Last Call For The Church

In this election, we, as Christians, are invited to support Mitt Romney, a man who is a member of a religion that by any traditional, classic definition is decidedly non-Christian, and to support a party whose agenda emphasizes the pursuit of money, power, and wealth. We now are told by leaders of the faith - many of them long regarded as bastions of the evangelical Christian faith - that because Romney is a virtuous person, we should ignore Biblical truth - against which the untruth of Mormonism is obvious - and support him over a candidate whose primary domestic goal has been to address the needs of the poor, the needy, and the sick. We are urged to do this, not because of some new found theological insight, but solely for the purpose of removing one president from office and installing another.

Theology, in one sense, is our statement of what Scripture means and how it applies to our lives. For almost two thousand years we've said that it is the standard by which we as Christians know and determine the truth, and that our actions should conform to it rather than twisting it to conform to the things we want to do. If we cast aside that standard - both as it applies to the religion of the candidate, and to the candidate's agenda - merely for political advantage, how can we then claim Scripture as an objective authority for anything? Has not our goal become our standard? Are we not forcing our faith to conform to us, rather than us to our faith?

What This Election is Really About

In assessing this current presidential election, many of you have suggested we as Christians should cast our vote based on abortion, gay marriage, and the economy. Those are serious issues, but something far more serious is at stake.

As to abortion and gay marriage – we lost the abortion battle in the 70s and 80s when we opted to support elected officials who only gave lip service to the issue. And we lost our position on marriage when (contrary to Jesus’ teaching) the Church found a way to accommodate serial divorce and remarriage. Now, divorce rates are the same for the Church as for society at large, reflecting society’s value of marriage rather than that of Scripture. And not even conservative justices or politicians are willing to risk their appointments or elected careers to un-do Roe v. Wade. Time and the human context have moved on. The day for addressing those issues has passed.

Today, America stands at a precarious moment, and the question we face, both as a nation and as the Church, is, "Will you care for the poor, treat the immigrants among you (legal or illegal) as you treat yourselves, and care for the sick?" This is the question Jesus described in Matthew 25:31ff, the answer to which defines what it means to be a member of the Kingdom of God – a Christian. Those who care for the poor, the stranger, the sick, the imprisoned, are in. Those who don’t, are out. How we as Christians answer politically on those issues determines how we define America and ourselves. The stakes couldn't be higher.

We're at a turning point in history - the turning point. One way - defining America in terms of conservative economic policy and consumerism (idolatry), turns us toward Babylon and the end (Revelation 17ff). The other, defining America as a country of compassion for the poor, sick, and foreign (Matthew 25:31ff) allows the moment to pass and human history to continue. That's what this election is about.

I Will Not Vote For Mitt Romney

Since the age of eighteen, I have seen myself as an evangelical Christian voter. I believe in the authority of Scripture, and I consider issues like abortion, national defense, budget deficits, health care, and immigration when deciding which candidate to support in presidential elections. In the upcoming presidential election of 2012, I will not vote for Mitt Romney, and here's why.

First, on the abortion issue, beginning with Ronald Reagan, every Republican presidential nominee has campaigned as the pro-life/anti-abortion candidate. But none of those nominees who actually reached office did a single thing to effectively change the law on the topic. All they did was campaign on the issue, raise money on the issue, and use it to incite voters to vote for them. I’m tired of being manipulated. So, I’m not basing my vote on the abortion issue.

Mitt Romney, a former Wall Street fund manager, is the Corporate America candidate, backed by powerful people with lots of money. Most conservatives think his ties to the business world are a good thing and are convinced that what’s good for major corporations is somehow good for private individuals. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The people and entities bankrolling Romney’s candidacy - major multinational corporations, banking and finance companies, and super wealthy individuals - are bent on making government nothing but the lapdog of multinational business interests. They already control Congress. If Romney wins this election, they will control the White House and all but the smallest sliver of the Supreme Court. If Romney wins, profit and profit alone will rule. Privatization will be the watchword but it will be code for "looting the public property." Everything - health care, the poor, illegal immigration, funding for Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and the use of federal lands - will be analyzed on a cost-benefit ratio.

Social Security will be privatized in a plan marketed as an attempt to give individuals greater control over their financial future and the opportunity to participate in investment vehicles that offer attractive returns. In reality, it will be nothing more than a government-enforced income stream directed toward Wall Street firms operated by the same people who caused the financial meltdown of 2008 - all in the name of profit. They will squander that income stream on complex transactional schemes that have no underlying value - much like the ones that fueled the 2008 meltdown - and when the money evaporates and you’re left with nothing, the Republican-led government will say to you what they say to the poor now, “Too bad. You made wrong choices. You bear the consequences.” Even though the “wrong choices” were decisions made by money managers in New York over which you had very little control.

