A news report yesterday on Channel 4 stated that:
As of early Friday morning, the Colorado Secretary of State's Office reported that nearly 1.3 million registered voters had cast ballots already, either in person or by mail-in. That's 40 percent turnout.
At this point, I am extremely tired of the advertisements, each either promising their solution will put America into prosperity again or that the other candidates solution will make things worse.
One race that is particularly vitriolic is the Musgrave/Markey congressional race. Each has accused the other of illegalities, each denies the allegations of the other. Musgrave has claimed to be an "evagelical Christian" while Markey was raised Catholic. From the tenor of this race, I might conclude that they have either abandoned their faith or that they follow a very different Bible than mine.
Then there are the calls from the pro-life groups urging me to vote a particular way. One was a recording from a priest, the other I remember was from a group called "Vote the Bible". I looked up their website and was not surprised at what I found. They seem to believe that there are only two Biblical issues this election (as in ever election for the last 20 years or so). Abortion and same-sex marriage. They state:
Vote the Bible seeks to provide information to those who wish to be informed about the official and published positions of those who would see public office. These positions are obtained from each candidate for election and each party's official published platforms. We think that Christian voters want to cast their vote in conformity with the Word of God, so we have included scriptures that are applicable to public issues. Vote the Bible does not endorse any political party or individual candidate. We do encourage you to cast your vote in this most important election for the candidate of your choice.I find this to be a rather myopic view of the Bible. Not that these two issues are not important to God. It is that there are a lot of other issues which relate to how his followers should live. I think there is a list around somewhere with about 10 items on it that seemed pretty important at one point... It went something like:
- 'You shall have no other gods before Me.'
- 'You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.'
- 'You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.'
- 'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.'
- 'Honor your father and your mother.'
- 'You shall not murder.'
- 'You shall not commit adultery.'
- 'You shall not steal.'
- 'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.'
- 'You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.'
Certainly, the issues that the "Vote the Bible" people care about show up on number 6 and 7 (sort of, that is a whole different debate). On the other hand, if we are to "vote the Bible", dare we think about how many of the other ones have been violated by our politicians? I certainly believe that there are lies (I was going to say untruths but isn't that being a politician as well?) being told by every candidate out there. They alone can not be the solution and they will not always represent me well.
Throughout the law as well as the rest of the Bible, God is also concerned about issues of hunger, poverty and justice for those that don't have that option.
If we are going to "Vote the Bible", lets vote ALL the Bible. Otherwise, let's quit fooling ourselves and only partially bringing God into politics and vote for the choice we feel is best. Lets also get politics out of the Church and quit letting the politicians pander to and control the Church and have the Church get to the task we were given... building the Kingdom of God rather than the empires of man.
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