "perjury isn't against the law". They can excuse his morals, but they can't re-write the law.

Years ago, Congressman and medical doctor Larry McDonald was working late in his Capitol Hill office when an old friend from medical school knocked on his door. Larry rose and greeted his guest and, after exchanging the usual pleasantries, looking a bit dejected, his friend slumped into a chair.

Larry asked him what was wrong.

With a little sigh, his friend said “Every few years, a group of us have to take time away from our practices and jobs and come all the way up here to meet with our representatives and senators to try to head off some new effort to trash the Constitution. And I often get the feeling that these guys up here just aren’t listening.”

Laughing, Larry offered, “You do know, don’t you, that there’s a better way?”

“What’s that, Larry?”

“You and your friends ought to get together at home and find a House candidates who shares your values and get behind him with support and resources and REPLACE those guys who aren’t listening. And if there is no candidate with those qualifications, go out and CREATE one – maybe even run yourself! And if, down the road, the new guy stops listening to you, work to replace HIM. The beauty of the House of Representatives is that the Founding Fathers designed it so that these folks have to come home every 24 months to get their tickets punched by the voters. And as we both know, the taxing and spending occur in the House. If the lower house refused to fund some liberty destroying or unconstitutional agency or program, it just won’t happen.”

“But, Larry, how do we convince the rest of the voters that the incumbent needs to be replaced?”

“That used to be a real challenge since poll after poll asking folks what they thought of congress usually got very negative answers. But when asked how they thought THEIR guys were doing up here got responses indicating that THEIR guys were doing a good job. There’s a new program called Tax Reform Immediately (TRIM) that uses only one yardstick for its quarterly rating of every member of congress – the United States Constitution.” (http://www.trimonline.org)

“Does it work, Larry?”

“One of my favorite stories about that is the 16 year-old paperboy out in the Midwest who every quarter paid to have 10,000 TRIM Bulletins printed and threw them on his route and in another 9,500 lawns in his district – FROM HIS BIKE! After 3 quarters of that, the incumbent was ousted for someone who more closely represented the views of the voters. On election night, the red-faced loser was interviewed on TV and, waving a TRIM Bulletin, sputtered that it was a right-wing plot to “get him.” It was GREAT TV.”

“A ‘plot’ by a 16 year-old paperboy.” Larry and his guest laughed.

“And it’s happening all over the country – even in my state, Georgia. My supporters down there are keeping the voters in the 7th informed about my votes up here. Since my only standard is the Constitution, they keep sending me back. So it works both ways: The good guys get reelected and the bad guys get sent home – or hang around as lobbyists.” Another chuckle.

“But what about the presidential election?”

“While important, if we had 300 or so decent representatives up here on the Hill, they’d take back much of the power they’ve shipped down to 1600 over the past years and the 4 year beauty contest would become far less important than it now is. A metaphor for these elections for president, representatives and senate is a 3 card Monte game: While everyone is focused on the card marked with the “P,” the “R” and “S” cards are largely ignored.”

Larry’s friend returned home, got his friends and neighbors up to speed with TRIM – and within a year, had a new and improved representative.

The other day I was talking to a relative on the subject of sin and the serious nature of sinful behavior and she proceeded to say,well as long as someone is a good person then all is ok. Nothing about Godliness,righteousness,holiness,just being a good person and of course the definition of a good person depends on that person. And from what I have seen from and heard from Washington that definition is what they believe and there lies the problem. But for Washington their greatest sin. among many, is selfishness, and the power they get from lying their asses off and telling us what we want to hear. Yep, I have become cynical. When millions and I have to say again,millions of babies are killed every year in this country and homosexuals are targeting our children in elementary school,where is the moral leadership? There is none. Power and self will always come first. I am afraid God in his wisdom will have to make things right. But what bothers me more than what politicians think and say,is what does the Christian community or the very least God fearing community do? Today we have a great many churches and the pastors leading them to declare abortion,homosexuality is ok. And sometimes even try to use the bible to endorse these sins. I myself will never vote for anyone who promotes or believes abortion is ok. I have had friends and relatives who have gone through abortions and know what they went through and how they feel now,years later. And yes even met a young, beautiful girl who was the result of a rape. As I looked at her I thought of how many people believed she should have died. Don't think for a minute that her mothers decision was easy but looking at her and seeing her beautiful smile, I believe it was a good and loving decision.

Perseverando:

Excellent post.

But I believe I understand why 28 million Christians did not vote in 2004. Choosing the lesser evil is not pleasant thing for a Christian, and in many, many, cases, this is what many Christians see elections as being.

Abstentions are commonly ignored by election officials and by the media. But in all cases, "none of the above" is a ballot choice. Simply do not vote for either candidate. If you don't like any of the candidates, turn in an empty ballot. A few blank ballots are easy to ignore, but 28 million blank ballots might be hard to ignore. And it would mean more than 28 million staying home.

