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You fear as a Christian? THAT is the extremely sad part. A Christian who doesn't think the bible will answer or will hinder a Christian's perspective.
and has non-believers to join in. Oh what has happened to the Church?
Reformed please refrain from putting words in my mouth.
You've taken up approximatley 26% of this thread so far with your views which really amount to one view: Abortion. Its astonishing to me that it takes 26% of the thread for you to feel that you've gotten your point across. Now you feel the need to come after me when I present a simple solution to what I see is a thread going in the wrong direction.
I have two words for you that I'm not allowed to say on this forum. As such I'll just say "peace out" in hopes that you'll find it within yourself to keep the thread on topic instead of attacking others. Thanks and have a great effing day.
Before we get into a bible quote off and who is a better Christian (which is where I fear this thread is headed).. maybe a better route is to list the issues in rank order that are your number one priority.
I listed some in the OP. List any you want.. You have Veterans Affairs, Entitlements overall, Healthcare, Economy, Abortion and many others.
Whats most important to you from a Christian perspective when you pull the lever.
Non Christians feel free to post what you think is the most important to Christians (just please do it in a nice way and Christians if you see something that ticks you off just try to respond in a nice way).
What drives the pull of the lever? What are you giving up to vote for a Candidate? Surely you don't agree with everything the Candidate stands for.
From a strictly Christian position I don't think I can do that. Christ was more about people than politics and that is how I try to live. Not to say that I don't have political views, but they aren't all based in my Christianity. There is a natural separation of church and state in my mind (not as the Supreme Court interpretation). Christ did not come to make laws and establish government programs. He didn't come to determine government responsibility but to reveal and encourage personal responsibility regarding salvation and even social issues.
One example, the Bible to teaches that it is the place of Christians/The Church to care for the poor and the widows (which in some cases I would argue translates to single parents in our culture). I take that as my personal responsibility but I do not agree that the government has the authority (as determined by our Constitution) to collect taxes and redistribute wealth towards that same cause.
So, as a political issue 'helping the poor' is ranked rather low, as a personal issue it is high on the list.
My list of concerns as a Christian and those as a political citizen are not the same, many of them are not even the same list. Preaching the gospel is not a political issue for me, but it is a personal issue based in my Christian beliefs. Ending the Iraq war in victory is a political issue, but not a personal one based in my Christian beliefs.
That's tough.....I don't know if I can rank them....
When I start thinking about my vote, I try and look at the big picture....there's a lot at play in my decision making process.
Can I trust the candidate?
Do I know them?
What's their record?
What's their history?
I mean, in the end, the president steers a lot of legislation but he passes very, very little on his own. So the character of this 'Captain' is of utmost importance to me. Certainly moral issues do come into play in my decision making process (abortion, marriage, ethics, faith), but they don't necessarily mandate my vote. For instance, both McCain and Obama claim to be Christian, so that's a wash. Now, which one 'acts' Christian, because I don't know for sure who is and isn't a Christian.
Certainly the economy is a big, big issue this year. I'm in the Real Estate industry and we're taking this thing squarely on the chin. Frankly, it's a matter of 'which candidate scares me less' on ALL the issues....and, hands down, it's McCain. There was some little thing ABC had on their website that you read a quote from each candidate and answered the question and at the end it told you who you lined up with. I didn't line up with McCain on every issue but, as I expected, I did end up more for McCain than Obama.
I'll see if I can find and post it. It was interesting and I wondered if I would come out like I expected.
Alpha, this is pretty much the same as I feel about the candidates.
As for me and my household...we will vote for the lesser of the evils.
Hopefully we will trust the Lord to do what He sees best for our country, even if that means giving us an evil president!
Many many prayers are need from faithful Christians, both before and after the election.
I'm old enough to have lived through 14 Presidential Elections, paying some kind of attention to 13 of them. I can say for sure that they promise things they don't or can't deliver. For a handful of elections now all the candidates said they'd fix social security. Have they? How can they speak as if they were somehow the voice of the Legislating bodies? They're supposed to be elected to the Executive branch.