The prison system will be outsourced also, and turned over to for-profit corporations, many of which are already operating prisons in several states. In order to subsidize the cost and bolster profit, inmates will be charged exorbitant fees - the imposition of which will carry the force of law and which they will have no means of paying. Release, even after serving the statutory criminal sentence, will be conditioned upon payment of those fees. Being unable to pay, they will be forced to work for wages, at or below the minimum standard, and will become a source of permanent, government-enforced, slave labor.

Illegal immigrants will be rounded up in a Holocaust-style military operation, much of it outsourced to private security firms who perfected their craft in Iraq and Afghanistan and who already have a ready cadre of trained personnel willing and able to do the job. Like the outsourced inmates in prison, illegal immigrants will be charged excessive fees to cover the cost of finding and detaining them. Those who can pay will be deported or allowed to immigrate to another country. Those who can’t will be shunted into the outsourced prison system where they will become part of the slave labor pool. This is how the Nazis treated the Jews before World War II and we’re well on our way to doing the same thing.

The court system will be radically transformed in the name of “tort reform” and reduced to little more than a corporate-controlled arbitration system, ostensibly to contain the cost of litigation but the real motive will be the limitation of risk and a reprieve from accountability for business, all to maximize profits. The real loser will be the American individual, who will lose the last opportunity for individual justice.

Government programs to assist the poor will be drastically curtailed, and in most cases eliminated, in the name of budget reform. All who are physically able to work will be told to get a job or starve.

Health care rationing, which conservatives fear will be imposed by the liberal left, will actually come from the conservative right as part of the never-ending lust for lower taxes and greater profits. Already, Romney is proposing to transfer Medicaid funding to the states, a move that will lead to the elimination of the program (states have no money to fund their own programs, much less a program the size of Medicaid).

The agenda is already in place. The will to do it is creeping up on us. Conservative politicians have energized their right wing base with rhetoric vilifying the poor and illegal immigrants. Evangelical churches - churches that actually believe the Gospel and understand that Jesus really meant what He said - have bought into the conservative political viewpoint, equating conservative politics and national loyalty with the Gospel. This election is the watershed moment for our nation. If Romney wins, the American story will become one of the saddest stories in history - the greatest democracy in the history of the world deceived into voting itself out of existence, all in the name of profit.

And that’s why I will never vote for Mitt Romney, and neither should you.

STAGES OF VOTING IN THE ELECTORAL PROCESS

Even though the next presidential election is still more than a year away, political pundits are busy trying to figure out who the current Republican frontrunner might be and which of the contenders might have a realistic hope of obtaining the Party’s nomination and a realistic possibility of unseating President Obama. Having observed elections both up close and from the ease of my sofa, I have found that voting for candidates occurs in lengthy selection process that includes at least five stages. The outcome of each round in that process narrows the field of candidates and provides clues to the identity of the potential winner.

The first votes in an election are cast by political operatives. Working in the backrooms and back roads of America, they scour the country for candidates who will stand for election to offices at every level – city, county, state, national. Some of these operatives are party loyalists who see it as their duty to ferret out candidates who agree with their positions. Far more are paid employees of large corporations or influential political action committees. These operatives make their living locating candidates who agree with their employers’ political positions and facilitating their rise to office. Once they locate the right candidate, they offer inducements to entice the candidate to seek elected office. Those inducements include campaign contributions, technical assistance, and election expertise. The selection process by which these operatives find their candidates comprises the first round of voting. Candidates who are selected in this manner have a far better chance of success than those who choose to run for office simply on their own decision.

After professional political operatives vote, the potential candidates vote. They vote in the affirmative for themselves by agreeing to seek office. They signify that decision by filing the necessary documents to form a campaign committee and qualify with their party. That is the second round of voting.

At the third stage, major donors cast their votes. This is the point at which wealthy individuals, corporations, political action committees and the like make their choices from the field of candidates already winnowed by the previous stages of the process. In almost all elections, candidates who raise the most money – and raise it early – win the election. They get that money from a select group of major donors. You can see some of the major donors for President Obama and John McCain from the 2008 election by clicking on the links.

Then, in the fourth stage, those citizens who are registered voters enter the process. In elections for state and national offices they make their initial selections from among a slate of candidates in a party primary election.  That first round of voting narrows the field of candidates further, reducing the field to just one candidate per party for each office.

Finally, after these four rounds of selections are made, the electors go to the polls in the general election and cast a concluding vote. In many ways, Election Day isn’t a choice among candidates, pure and simple, but a ratification of decisions made by others long before the first campaign speech was delivered.

So, if you want to know which candidates have the best chance of success, just follow the professional political operatives and the money.

HAS THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT LOST ITS MIND?

With candidates lining up for a chance to unseat President Obama, Republican rhetoric has begun to take shape. One of the key elements in that rhetoric is a distinct dislike for “government programs.” Mitt Romney, among others, has shown a fondness for stressing the supposed error of those who think government can do things better than private business. This is part of the standard Republican campaign message echoing a strong belief in capitalism as the solution to every problem and a belief that business, left to its own designs, will eventually rectify every ill. This message is then wrapped in the cloth of the Founding Fathers and presented as the great American gospel. It is a message echoed by conservative Christian organizations such as Eagle Forum and the Christian Coalition.