The most important elections are the primaries. There are often good primary candidates, who do not make it to the general election, sometimes because Christians stay home.

In short, I believe that Christians should be urged to go to the poles, whether they mark their ballots or not. Enough abstentions will not be ignored.

Christian candidates face other problems. One is that many Americans simply do not understand Christian (evangelical/fundamentalist) points of view. Many actually believe that the goal is to establish a theocracy.

Another problem is lack of differentiation from other candidates. All candidates moral and ethical, according to their campaign speeches, and many are "godly" and "religious". Popocatapetl is correct in saying that "Godly", "religious" or "moral" can refer to about anything. "Christian" is even to a large extent ambiguous.

to Popocatapetl:

I don't understand your distinction between "moral" and "ethical". If you google "define:ethical", the two terms are about the same.

to Brilliant

After Bush, the real question is whether a Godly candidate can govern better than an unGodly candidate.

While the drive-by media may consider G. W. Bush to be a Godly man, I, and many other Christians, do not. IMO, a good Christian would not host an annual islamic ceremony. I have yet to see a Godly president; and I have seen 12 presidents.

Reagan was also attacked for being divorced. But he won by deeds, not words. It is certainly no drawback to be a person of faith in office, and moral, too.

In fact an argument can be made that it is far more important to do good deeds based in your faith and morality than to hold those values but never do anything about them. Or to harm others with good intent.

Jimmy Carter ran for office on a platform of piety, and yet his execution was so awful, that for whatever good intentions he might have had, the results were destructive, terrible and downright evil. Entire nations suffered because he thought he was pious in his own eyes.

He could not back down from his morality long enough to see that whatever he touched turned to waste. For him, the best, most pious thing he could have done was NOT try to help other. His touch only hurt, it did not heal.

Contrast this with Reagan who, as you pointed out, seldom went to church. And yet by his actions, near half the people of the world were freed from bondage. What higher morality, what piety, is greater than that?

The practical, if not dictionary difference between "moral" and "ethical" is in usage. An ethical person promises to obey the written rules and obeys them. A moral person promises to obey religious rules as they are applied to the world.

The distinction goes back to the very founding of America, with the radical notion that the legitimacy of our nation comes from its people. Unlike in Europe where every king and emperor pretended that God had ordained them leader, and that they got their legitimacy from God, the US was radically different.

It was not disrespectful to God, in fact, just the opposite, it did not sully God with the affairs of men. In that way, our government and laws are a "closed system", of men, by men, and for men, as Lincoln said later. This meant that we knew that our laws were flawed, and our leaders were flawed, and everything about us was imperfect; but that there was no pretense of perfection based upon heaven. If we found a flaw in the law, we could change it without offending God. Thus, while we did not pretend perfection, we could strive for "more perfection".

From that point on, ethics and morality went their separate way in the view of the typical American. An ethical leader took an ethical oath, on the Bible, no less, to keep and uphold the laws of men. Importantly, no matter what his individual beliefs, he was swearing to uphold man's, not God's laws.

Americans took the view that there are the laws of men, and that there are the laws of God, and that there is considerable overlap between the two, but neither is inclusive. If you committed murder, you might be hung, but that punishment was separate from what God might do to you later for the same offense. God most likely does not care if you break many of the innumerable laws of men.

This was the *real* concept of a "separation of church and state". That it is not the responsibility of the state to enforce religious laws that have no parallel in common law.

But "morality" was always at issue. This was because while the written law of man was standard throughout the nation and known to all, the laws of God varied between religions, and even between churches of the same religion.

So people really didn't know what a candidate meant when he said that he was "moral", only what they hoped he meant.

But ethical was crystal clear. He obeyed the law, or was never arrested and convicted of breaking it. Simple and far easier to understand than if he is, and had always been, a moral person.

There is no real conflict between ethics and morality, and a person can be and often are both. A moral person can, however, be unethical, by taking an ethical office and using it to enforce moral laws that are not part of his official duties. And an ethical person can be immoral, but within limits, because as I said, there is considerable overlap between the two.

The practical, if not dictionary difference between "moral" and "ethical" is in usage.

Relying on the connotations of words is always dangerous. In this particular case, for example, we disagree on the connotation of the word "ethical".

But ethical was crystal clear. He obeyed the law, or was never arrested and convicted of breaking it.

But this understanding of ethics is completely worthless as a voting guideline. Each and every candidate on the ballot has been officially certified by the elections board as ethical, since convicted criminals are not eligible to run for public office.

This is much too low a standard.

When our republic was formed, rights not delegated to the Federal Government were retained by the people or by the states. The Feds do not have the right to discriminate on the basis of religion. This is one of the rights retained by the people. It is quite constitutional and legal for citizens to use religion as a voting criterion. And it is the moral duty of Christians to consider religion when voting.

Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty ... of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.
John Jay, first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, 1816

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