For years, like Donny, I have been registered GOP. Many believe that it is our Christian duty to vote “Conservative.” I believe it is my obligation to vote with a compassionate mindset.

Many from within the Morale Majority have made abortion their only issue, minus the recent peppering of Homosexuality and same sex marriage outrage.

While focused on this issue (reactive formation) and railing against Abortionist, Pro Choicers, and those who have had an abortion, they missed the mark. I’ve yet to hear OR see those who rail the loudest adopt themselves.

Show me one who has opened an adoption home in their own home. Has the issue been addressed. They scream for life to be preserved, but won’t sacrifice their own privacy, their own world, or their own agenda to adopt. I am sure someone has. Send the link.

But those who screamed the loudest, in my experience, haven’t.

Imagine, if just a few of the nearly 70 million evangelicals opted for adoption, foster homes would emptied In 1999, the latest year for which totals have been finalized, there were about 581,000 children in foster care in the United States. Twenty-two percent of these children -about 127,000 kids - were available for adoption. The difference in numbers is that 59% of kids in foster care are on a path to be reunited with their birth parents. Only 16% are available for adoption.

“With 69.5 million American adults devoted to the Evangelical lifestyle, the current and still-growing societal and monetary clout of this cohort is impossible to ignore. In 2006, household income among Evangelicals represented 28% of the national total, or $2.1 trillion”

Out of 69.5 million Americans, only 127,000 needs to open their home to see that a life here, a child, can be loved, accepted, and cared for.

When making the list of the immoralities in our society, let’s not forget the greatest of them all, “….to love not.”

It seems that many of the ‘Moral Majority’ hang their ideological issues hat on their favorite two moral issues. While complete campaigns have been built around these two areas, hundreds of other social atrocities go ignored.

When was the last time a fundamentalist or self proclaimed moralist on the Right championed against poverty, the crisis of health care, or any other social justice. Rare if ever.

Instead, most are myopic and missing in action in the public’s cry for reform.

Consider this…

Unaddressed poverty is immoral.
Greed is immoral.
Basic needs being ignored; that is immoral.
A child without access to a dentist or a doctor is immoral.
Hunger and unaccessible clean water; these are a few of the modern day atrocities.

But instead, many choose their one “immoral issue” and hang their vote there.

To think that we will ever find a candidate that will represent all of our ideological pillars is a fantasy. Instead, take the candidates that are available and a do a side by side analysis.

Take Isaiah 61 and put it on one side. Place Barack, John, Ralph and the rest on the other side. See which one most closely echoes the heartbeat of that prophet.

PS: Vote Obama.

Jason Harper
http://www.jasonharper.cc

Cool convo!

I’ve been following your blog for some time now and find it pretty stimulating on many issues. However, this time I could not disagree more fervently!

I agree, we have all the reason in the world to be disappointed with Bush/Republicans. Other than some of their specific actions, there are two reasons for that: They have not delivered the Christian agenda, on anything. They have been in power for eight years.

Both of these reasons are par for the course, however. Political operators will NEVER deliver the Christian agenda. In a democracy and in a country where even Christians are showing constant disregard for the absoluteness of God’s standards as well as Truth, politicians of any shade will continue to run us over, unless we happen to build enough groundswell on any issues to make a difference. Even then, manipulators will try to defeat what should rightfully be done by the will of the people (see the outrageous misconduct of justice where ONE judge constituted enough of a vote to run over the express will of the people of California not to recognize an institution as grossly perverted as “gay” “marriage.”). The government that we are called to pray for always has and always will be evil. The people who first received this command in Biblical times knew that better than we ever will.

Second, Republicans have been (to various degrees) in power for eight years now. That makes it easy to throw stones. These last eight years have been exceptionally difficult, whether it’s 9-11, the dot.com and housing busts, the “culture war” etc. Along with that, Christians are showing a growing willingness to abandon the call to righteousness and go along with the “politically correct” agenda. As another contributor already pointed out, look where that got Canada! The media, not very often a friend of the cause of Christ, has been eating it up. Bush is now being blamed for executing policies that, yes, he spear headed, but that were also (and continue to be to this day in voting records) supported by his opposition that so verbally denounces them now out of the other side of their mouths.

