Should Christians Vote for the Vain and Boastful?

American Thinker.com ^ | October 27, 2020 | Ben Voth

[Kaslin]

Evangelical thinker, author, and Christian pastor John Piper stirred the Christian community and a larger public intrigued with how Christians may vote in the this election with his recent essay, “Policies, Persons, and Paths to Ruin: Pondering the Implications of the 2020 Election.”

Piper concludes: “I will not develop some calculus to determine which path of destruction I will support.” After rejecting the sin of boastfulness with a terminology diagnosed in the Greek with the term “eristikos,” he is willing to forswear voting on or in the Presidential election of 2020. Piper’s critique of leadership character is one of several made by other major evangelical thinkers like Max Lucado and Beth Moore. Piper’s thesis cannot be reconciled to the rhetoric and arguments of basic Biblical hermeneutics.

Piper complains early in the essay: “I find it bewildering that Christians can be so sure that greater damage will be done by bad judges, bad laws, and bad policies than is being done by the culture-infecting spread of the gangrene of sinful self-exaltation, and boasting, and strife-stirring (eristikos). How do they know this? Seriously! Where do they get the sure knowledge...” Piper is condescendingly stunned that Christians might vote in the current election given the tragic political character flaw of boasting that for him obviously precludes the task of voting for President. Piper does not provide biblical examples to support his thesis and offers only the well-worn hermeneutic that all sin is of equal offense in the eyes of God so boasting will be as “deadly” as abortion, according to Piper. In reality, the Bible is replete with human beings plagued with boasting character flaws and yet assigned to not only leadership but political sovereignty.

[Theophilus]

Well I wasn’t the first to utter it.

[Theophilus]

Mathew 10
24 The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord.

25 It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household

[Tommygun99]

The Bible has a voting guide. See the following verse in Ecclesiastes:

A wise man’s heart inclines him to the right,
but a fool’s heart to the left.

Ecclesiastes 10:2 ESV

[Lysandru]

It’s odd that the nature of politicians and campaigners is to be vain and boastful yet only Trump is seen as this when he is in fact less so than standard politicians like Obama and Biden.

This is spot on. Compare the frequency of the word "I" in Obama speeches to its use in Trump speeches--as opposed to the use of "we." And The Donald also likes to hand out praise and credit to other contributors.

[NFHale]

I think you are indeed correct...

[foreverfree]

bump