Recently, I have noticed my Christian friends are very upset and nervous about this upcoming election. If it is true that the signs point to the second coming, (although I am not confident that scripture supportis this) then we need to get our focus off of the election and start spreading the Good News of Jesus. But if this is another corrective political response to the last 8 years, then Christians should wonder what went wrong. Briefly, what went wrong for Christians, is that we failed to recognized that we are a strong minority in America. And if we want to influence politics and culture we cannot align ourselves with such highly offensive people as Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. Christians voted for President Bush, but it appears to me he aligned himself with some fellars who are not inclined to seeking God's will. Instead, Karl Rove and Dick Cheney seem to have used the blessings of Christian followers to their own poltical goals. And now our minority culture is viewed in historical bad light. Jesus wanted us to live out our lives in such a manner that the fruits of the spirit exhibited in us would attract more to him. Under Karl Rove's leadership and influence, we have failed to maintain this way of life.
Consequently, the Christian world view grew gradually offensive to the larger population of people. Our world view is seen as hypocritical, as our President misled the world into a war with Iraq. What should we do from now on? We should lead more people to Christ instead of trying to recruit people to be conservatives or republicans. We should be objectively critical in the pure judicial and journalistic sense towards any politician who wants to court the Christian vote. We should be prayerful in disclosing motives of our preachers to gain political power, instead of spreading the gospel. Some preachers in their desire to maximize their influence are tempted by the glitter of politics as an appropriate forum. We should expect our preachers to biblically scrutinize candidates in a seriously bipartisan manner. And we should expect our preachers to be even handed in their scrutiny. Surely, Republicans have not been so innocent of biblical scrutiny during the last 8 years. We should fight the cultural war for modesty and purety in our entertainment, education, language, music, by persistently pushing back against any offensive material. We should remain objectively and sincerely prayerful that all of our leaders will be favorably disposed to those of us trying to live out our Christian lives in America. At the end of the day we must rely on the message of Christ to change the world not our politicians. We can rest assured that there will be more opportunities to share what Christ accomplished on the Cross. And if God uses an election to inspire us to do that, then we are better for it.
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