Which brings me to my point: I am amazed, appalled, and aghast that the US population is now seriously considering to settle for a man who has (a) no apparent qualifications or track record, (b) offers nothing but rhetoric (Goebbels had that too!) on something as vague as “change”–for the good or better, who is to say, (c) offers a voting record that smacks of naiveté, radicalism, anti-Christian values while now pandering to Christians with gross Bible misinterpretations (not to mention constitutional ignorance), (d) makes broad claims that in this democracy (which by definition is contentious between different interests) we should all gather on the platform of the lowest common denominator, get along, and sell out the rest of the few Christian values that are still protected by law. Yet this same man will not hesitate to snipe, categorize and judge his political foes in an instant while whining when the counterattacks come and claiming to be a bridge builder between the factions. This same man has no problem with surrounding himself with racists kooks (that’s right, many more than Jermiah Wright) in the name of religion, Christianity. Any white candidate with these unsavory companions could disavow his associations ten times as fervently than Obama’s lukewarm reactions ever did, and would still be looking at a dead candidacy!

The true character of this man is becoming more and more apparent as he constantly reverses himself to appease this or that faction. Now he tells us that he is committed to ending the war–anything more specific is up in the air. Guess what, Bush offers us no less reassurance than that! He’s trying to lure in Christians while exhibiting gross ignorance of what we stand for. My point is: yes, there is much to criticize about Bush. But that justifies in no way to set up shop in the devil’s camps where the only difference is that we will be blatantly marginalized and disregarded (yet pandered to with greater hypocrisy than Bush would ever be capable of).

The only positive that I have ever heard mentioned is the supposed Democratic passion for social justice. So far, I can’t help but think that the deep pockets that are outspending the supposed “rich” “establishment” interests of the Rebublicans (another broken Obama promise, of course) are a lot more interested in power than using their resources to help the poor who profit nothing from this campaign. But more importantly, all the government has ever provided are programs of entitlement, govenment reliance, and corrupt redistribution of wealth–always at the expense of the middle class. This is not a Biblical concept! There is no such thing as entitlement in God’s plan. We are commanded to exercise charity not promote a bloated govenment in hopes that they will do the dirty job for us–precisely the Democratic agenda!

I agree with one of the other responses: I am not praising McCain in any particular way. The best a vote for McCain can be is a vote against Barack Hussein Obama. But perhaps that’s a good start. At least I can not think of anything better to do to oppose an anti-Christian radical in sheep’s clothing.

I want to respond to some of your points on evolution.
You said:
As a matter of fact, if you take Genesis chapter 1 literally, it’s IMPOSSIBLE for days, as we know them, to have existed until “day” 4, as that is when Genesis says this:

And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years…

The “AGES” definition of “yom” is clearly what is meant. And to a God for which time means nothing, “AGES” could have been BILLIONS of years as we understand them.
The text says “and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years.”
this indicates that we “now” can keep track of or record the passage of time.
Lets look at day 3:
11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

if day 3 lasted for ages (thousands of years) it would be impossible for the plant life to exist. Plant life requires intervals of light and darkness to survive. (Photosynthesis)
these intervals existed even from day 1…
have a look:
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
Another point is…
if God created us in his own image and we evolved that would indicate that God also evolved.
Anyway Donny..
Jered had a great point that you didn’t address… here it is:

jered, on May 19th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
I will read through all more thoroughly later, but if evolution is true, then there was death on earth before mankind sinned. How do you reconcile that with scripture? I’m not resolved on this myself, but that is a point that — to me — seems to deny the feasibility of millions of years of life and death before man.

Happy 4th! It’s just because of this fact we all have the privilege to express our thoughts, even though they are not in agreement. We should be eternally grateful for the price paid to give us those freedoms.

You could be right that voting for a third party candidate would be best. I don’t think it is morally required, but I am certainly considering it.