I’m a pessimist at heart. It comes from my theology of humanity – it’s hard to read Romans 3 and trumpet the “human beings are basically good” mantra that the politicians love. We are sinners – born that way, live that way, and we die that way unless the Lord Jesus grabs our hearts. And (not to throw an eschatalogical curveball) I believe the Scriptures that tell us the there will be perilous days as the world continues, that this world is not moving toward the liberal utopia many see, but toward a moral meltdown before the return of Christ. So, I guess I will plead guilty to being a glass half (or even three-quarters) empty kind of guy.
I would argue that my viewpoint is rooted in realism as well as a sound anthropological theology.
Because of that I have not been surprised at much of what has happened in recent days. The coming of same sex marriage is something I’ve predicted – my only surprise is how soon it happened. I would have thought it would have taken a few more years to force that through, but Obama’s flip-flop on the issues seemed to trigger a moral mudslide that couldn’t be contained and it happened much quicker than I’d have though.
But yesterday was election day in parts of the country and there were some interesting elections that gave hopeful signs that the forces of darkness may not be having it all their way in the red, white, and blue. Maybe you know about a few I don’t know about.
1. Houston voted down the infamous equal rights ordinance.
Now, if that policy was really about discrimination, the church should have been marching in support of it. But it was pretty clear that there was much more to this than met the eye. The mayor of Houston, a lesbian, tried to intimidate pastors who opposed her by issuing subpoenas for their sermons. She was smacked down in the press and eventually backed off. The ordinance became a referendum on her and on her policies and it failed 62-38.
2. Ohio voted down medical and recreational marijuana.
My daughter lives there now, do I’m glad! The effort had major funding and support and polls said it was likely to pass, but it failed by a nearly 2 to 1 margin. It’s not going away, according to reports. The Ohio constitution is evidently pretty easy to change and these folks will be back. but this was a surprising result. The pro-pot movement has been pretty successful.
3. “Sanctuary City” Sheriff loses reelection bid in San Francisco.
Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi, famous for his impassioned defense of San Francisco as a sanctuary city for illegals, lost his election bid in a major way. Latest results I saw had him trailing 61 to 32. This is San Fran, folks, not some Bible Belt city. Of course, he had a series of gaffes and mistakes, but the death of Kathryn Steinle at the hands of illegal was a scandal from which he couldn’t seem to recover.
4. Polls show Carson leading Trump.
Sorry, had to put this one in here. I’m not a huge Carson fan (I like him, he’s just not at the top of my favorites list), but Trump’s declining poll numbers are good news for America. May that trend continue until he’s reached George Pataki levels.
5. Elections such as Kentucky showed encouraging signs (for me, at least).
Outsider Matt Bevin defeated KY Attorney General Jack Conway handily, in spite of big money support from Bloomberg and others. Bevins had a lot working against him but managed to defeat Conway by nearly 10 points.
A lot can change in a year, but there may be a backlash against the progressive mudslide that happened a few years ago. Perhaps the other side overplayed their hand a little. Conservative and traditional values are not completely gone in America and treating them as if they are a disease to be eradicated has been a tactical mistake by the left. It’s one election and its a small sample size. But there were a few things for this pessimist to be less than gloomy about yesterday.
On the other hand – Today’s irrefutable sign of the impending apocalypse – Bernie Sanders Underwear is for sale. “Feel the Bern.” No, I’m not linking to it.
Bernie’s response – “That cracks me up.” I do not know if the pun was intended.
Re the Ohio vote, the question is, did they reject legalizing marijuana, or did they just reject turning over production of it to an oligarchy of 10 farms?
Well, yeah, that is an issue. But, on the positive side, they rejected marijuana!
Although I’m quite sure that the numskulls from the NCAA selection committee had been assuming it would be made legal and had been pre-sampling the wares when they chose their “first 4”.
That’s the spin. This whole issue had a fog of controversy and a controversy of fog around it.
