Christians and One-Issue Voting
A song in the musical Wicked starts out, “The problem with schools is, they always try to teach the wrong lesson. Believe me, I’ve been kicked out of enough of them to know.”
I must admit, that showing that I know that much about a musical may immediately mark me as a troubled individual, but I’m inclined to think otherwise. Anyway, about the quote, and, you know, how it ties in with the title.
In the same way that the character singing that song is showing arrogance and failure all in two sentences is, I think, the way that many Christians act in politics.
I’ve been witnesses to conversations about how wrong it is to vote for Barack Obama because he’s for abortion. Or, he’s for gay marriage. And, that you just can’t be a Christian and vote for him because of those two things, or at least one of them.
Really? One issue?
I read a comment from someone on the internet that was saying that one-issue voting was the way to go, and that more Christians needed to do the same thing. Saying that issues such as the economy, health care, etc. were all self-serving issues, and that the only one’s we should be voting on are the ones dealing with morality.
WHAT? I must not have read my own paraphrase correctly because that’s pretty f-ed up. I’m sorry for my abbreviation there, but it really is.
On this one, I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t losing my mind, so I went to a friend of mine. He agree with me saying, “It’s not the government’s job to legislate morality, it’s the church’s.”
What’s that? The church do something on their own? That’d be like… uh… Jesus?
My friend went on to say that Jesus didn’t come to curb people’s sinning by making stuff illegal, but he came to change their hearts and then they don’t want to sin.
I know it’s a crazy concept, but maybe, you know, like 200+ years ago when that thing called the… uh, Constitution was being drawn up, the Christian men creating it had a bit of foresight when they wrote about there being a separation of church and state and a freedom of religion and freedom of speech. Wait, freedom?
Yeah, freedom. I know we don’t have much of it these days with good ol‘ President Bush keeping an eye out for terrorists through every peephole he can look through. Do you realize how many times President Bush has done something because he said that “god” told him to? That he receives messages from the “lord” to attack places?
Now, I’ve read a bit of the Bible, and I’m no scholar, but I know there are places in the Bible where God did, in fact, order people to go attack another nation… but, I’m going to have to go with Family Guy on this one. When Jesus met President Bush, he had this to say: “I’ve heard what you were saying, and you know nothing of my work.”
Since when has this country ever wanted the government to control morality? And, I know a lot of you are probably thinking, “Abortion’s not a morality issue, it’s murder.” Frankly, I’m not so sure anymore. I have family that works with babies in an emergency care facility and has told horror stories of abortions gone wrong. But, there’s also stories of teen mothers and their NEW boyfriend making out in the same room where her baby, not his, is being pulled off the breathing machine.
It’s horrible either way. Would that girl have been a good mother? Will that child be better off? When does “life” actually start?
I’m not saying that abortion’s okay, in fact, I’m not sure if I agree with it. But, the fact is that people are going to get abortions no matter what. So, we can either have control of the process and make it safe, or people find alternative ways to do it.
But back to my main point. If you’re a Christian, why is abortion your big thing? Why is gay marriage your big thing? Are you planning on getting an abortion? Is your teenage, unwed daughter planning an abortion? Is your son gay, and you don’t want him to marry his boyfriend? Are you just prejudice?
Because if it’s really because it’s murder, don’t do it. If it’s really because of the sanctity of marriage, don’t be gay.
Why not focus your efforts on things like, um, the fact that people are going hungry everyday, and not just in Ethiopia, but in America because we don’t want to be socialists. People are bleeding to death in emergency rooms because we don’t want to be socialists.
Here again, I’m going to call on my Bible knowledge, but Jesus’ methods weren’t really in the capitalist methods handbook. In fact, I’m pretty sure he looked down on greed, excessive wealth, and not helping those in need. Who were the people he ministered to again? Oh, the poor? The beggars?
Wasn’t it Jesus Christ, the man we believe is THE model Christian, who told the parable of the workers who came in late and got paid the same as the people who got there early? Sound capitalistic to you?
So, maybe, if in these times of economic turmoil, moral upheaval and mixed messages the Church (notice the capital “C”) should stand up and say, “Come to me, all who are weary. Come and drink.”
We need to stop trying to change the world by making legislations. It’s not working, and it’s not the model that Jesus Christ gave us to work with. Jesus Christ walked around, he touched people, he distanced himself from the politics of this world and gave us the fundamentals of how our Christian lives should be lived.
So, to recap: President Bush probably doesn’t work for God. Family Guy said so. And Jesus Christ never tried to get a legislation to ban crucifixion because it was cruel, he changed hearts. And, in the words of a friend, “If you think you want a theocracy so bad, try living in Iran for a while.”
Now, that’s one issue I’ll vote on.
