Who would Jesus vote for?

Who would Jesus vote for?

As a Christian, this is a question you’ve got to ask yourself every time an election season comes around. Not necessarily because you actually believe Jesus would have actually voted for any particular person (since Jesus was pretty clear about his kingdom being in heaven and not on earth), but because you have a duty to your family and friends to be an active citizen, upkeeping the gifts of freedom and moral prosperity that have been handed to you by your forefathers. As such a Christian American, you’ve got to first find out which people most properly support the values of Christianity.

So where do you start?

First off, if you’re going to ask questions about which candidate or party is more Christian, the first thing you’ve got to remember is that neither party really adequately represents the Christian worldview. Pastor Dahlstrom of Bethany Community Church has been quick to point out that both major parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, have blood on their hands, they’re full of horrible people, and the question of which party is more Christian can’t simply be answered by focusing on one issue such as abortion entirely. However, even though opening dialogue about critical issues is incredibly important (especially when the conversation maintains a Biblical focus), the voter needs to make sure that they’re not confusing moral complexity with moral incapability.

For instance, the fact that both parties have blood on their hands is true, and it may also be true that both parties cannot claim to perfectly espouse the beliefs of Christ, but despite their shortcomings it’s important to remember that even if both parties aren’t perfect, this doesn’t necessarily mean that both parties transgress with perfect equality. As such, dialogue is incredibly important, but at the end of the day it would be philosophically imprudent to suggest that complexity equates itself with universal correctness or universal failure, as one party logically must be more correct than the other.

As such, the voter must consider issue by issue, carefully weighing the attributes of each party against the other. Here is a list of the most important issues, and what I’ve come to see as the correct and Christ-like stance on them.

1) Abortion

While most people agree that voting on only one issue would be an egregious misstep, a candidate’s stance on abortion is incredibly informative, and should never be downplayed as “just one of the issues.”

After all, what we should be looking for in a candidate is a Christian worldview, as Christ is our hope, light, and strength. When the Bible clearly states that God knew us when we were in the womb (Jeremiah 1:5), and that God gave us all a valuable soul, the stance on what human life is and its importance takes precedence over many other matters. This is because you must have a fundamental understanding of who we are based on Biblical principles, or else you can’t have a strong Christ-like perspective in other matters.  Law is absolutely predicated by a statement of value, purpose, and direction: when a stance favoring abortion is taken, the statement is that we are meaningless, have no souls, and can be disposed of when inconvenient. 

An interesting phenomenon occurs when Democrats say that they’re personally opposed to abortion, but are never comfortable saying why.  This is because the only tangible reason for opposition is because they feel that abortion is the taking of life created by God, with a soul lovingly regarded by its creator.  Suggesting any other reason for personally opposing abortion would silly, because the only other worldview which opposes a divine worldview states that we have no souls, came from goo, and have no real purpose except to survive.

The problem people have with Democrats and their stance on abortion is that it implies that they “understand” the human condition and our relevance to God and his word, but are willing to compromise this because of other people’s opinions. As such, you have to ask yourself if this sits well with you. It shouldn’t sit well, because the Left has consistently engaged in the practice of the “myth of neutrality,” a worldview that encompasses the notion that even if you dislike something, an effectively neutral stance can still be taken. However, if one considers that you can have only two effective stances, one of approval and one of disapproval, the truth is that your stance of “neutrality” is functionally an act of approval. In essence, it doesn’t matter how you feel: you’re functionally okay with someone else having an abortion, regardless of what God said about the value of human life. 

Anyway, if God’s word is God’s word, and it clearly states our position and meaning in the universe, it CANNOT be comprised by the opinions of nonbelievers. This would be a terrible mistake in moral relativity, which is something that Democrats are notorious for in many issues.

2) Un/Just War

Now, one of the most recent arguments against the Right Wing has been what the Left calls a support of “Just War,” as the Republicans primarily supported the preemptive strike against Iraq, and haven’t called a preemptive strike against Iran off the table.