I read this entire thread and find so much it of displays ignorance of history of the two candidates behavior, associations and how they've voted, not just what they say at the moment. How can such truth be irrelevant to how you vote? Why can't you remember the very history you've lived through. Try this for a refresher on just one point: http://www.bercasio.com/movies/dems-wmd-before-iraq.wmv (broken link)
Worse, some on this thread don't seem to read the Bible very much. One example is the ignorant statement, "You can't legislate morality." A Christian who believes that is a contradiction in terms. Don't you think about what people preach to you? Were you ever a child, raised by someone; or, did you yourself raise children? That is dependent on mandating right and wrong for them. There is real right and wrong. Without corresponding laws what exists is only a self-destructive crowd of hedonistic and rapacious, self-obsessed overgrown brats. If that's what you want in charge just continue defining Christianity as insipid niceness. What do you imagine the presently existing laws are about?
I suppose this idea that we can't force our morality on others (which I can assure you is precisely what so much of politics actually does) is the out come of believing only an uninfluenced choice is a morally meritorious choice. So, since Jesus can do no sin, why do you erroneously praise Him as worthy of praise? On the other hand, consider someone who grows up a cruel bully and has repeatedly been in trouble, not over issues, but for hurting those who can't fight back. As a young adult he kills someone in a fit of rage. He's obviously not free to choose the right way, being an habitual criminal. Would you condemn our system of jurisprudence that would lock him up and throw away the key; whereas, someone consistently law-abiding who uncharacteristically killed someone in a fight, circumstances similar to our bully, might be given a reduced charge, say manslaughter, due to his unsullied record, when he was the one who might've been freer to choose a better way?
What about the inescapable judgment of God? Do you imagine it was the will of the Russian people to be slain by the millions by their own government. Do you think they chose to die as cold, starving and diseased forced laborers on dangerous state projects? At what time was an alternative course for their nation available to German Christians in the era Hitler rose to power? The nation's beliefs were in sympathy with him. Who countered the radical gay propaganda accepted as truth by so many on our college campuses that born again Christians are bigoted hate mongers? Because Christians turned away, now many states have thought crime legislation making it criminal to even publically state the case for Biblical morality. So much of American Christianity is conducive to a totalitarian regime, something we are already entering into. Have you ever considered your politically uninvolved retreat to religious entertainment events give away the nation to unscrupulous power hungry thieves? You believe it's only going to get worse and worse and then you'll disappear, although not only is neither idea stated anywhere in the Bible, the opposites clearly are. Do you ever wonder why your concerns are never addressed by politicians while you don't participate? Do you wonder why your presence makes no difference to the outcome of the Church service, and that this "participation prohibited" religious cage translates into accepting the same in the civil realm? Rather than meet as the body of Christ, every member participating under the Headship of Christ present in their midst you meet as an audience for the performances of titled professional elites. Translate that into the political sphere and what have you got?
Last edited by JamesMRohde; 10-09-2008 at 02:18 PM..
Obama: [An abortion protester at a campaign event] handed me a pamphlet. "Mr. Obama, I know you're a Christian, with a family of your own. So how can you support murdering babies?"
I told him I understood his position but had to disagree with it. I explained my belief that few women made the decision to terminate a pregnancy casually; that any pregnant woman felt the full force of the moral issues involved when making that decision; that I feared a ban on abortion would force women to seek unsafe abortions, as they had once done in this country. I suggested that perhaps we could agree on ways to reduce the number of women who felt the need to have abortions in the first place.
"I will pray for you," the protester said. "I pray that you have a change of heart." Neither my mind nor my heart changed that day, nor did they in the days to come. But that night, before I went to bed, I said a prayer of my own-that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that had been extended to me.
I ask myself. I prayed to God that he found Jesus before he died, I never asked, if he was fed or had clothes on his back
What, might I ask, did that accomplish?
Last edited by Alpha8207; 10-09-2008 at 04:09 PM..
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