Have We Lost Our Way? A Hard Look at Evangelical Christian Voting

The 2008 Presidential election is, without doubt, the most significant election in my lifetime. And, most likely, in yours too. Never before has there been a situation in which neither of our two parties has had a clearly defined nominee. There has always either been an incumbent President or a Vice Presidential candidate who was seeking the Presidency from one party or another. You would have to be in your 70s now to have voted in the last election like this one.Consequently, this year we have the opportunity to have more of an impact than perhaps ever before with our votes - and particularly right now, in January and February. It is during this time that votes cast will speak the loudest regarding what is important to us - the people of, by, and for whom governing in this great land is done.

I want to challenge those who call themselves Christians in this time to apply some critical thinking before running out to cast a vote for the candidate who seems most obviously the “right” one.

The Machinery of the “Religious Right”

Growing up in Evangelical circles, I know all too well the machinery that works to influence our vote. It doesn’t require us to think. It encourages us not to debate the issues. It simply hands out voter guides that focus on a handful of issues that are our major “hot buttons,” not the least of which is abortion.

In times past, we have voted for and put into office en masse the candidate who says the right Evangelical things… the one who knows the right turn of phrase… the one who speaks “our language.” And it’s a noble thing that we want a candidate who seems to be Godly and who has a knowledge of the Scriptures and appears to be someone who prays.

But before you go racing off to the Primaries, let me urge you to give some consideration to just a few of what I believe you will see are the most significant factors in this year’s elections.

For the first time ever, we have multiple candidates who take a firm Pro-Life stance. This immediately levels the playing field somewhat - particularly for those who vote based upon a single issue. While I believe that is significantly misguided (I’ll explain why in a moment), it is always done with noble and genuine intentions.

The Greatest Nation on Earth… What Once Was

This nation became the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave for a very short list of significant reasons. Our Founding Fathers understood that freedom was the most valuable possession that any human being was created with by God. They understood first-hand what the tyranny of government looked like when power was concentrated in the hands of too few individuals unchecked. They sacrificed their very lives (in many cases) fighting to create a nation whose land would be governed in a manner that would guarantee the freedoms of the individual. Those who escaped with their lives sacrificed much of their personal wealth in service to the generations to come as they invested years of their lives in reading, discussion, critical thinking, and debate in order to draft a set of documents that would guide the formation of this great nation.

Of the rights that they most ardently and passionately defended, the right to free speech, to choose one’s religion, to keep and bear arms, to confront one’s accuser, to not have one’s property seized nor to be imprisoned without proper and speedy trial before a judge and jury, and others were most significant. The Founders understood the significance of these rights because they had lived in societies wherein those rights had been trampled. They knew the pain of injustice.

As a person born squarely within the ranks of Generation X, I am not personally familiar with the society that our Founders created. In my lifetime, the freedoms enjoyed by previous generations have been whittled down to mere shadows of their former selves. Government has inserted itself into every facet of life, to the point that as a parent I am forced to think hard about the manner in which I train, discipline and educate my own child. I’m not free in my own home, nor on my own property, nor in my own car. The restrictions on government that were written into every jot and tittle of the Constitution have been obliterated by runaway courts and by lawmakers intoxicated by their own power. Executive orders from the highest office in the land make me subject to invasions of privacy and even search and seizure without cause and without due process. Even free speech is no longer what it used to be. Yes, I’m still able to write and publish thoughts like these, but I question how long even that will be true.

But let me point out just one of many significant examples of the erosion in our freedom of speech: If you are a pastor or religious leader, how difficult is your decision when you contemplate how “political” you can be from the pulpit? The silence of religious leaders has been purchased for the right to issue a receipt for donations. It’s insidious and amazing how far-reaching the implications of financial influence are able to reach.

Deluded Evangelicals

The delusion that the so-called Christian right has held is that if we were to elect enough Pro-Life candidates, suddenly and magically the abortion issue would be solved. Further, we’ve held onto a dream that somehow gay marriage wouldn’t take place or that we could influence the contents of the textbooks and the educational processes in this country.

What we have not understood is that we are hoping to solve cultural and societal problems by using the ridiculous and evil usurpation of power that stole our freedoms and led to the problems in the first place. Electing people who share our moral beliefs will not be enough.

“Let me issue and control a nation’s money, and I care not who writes its laws.”

- Mayer Amschel Rothschild, Patriarch of the Famous Banking Family

The simple fact is that we must undo the ill-gotten influence that has been achieved in our land by those few individuals who truly are pulling the levers in our land. Just this week, we watched the enormous influence - in this case over financial markets - exercised by just a few unelected individuals.

A Nation Enslaved

The Scripture teaches that, “The borrower is servant to the lender.” (Proverbs 22:7) In our land, nothing could be more clearly demonstrated than this. Consumer and national debt causes us to bow our knee to the lenders and, no matter Godly we may wish to be… no matter how moral the men and women are that we elect to office… when our nation is enslaved, we will obey those who have the leverage to command.

We must elect those who have the capacity to govern effectively and, more importantly, to return this nation to the principles in our Constitution and early documents that created the most prosperous and free society in the history of the Earth.

For a candidate to say that he or she is for “small government” isn’t enough. We must re-evaluate the positions held by those who wish to use and even expand the rights and powers of the Federal government. There was a time in my Grandparents’ younger days in which no one even thought about the federal government in their day-to-day lives. Now, the influence of federal agencies - from the Internal Revenue Service (arguably not a federal agency) to the Department of Homeland Security is felt every single day.

This didn’t occur on my generation’s watch. But it did happen on the Church’s watch.

Today, many of my generation actually think it’s the role of Federal Government to make sure that all of us have health care. We don’t know that health care used to be a free market system unhindered by 3^rd-party payers who make decisions and control costs, making life miserable even for (perhaps especially for) the physicians and healthcare providers. We don’t know a day in which the Federal Government hadn’t meddled in the system with attempts to socialize it.

My generation actually thinks it is the role of the Federal Government to control the contents of the textbooks used in the public school down the street. (What many of us don’t know is that the Board of Education in the far away State of California actually wields more influence over this - because of market forces that the Church frequently ignores.)

My generation believes that the Federal Government should control the economy. We actually believe that currency has always consisted of worthless paper and coins. We don’t know that today’s dollar is worth 4 cents of what it was worth in 1913 when the Federal Reserve gained control of the currency and began systematically devaluing the wealth - and yes, even the labor - of the hardworking “free” American people.

My generation thinks it is Constitutional to penalize productivity - that the Federal Government has always had its hand in our pockets even before the paycheck gets signed. We don’t know anything different.

These examples could go on and on. My challenge to you is to take a hard look at the Constitutional positions of the candidates - not just evaluate how well they quote Scripture or pander to the hot buttons of the so-called “right wing.”

A better answer would be a return to the foundational principles of our Constitution.

And… in this critical year, it can be done.

David G. Johnson is a Contributing Editor at ChristianBusinessDaily.com

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