Being that you are rooted in realism you must acknowledge that you glass is full. What is not liquid is occupied by gases. Even Bernie knows that. Tongue firmly planted in cheek.
God does not leave a vacuum in your glass.
Just as Bernie never leaves a …….. never mind, some things are best left unsaid.
Sanity is a spiritual condition caused by salvation…the word sanity has an etymology that derives from the exact same Latin words as sanitary which are generally regarded in Latin as meaning “health”.
Expecting some reasoning from unbelievers isn’t far-fetched, but expecting them to display an informed, rational thought process on true spirituality is kinda loopy given what the Bible says. Our focus on morality is backwards. We need to use the Law to confront and to provide a meaningful substrate for conviction to form. Some of that is very much in terms of challenging behaviors in terms of long-term consequences and in terms of repeated behaviors we can’t control.
Those are signals of human beings losing the war for sanity. But solving them in some ways makes more sense–under the sun–as disease rather than either spiritual condition correction (which is largely nonsensical from an under the sun correction) or as naked moral instruction which at best highlights the impossibility of creating our own righteousness if properly presented.
So expecting major behavioral reform short of major revival likely is celebrating an unstable, non-durable “blip” unless we are hearing of an outbreak in either discipleship (let’s imagine that term means a non-miraculous uptake in emergence of follower ship of Jesus Christ) or revival (I.e. a more sudden, seemingly miraculous outbreak rather than gradual uptake of follower ship.)
We should expect either form of emergence of followership to generally follow a commitment to spiritual disciplines by an existing group of believers since we are commanded to pray to the Lord of the Harvest for harvesters and commanded as we go to make disciples.
So may I ask a very simple diagnostic question: is your confidence in the more positive political outcomes based on solid knowledge of an increased uptake or outbreak in followership if Jesus? If not, why are you confident about it?
My wife and I were just discussing yesterday how politics affects us. Having friends in places like Venezuela and Syria, we see how it is that the Gospel thrives, especially in difficult circumstances. The fallenness of man is most evident when things are bad. It’s wise to strive for a better society, but equally wise to prepare for the proclamation of the Gospel when society openly reflects the human heart instead of reflecting God. God will be glorified either way, but it means our strategy must change. So, I’m hopeful, but not in a political milieu that is good or bad.
Here’s how politics affects us: Practically every time “two or three are gathered together”, at least in my circle of Christian acquaintances, they are railing against Obama (socialist, muslim, communist) and /or the “mainstream media” and RINOS (ie: whoever doesn’t absolutely toe the party line) and _________. Even when doing group bible studies, people find a way to criticize Obama in practically every book of the bible. I hear phrases like “the blacks” or “the Mexicans”, etc.
Obama is a terrible president, but the hatred toward him goes well beyond traditional political boundaries, just as I believe a hatred of hispanics is driving a lot of (not all) the illegal immigrant hysteria.
Being a Christian and being a political conservative are not the same thing. Ann Coulter is a wake up call in that regard.
Amen.
The embrace of Trump by some evangelicals is a further wake up call.
Agreed. Coulter’s hatred for anything that doesn’t conform to her idealized version of “america” is sickening. I actually don’t think Trump is as bad as Coulter in that regard. He dislikes everyone who doesn’t have a fawning adoration of himself, but I don’t think it’s racial or based on class. But he recognizes that hatred and isn’t above tapping into it to garner support.
I recently, in a conversation with a an acquaintance who is infatuated with Trump. In an effort to dissuade him I spouted off some of Trump’s hateful and racist rhetoric and he responded with a laugh… “well that aint nothin my daddy hasn’t said all his life and it’s what I think about it, too.”
My response (without running my thoughts through any sort of filter) was: “I’m sorry, I did not know that you and your dad are racists.”
Yeah, the conversation ended pretty soon after that. :-0
Coulter literally makes me sick to my stomach. She and Hannity are right there together atop the “puke factor” scale.