natalie’s blog

…but not from me. This morning Dad asked me to read over an e-mail he had written to some friends of ours after finding out that some of their family members were voting for Barack Obama. (He intended to send it yesterday, but forgot to ask me to look over it until this morning, so a few of the statements reference the election results in the future tense.) It was very insightful, so I asked if he would mind if I posted it on my blog. He was amenable to the idea so, without further ado, here are some wise election-related thoughts from my Dad:

Just this week I finished reading a massive, generally excellent book by Paul Johnson titled, A History of the American People. A number of times in the history of our nation, God has tested a new President (or allowed him to be tested); sometimes the President has “passed” and sometimes he has “failed.” Most recently, I think most would agree President Bush “passed” the test in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. (I dread even imagining if Al Gore had been “the leader of the free world” when this happened.)

It could be argued that the test for our next President has already begun, although the feverish, final days leading up to the election have muted its coverage, that being the unprecedented financial collapse and ongoing crisis, which many leaders in our government seem to think they can fix by misspending tax dollars on a scale so great as to be almost incomprehensible.

In my mind there is a direct connection between this latest crisis and 9/11. In Deuteronomy 6 the Lord warns of a phenomenon that could happen in the hearts of His people and has happened many times since throughout history – forgetting God after a season of obedience that ushers in a prosperity which God Himself gives to those who believe in Him and keep His commandments. Just two or three generations after this warning was given, we see in the book of Judges that prosperity gave way to idolatry, and God had to judge His people to get them to return to Him. It could fairly be said, I think, that the World Trade Center symbolically represented the true god of our nation – the accumulation and hoarding of wealth and worshiping the comfort, entertainment, and luxuries which money can provide. And God destroyed our god, using as He sometimes does, enemies more evil and God-less than the ones being judged. Sooner or later, depending on the severity of their judgment, the Israelites would cry out to God for deliverance. But after 9/11, the no-atheists-in-foxholes type pronouncements of a higher power and of the United States being a great nation died down quickly, and there was no national acknowledgment of our idolatry and manifold sins nor of the justice of God’s judgment and there was certainly no call for repentance. So God judged us again, and right in the middle of an election campaign; how rude of Him to interrupt us in this way! One wonders if He may have wanted at least some of those looking for a messiah to recognize that He can create problems beyond any savior’s ability to solve! (As an aside, I suspect Mr. Obama, many more of whose supporters than Mr. McCain’s seem to be worshipers, is keenly aware of his finiteness, but it serves his campaign’s purposes not to let this dirty little secret out – that he can’t fix everything and he knows he can’t – until the election is over.)

Reading through the history of the Israelites (Joshua–Esther), when God brought crises, sometimes the king and the people cried out to Him and He delivered them, sometimes they tried to buy their way out, even selling off items of value from the temple, and this always had a bad outcome. Since God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, I don’t think our effort to buy our way out of this economic mess, which I believe God has brought upon us in judgment, is going to be any more effective for us than it was for the Israelites.

What will be interesting to see, if Mr. Obama wins, will be the reactions of two distinct groups within his camp. (1) Those who are secular to the core and want payback immediately if not sooner for their pet causes – sexual perverts (same-sex “marriage,” homosexuals in military), pro-aborts (FOCA–Freedom Of Choice Act), liberal media (“Fairness” Doctrine), environmentalists (reduce carbon emissions no matter the cost), etc – if he doesn’t come through for them and/or doesn’t remain consistent with their expectations. (2) Those who have been so influenced by his color or mesmerized by his style that they were willing to ignore or compromise on issues of substance. Among these are millions of basically moral black people and, among non-blacks, some gullible Christians and millions of churchgoers and other “good” people who think they’re Christians. If Obama presides in accordance with his historical record of opposing the Biblical position on almost every moral issue, how long will it be before these moral people become disenchanted? And how angry will they get when they realize they have been betrayed, that they have been, as Vladimir Lenin would say, “useful idiots,” discarded now that their usefulness is over? As an example, we need only look back a few years to 2006, though it had been building since 1994, when Christians and conservatives who had been wooed by the Republican party from the beginning of the “Contract with America” and every two years afterward, then promptly ignored after each election, finally decided enough was enough and abandoned the GOP by the millions. My suspicion is that Obama’s “useful idiots” will not be nearly so slow to catch on and far less patient!

One other aspect to elections we have been pleased to discover is that there are alternatives beyond the two the media and the two major parties typically present as the only ones (in logic I think this is called a false dichotomy – thinking you have to choose A or B when there are more options available): voting for candidates from other than the two major parties and/or not voting for anyone for some offices.

Our philosophy is to vote for the person whom we think is the best candidate for an office, regardless of party or elect-ability, unless he/she belongs to a party whose stated position on any moral issue is immoral. (Unfortunately, at this point in history, this means we don’t vote for Democrats.) For this election, for President we voted for Chuck Baldwin of the Constitution Party (if you’re not familiar with the CP, you might enjoy visiting their website (www.constitutionparty.com) and seeing how closely their platform comports with Biblical and constitutional principles). For most positions in our state or locally, we voted for Republicans, but for some offices we didn’t vote for anyone.

Reading about [names withheld] and knowing their Godly heritages, I wonder if they felt they had to vote for either Mr. McCain or Mr. Obama and, of the two, they preferred Obama. Certainly they would be in good company, as millions of God’s people are voting for Mr. Obama today. But as Christians, if Mr. McCain was not a desirable choice, would it not have been better not to vote for anyone for President or to vote for someone like Chuck Baldwin who, although he won’t get elected, requires no compromise of any of our sacred principles? Food for thought for next time, perhaps!

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