Although this position may seem valid at first glance, as Christ preached to turn the other cheek, if our value as God’s children is the cornerstone on which you base your policies, it’s philosophically intangible to say you believe we’re all created in the image of God and that you’re okay with abortion, and then give an arbitrary reason for wanting to stop the massacre in Darfur or Iraqi occupation. Consistency is important in ideological stances, and even if you do “care” about other people’s well-being, you can’t say your Christian stance applies to the people in Darfur if you haven’t taken a strong stance against abortion, because a life is a life is a life, and if you’re okay with disposing of life at someone’s convenience in your own country, then you have to be okay with someone murdering someone in another country over, let’s say, land. After all, if the ability to kill for convenience is allowed, surely you would allow murder for land, as the need for land takes greater importance than mere convenience.

So anyway, it doesn’t matter about whether Democrats “care” or not. It matters that they have a solid foundation on which to base their actions. Are we God’s children? Did he know us in the womb? Does he value us all equally? Does this mean we have to value each other, love each other, and protect each other? If the answer is yes, then you can declare human rights. Then you can intervene in another country for the sake of persecuted peoples. If we’re not all created in the image of God, pardon me, but what reason do you have to care about people in Iraq, or Darfur, or anywhere else? Because it makes you feel good? What if it makes the people who’re causing the massacre to feel bad? What if you kill their family members in the process of intervention?  Once you remove us from divine origination, these matters become subjective. There is no right or wrong, and we are the products of an accident.

That argument being made, it must be mentioned that the Iraq War was justified by prior global consent, with UN Security Council Resolution 678 giving us the right to attack Iraq in the 90’s when they invaded and massacred our ally (1). After 678 was passed unanimously, the UN Security Council overwhelmingly passed resolution 687, which set rules regarding a ceasefire that would discontinue if certain regulations were breached by Saddam (2). Before the second invasion of Iraq, the UN Security Council passed resolution 1441, which acknowledged that Saddam had been in material breach of MANY of the boundaries set forth in resolution 687, and basically granted the US led coalition the right to end the ceasefire (3). If that isn’t following the law, I don’t know what is.

3) Health Care

It’s been said that Christians should consider voting for the Democratic Party because of the Left’s unwavering support of the poor, and that Christ himself was very clear that the poor of spirit and the last here on earth would be first in heaven (Mark 10:31). This isn’t a moot point to make, but I don’t feel that Christians voting Left during elections fully understand why the Right opposes socialized medicine or government subsidized health care (even if John McCain already has emphatically embraced subsidized health care (4)).

It should be first mentioned that the Right is not against health care, but rather against the fiscal unsustainability of socialized medicine and the lack of actual care people get from governmental programs. If one were to study the German, Canadian, or Italian health-care systems and how they teeter on the edge of financial collapse, one might be inclined to ask whether or not this might be because they simply can’t afford it. This question would only be asked, however, if said observer were diligent enough to study debt to gross domestic product ratios of nations such as Canada and Italy which embrace socialized medicine, and then looked at the amount these countries spend on health care.

According to the CIA world factbook, in 2007 these are some of the following industrialized countries that had higher ratios of GDP to debt than us (5):

1)Japan (170% of GDP)
2)Italy (104%)
3)Singapore (96.3%)
4)Greece (89.5%)
5)Belgium (84.6%)
6)Norway (83.1%)
7)Germany (64.9%)
8)Canada (64.2%)
9)France (63.9%)
10)Portugal (63.6%)
11)United States (60.8%)

About the same number of industrialized countries out there had less debt than us, but we should consider that in places reputed by the World Health Organization to have the most excellent health care systems (Italy, Canada, Japan, etc), they usually are the countries with the higher debt ratios (6). This doesn’t mean that universal health care isn’t possible or something to be attempted, but more that we should tread carefully into a system instead of spending willy-nilly, especially considering that most “Westernized” nations (in Michael Moore’s words) have universal health care plans and are deeply in debt (7).

As such, careful analysis begs the following questions:
1)if you provide free health care but lose your economy because of enormously bad debts, does this hurt more people than having a capitalist health-care system?
2)How can you pay for your health-care system when your economy goes bad because of over-taxation of businesses that the health-care system relies upon for income?
3)If you provide socialized health care and send the bill to your grandchildren so that they have to pay interest to the Chinese instead of getting good schools (schools so they can get good jobs to keep the economy moving, which would pay for health care in the first place!), is this still considered more moral?
4)If you don’t take more debt on as a result of unsustainable programs, and instead rely on printing more money to perpetuate your system, isn’t this the same thing as robbing people who’ve saved without passing legislation (aka the elderly)?