It is true that those who crafted the Declaration of Independence held government in disdain and were skeptical of government’s ability to do much besides wage war. But the men who drafted the Constitution were equally skeptical, not of the ills of government but of the ills of mankind. They knew that individuals and private business COULD solve any ill, but they were skeptical that they WOULD unless compelled. The government created in our Constitution emanates from their point of view. Men may consider lofty ideals for the common good, but they are prone to act from selfish motives.

Those who oppose government programs and regulations need only look to the reasons behind those programs to understand why they were created and why they must exist. Social Security was enacted because the nation’s elderly, most of who were from the working class, were forced to live an impoverished, miserable life after their bodies were spent from physical labor. Employers, who reaped great profits from the labor of their employees, had done nothing to address the situation. Medicare was enacted for much the same reason. Elderly, who faced greater medical challenges, found they were unable to acquire health insurance and unable to afford medical attention. Private insurers could have offered insurance to them, physicians could have solved the problem on their own, but they didn’t (or wouldn’t) because there was not enough profit in the age group. The EPA was created because industries and developers chose profit over the environment. Automobiles were regulated because manufacturers chose profit over safety. And the list goes on.

This same scenario was repeated in the area of civil rights. Southern states, left to their own devices, refused to offer equal protection to persons of color. Had they done so on their own, there would have been no Civil Rights era. But they did not. And so, the federal government stepped in. Desegregation, school busing, affirmative action and the like were all instituted because people left to themselves chose to do the wrong thing.

In more recent years, we saw an unregulated mortgage industry loan its way to the bottom of the housing market. Securities firms then purchased those mortgages, packaged them as investment securities and sold them to investment banks and mutual funds. Banks and funds then securitized the risk of default in the underlying mortgages and sold that risk to each other as credit default swaps. All of that happened outside the veil of government regulation and proved once again that offered a choice between profit and common sense, private business will choose profit every time.

The problems we face aren’t the work of a left-wing conspiracy out to regulate us into submission. The problem we face is the ancient problem humanity has always faced. Mankind has a profound propensity for choosing self-interest over common interest. Conservative Christians – that part of Christendom that actually believes in the authority of Scripture – ought to know this better than any. Classic Reformed theology is grounded on the notion that human nature is totally and absolutely corrupt. Yet, in the current political cycle, conservative Christians lead the parade chanting the Republican-Tea Party privatization-deregulation mantra. They, who ought to be wary of trusting their lives to any mere mortal, want to hand themselves over to the care and whim of Wall Street executives, captains of industry, and titans of retail sales – the very people who have proven time and time again to be incapable of acting responsibly and sorely in need of a watchful eye.

Barack Obama and the Ancient Prophets

When the ancient Hebrew prophet Daniel was a young man, Nebuchadnezzar led the Babylonian army into the Levant and conquered Israel. After ravaging the countryside, the Babylonians gathered up the brightest and best of Israel's young men and took them back to Babylon. No doubt, Daniel would have rather stayed in Jerusalem. He would have rather had a Jewish king over him, and he would have preferred to have known Nebuchadnezzar only from a distance. But God had other things in mind.

In Babylon, rather than being forced into slavery, Daniel was placed under the care of Ashpenaz, Nebuchadnezzar's chief court official - his chief of staff. Daniel was fed the best food, offered the best living quarters, and afforded the best instruction available in the Kingdom of Babylon. After a while, Nebuchadnezzar experienced a series of troubling dreams and when he sought an interpretation from his court magicians he found them unable to answer his questions. As events unfolded, Daniel was able to interpret the dreams. In interpreting one of those dreams, Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar, ". . . the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes." (Dan. 4:25)

That was a message for the king - he served at the pleasure of Another - and it was also a message for Daniel. God rules the kingdoms of man and He orders them for His own purposes.

Rather than fight against God's purposes, Daniel did his best to discern what God was doing and then joined God in that work. As a result, Daniel lived a long and successful life. He never returned to Jerusalem, but through him, God turned the heart of Nebuchadnezzar to Himself, which led to the Hebrews' eventual return to the Levant. And much later, a remnant of those who learned about God from Daniel came from Babylon to Jerusalem as the Maggi when Jesus was born.

Daniel didn't spend his days wandering the streets of Babylon searching for every opportunity to discredit the king. He didn't spend his time plotting to replace Nebuchadnezzar, and he didn't slink off to the corner and sulk. Instead, he yielded to God's purposes in placing him under the authority of Nebuchadnezzar, discerned every opportunity to join God in furthering those purposes, and submitted to God's choice of leadership.

Many of you spent the 2008 election cycle praying that someone other than Barack Obama would be elected president. Some of you worked diligently in an attempt to see that he did not win the office. But in the end, he won. If you believe God is at work in the world, if you believe that He still rules the kingdoms of man and sets over them whom He wills, then it is time to submit to His purposes, discern what God is working to accomplish through President Obama, and join Him in His work.