It’s the day after the presidential election, and the candidate I voted for didn’t win.
I was very impressed by John McCain’s concession speech. After such a long, hard-fought battle, with mudslinging going on in both directions, I don’t know how he was able to be as gracious as he was. Of all the things he has accomplished in his political career, that speech may have defined him more than any other.
I chose to put very little politics into any sermons or blogs leading up to the election. Part of me wanted to, but I felt like God’s message to me was just to pray about it and let Him work, whether my candidate wins or not.
For what its worth, I want to share my approach to a presidential election – how my mind processes when it comes to incorporating my faith and my vote. Maybe you can store these thoughts away for use in a future election. Maybe not. They’re just my opinions.
- I can’t see the economy as a main consideration when voting. What makes the economy do what it does sometimes even baffles economists. During the Clinton administration, I remember an economist on some news show predicting that the rapid economic growth and prosperity of that time could not continue, that eventually there would be a down turn, and another president would be unfairly blamed for it. Recently, I read an opinion column that referenced a 1999 New York Times article which predicted the aggressive housing loan measures of the Clinton administration would come back to haunt us if housing prices fell, and here we are, just as the article predicted. So is it the failed policies of the Bush administration? Is it the ripple effect of the Clinton administration? Is it something else all together? No candidate has the answer. That’s why the economy isn’t my first priority.
- Taxes are related to the economy, of course, and I can’t see taxes as a main consideration, either. Though I’m middle class, and most likely always will be (unless I write the next big Christian best seller), it doesn’t bother me if the super-wealthy get a tax cut and I don’t. They will still pay a much higher percentage and amount of taxes than I will. Looking at it Biblically, the offering “tax” God required from the people of Israel was a flat 10% across the board. The rich put in more, the poor put in less. That seems fair to me.
- National security and the fight against terror gets a little higher on my list, but it still isn’t the main issue. Again, because I don’t see how one candidate will provide all the answers. One says we need to focus more on Afghanistan than Iraq, the other says we need to finish the job in Iraq. One says we need a time table, the other says no time table. Any time table will be changed if things don’t go as hoped, and if there’s anything this conflict has taught us, things probably won’t go as hoped. To me, a changing timetable is pretty much the same as no timetable.
- Adequate healthcare and strong education – how can anyone be against those things? Again, however, they’re not a main consideration for me because it’s pretty impossible to predict which philosophy will tackle these issues best.
- The above points have one thing in common. There are no moral absolutes. If one candidate was saying that we shouldn’t educate and one was arguing that we should, then we’d have an issue. If one was saying, “Let poor people starve,” and the other was advocating compassion for the poor, we’d have an issue. They both agree on the desired result (in most things), but promote different paths to get there.
- Therefore, since all other issues are matters of opinion, moral issues are my number one priority when I go to the polls. Which candidate will limit the killing of unborn life, or perhaps overturn the “right to choose?” There is no doubt where God stands on this issue. Killing an unborn child is wrong. An honest reading of the Bible cannot make it say otherwise. Which candidate will stand up for marriage and the family – the essential building block of society – as including one man and one woman? About this, God is also very clear – both in word and in the complimentary way He chose to form males and females.
That’s my thinking when I go to the polls. Some might call me a one issue voter. The truth is that lots of issues are important to me. But only in moral issues do I see clear right and wrong choices, so that is the way I must vote.
A few final reflections. John McCain was right in his concession speech. How far we have come to have a black man (or 50% black, at least) as our President. That’s a good thing for our country on many levels. I just hope no one voted for him primarily because he is black, and no one withheld their vote from him for the same reason.
I’m skeptical that Barak Obama really is who he has tried to make himself appear during this campaign. Questionable past associations and behaviors make him suspect to me. Only time will tell about that. In the mean time, I will do what the Bible tells me to do – I will pray for our president elect and all who lead our nation, and that God would continue to guide our nation as He guides us all - sometimes through them, sometimes in spite of them.
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