These are questions you have to ask yourself before calling right-wingers “cold-hearted” or “un-Christian.” Just because the Right doesn’t support the easier, endorser-glorifying answer doesn’t mean they want poor people to die of cancer.

4) Helping the poor

Another argument that’s consistently (and haphazardly) thrown at the Right is that our party is against helping the poor, which as mentioned above is something Jesus really frowns upon. So how anti-charity is the Right?

Republicans aren’t against fighting poverty, but they don’t agree with state-mandated welfare because it promotes illegitimate childbearing, increases crime, and creates second-class dependent citizens. As mentioned previously in my essays, even the Maryland NAACP said “the ready access to a lifetime of welfare and free social service programs is a major contributory factor to the crime problems we [black people] face today (8).” If it can be quantitatively proven that welfare destroys communities instead of helping, then wouldn’t it be nicer to provide welfare through churches, which have the ability to discern between a layabout and a person who truly needs help (8)?

Also worth mentioning is that you can always help the poor by donating your time and money, which Christian conservatives do predominantly through their churches because they’ve been commanded by God to do so, with not paying your tithe equated to robbing God (Malachi 3:8).  Each Christian should always make sure that their particular church has a program for helping those in need, and if you think your church is doing a poor job taking care of the downtrodden, then you should be investing your tithe offering in a church that fulfills its duty.

Voting for a party that takes money from someone else (especially if you know that you’re not going to be getting a tax increase) to put into programs that encourage laziness and anti-Christian family structures is just about the laziest and least noble way you could help poor people get out of their slump. I’ve also yet to hear a good argument explaining how Obama’s new tax plan is going to take a sizable amount of change from a middle-class producer, divide it up into incredibly small portions amongst non-producers, and the money isn’t going to end up in the hands of large corporate grocery chains. That’s WalMart, for you liberals out there.

5) Homosexuality 

I think it’s worth mentioning that the Democratic Party openly supports homosexual marriage, which is prohibited in many portions of the Bible, such as where Paul states that “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” This is not a joke.

Sin is the problem we deal with, and it’s almost the sole focus of the entire bible. Without sin, there would be no Bible, no Israel, no Christ. The second you stop admitting that sin is sin (which is what was mentioned about homosexuality) is the second you become an anti-Christian, as Christ’s death for your sins doesn’t mean you get to do whatever you want. It should result in essential transformation, as the Holy Spirit guides us to be more like Christ. So read 1 Corinthians 6, and then consider that the Democratic Party wants to give homosexuals the right to sue business owners because they don’t approve of an immoral lifestyle.

I think most Christians understand that a sin is a sin, and committing acts of homosexuality still counts as a sin against our God, a sin that is covered by the blood of Christ after we choose to truly follow him. However, this doesn’t excuse it. We all have urges to do things that are wrong, from stealing to cheating to lusting to lying, but we have an obligation to resist these temptations and repent when we stumble.  It’s just the name of the game. When a person unrepentantly assumes a homosexual lifestyle, they choose to act despite the Bible’s strong words against it. And if you would like to argue that the Bible says otherwise, I challenge you to find a verse in which a homosexual relationship is spoken of positively within the Bible, and then I’d like for you to explain the verses that label it “detestable.” This may require what my pops would call “theological gymnastics.”

Furthermore, should an adulterer be given protection from discrimination?  What about unpracticing but open pedophiles?  What about people who talk about masturbating?  What of public nudists?  If Biblical precedent can be given for taking or protecting any of these actions, please contact God and apologize: you’re twisting His words around (for a great example of how the Human Rights Campaign does this with the topic of homosexuality, refer to another article I wrote about it).

