It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.Josef Stalin
Dear Pastor,
The lying of past presidential candidates in past elections does not relieve us of our responsibility to do our best to see to it that our country remains in or regains the best environment in which the progress of the Gospel and its implications for all life can flourish. Right now, we are slipping badly. We MUST do what we can. And granted, every candidate has feet of clay; but we as Christians have a duty to assess each candidate; make a judgment about their character, their perspectives, their strategies, and their electability, and then work for their election. I know Bret that you oppose the R2K position but doesn’t a defeatist attitude communicated by your refusal to vote for any major party candidate put you in the same camp?
Dear Dusty,Allow me to answer, as respectfully as I can to someone I deeply respect,
1.) It is not defeatist to not look for victory where only defeat is guaranteed. The two party system has been broken for a very very long time. We see this in spades in DC today. We are presented with only three choices. We can either vote soft Stalinist Democrat. We can vote for Trotskyite neo-cons, or we can vote for what smells like Fascism. I do not have a dog in this fight. My dog died a long time ago.
2.) Therefore it is in my interest to do all that I can to see that each party weakens the other. IF it is the case that voting matters (a very dubious belief) then it is in my interest to create gridlock and chaos with my vote.
3.) Since the Republican party is so corrupt and is merely a Trotskyite expression of leftism then a case could be made that it is in the Christian’s interest to vote in such a way that the Federal Government is always divided with the House and Senate being Republican and the President being Democrat. The reason this is so is that when there is a neo-con Trotskyite Republican President the little remaining conservative strength in the party tends to go to sleep thinking that “there guy is watching the store.” HOWEVER, when there is a Democratic President the Republican party rank and file activists remain watchful and is more inclined to be in an activist mode of resistance.
Of course, even that is premised on the idea that the International Money interests aren’t really doing all the string pulling. Personally, I’m not convinced that they are not.
4.) Actually, I think voting for the best possible Republican candidate for President is where the defeatist attitude lies. In my lifetime Reagan is the model but even with Reagan what we got, when viewing from a macro sense is a guy who,
a.) Gave us two SCOTUS judges who supported abortion
b.) Grew the size of Government significantly
c.) Pursued the agenda that eventually resulted in the NWO GATT and NAFTA
d.) Left us the Bush family legacy that we still suffer with
e.) Gave us the last amnesty bill that has brought us to where we are now
f.) Gave the keys of power to the neo-cons
And this is our hero Republican President?
Can you see why I’ve come to the conclusion that voting Republican is defeatist?
5.) In my estimation victory is won by waking people up to all the above and hoping they begin to realize that they are being played. Victory is had in just one way when it comes to politics and that is by inflicting pain. Pain for a politician means that they do not get your vote. Republicans and neo-cons (but I repeat myself) have to be made to realize that they just cannot assume on getting the Evangelical vote. The only way to make them realize that is by quitting to vote for them. Politicians only understand pain.
6.) Victory, if victory is to be had, has to start at the local level. Mordor on the Potomac is lost until politics changes at the grass roots level. Once the grass roots begins to awaken then we can turn our attention to Mordor on the Potomac again.
I realize I’m in the minority among conservative Christians on this issue. I have thought this through though and I’ve spent a good deal of time studying the matter for whatever it is worth. Please understand that though it might seem that I am a purist I can assure you that I am NOT a purist. I would gladly vote for someone with feet of clay. The problem though is I’m not looking at people with feet of clay when I look at the current Republican field. I’m looking at people who are clay up to their eyeballs.
I must be honest enough to realize that all the action when it comes to National politics is from the left. There is no longer a right, nor is there any longer any semblance of the right strong enough to crack the current leftist Montagnard vs. Girondins French Revolution paradigm. O sure … there are a few cranks here or there remaining of the old right but the right as a movement is as dead as Marley’s door-nail.
However, hope remains as long as the old cranks remain as true as Lewis’ Old Narnians. This is so because God is able to make a way for them in some how and some way. This is where my hope for victory lies.
Author: jetbrane
I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling.
I am postmillennial in my eschatology.
Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity
Reformed in my Soteriology
Presuppositional in my apologetics
Familialist in my family theology
Agrarian in my regional community social order belief
Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief
Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic
Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern
Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview
One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics
Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place
Some of my favorite authors,
Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc.
My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture.
Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him.
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