So anyway, the point isn’t to pick on homosexuals, as I have to deal with my own problem of lust for women. As such, we must understand that if you’re a man who’s attracted to men, your attractions are going to be there no matter what, and Christ will always love his followers regardless of their imperfections, as he loves me despite all of mine. But you have a responsibility to Christ to be more like him in spite of the flesh, and that includes not engaging in or protecting sexual immorality.  This is what baptism is all about: making a covenant with God before the church, a covenant in which you accept Christ’s salvation and leadership in exchange for eternal salvation. It is NOT about excusing all your behaviors.

And if these issues haven’t convinced you that Republicans are the least flawed party for Christians to choose from in this election (aside from the Constitution Party or the America First Party), then please consider the following:

1)The Democratic Party upholds all religions as equally valid and crucial to America’s foundation, including Islam. Under the principle of “freedom of religion,” the astute observer must ask the Democratic Party how they intend to deal with Sharia Law, the only truly legitimate social code according to Islam. Should men be allowed to beat their wives (9)? Should honor killings be allowed in the name of religious freedom?
2)The Democratic Party is the reason you can’t pray in school, and the reason you can’t advertise for a Christian roommate or sell your house to a Christian instead of a gay Muslim communist without being in violation of the law (10).
3)According to the majority of the Democratic Party’s constituents and the legislation they’ve overwhelmingly supported (12), evolution is how the human race began and you shouldn’t be allowed to have your school teach any other way in conjunction with evolutionary theory, despite the fact that Intelligent Design hasn’t been scientifically refuted(11).
4)The Democratic Party is the number one choice for atheists, agnostics, and liberal Jews. Don’t take my word for it, look at what the PEW Research Center has to say (13). Even if there are good Christians in the party, it doesn’t change the fact that the radically anti-Christian Left also has its base there.

So anyway, there’s bound to be some sort of political diversity within any church, as we’re all individuals at different stages of learning and progression in our faith in Christ. However, although diversity can strengthen one’s walk though honest and loving discussion, diversity in itself should never a virtue to be achieved or a status to praise. As Christ’s church, we have to remember that unity in Christ is to be attained above all else, and that our focus must remain on him and loving his church, as he commanded in the gospels. And remember, Christ also happened to mention that unless we believe in Him and all that He stands for, and His word changes our hearts, we are not his children (Matthew 7:21-23).

But anyway, as brothers and sisters in the church, I think it’s good that these different stances come to light. At the end of the day, there is a right decision to make, as God’s universally valid and applicable principles bend for no party or person, and we have an obligation to talk to those we think are making the wrong decisions. This isn’t to be done out of a spirit of pride or self-promoting intellectualism, but to help others come closer to their Lord.

So talk to people about these things. Help them to understand that although there isn’t a perfect party (because perfect parties have to be filled with perfect people), there’s a right choice and a wrong choice to be made at the end of the day. And then go out and make that right choice, brothers and sisters!

1)UN Security Council Resolution 678
http://www.fas.org/news/un/iraq/sres/sres0678.htm
2)UN Security Council Resolution 687
http://www.fas.org/news/un/iraq/sres/sres0687.htm
3)UN Security Council Resolution 1441
http://www.fas.org/news/un/iraq/sres/1441.pdf
4)McCain’s health care plan
http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/19ba2f1c-c03f-4ac2-8cd5-5cf2edb527cf.htm
5)CIA Factbook: countries and GDP debt
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2186rank.html
6)WHO Health ranking of nations
http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html
7)Michael Moore talks about Health Care
http://www.gadling.com/2007/07/05/what-countries-have-universal-health-care/
8)The CATO Institute on welfare
http://www.cato.org/testimony/ct-wc67.html
9)Wife-beating and Islam
http://www.answering-islam.org/Silas/wife-beating.htm#_Toc160373812
10)The Washington State Human Rights Commission: Fair Housing Laws
http://www.hum.wa.gov/FairHousing/index.htm
11)The Kitzmiller Vs. Dover Trial on intelligent design
http://pewforum.org/news/display.php?NewsID=5945
12)Support for evolution amongst Democrats
http://www.gallup.com/poll/27847/Majority-Republicans-Doubt-Theory-Evolution.aspx
13)The PEW Research Center: who belongs to which party
http://people-press.org/commentary/?analysisid=103

This entry was posted on 2. January 2009 at 20:40 and is filed under Theology, politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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