I’ve resisted posting about the election until now because I’m not a politician, I’m a novelist. I don’t want to burden my readers with my personal opinions, generally, unless they’re woven into my books. But this is such an important election, that I can’t stay silent. If you don’t want to hear my thoughts, feel free to ignore them.
We Christians are not here in a vacuum. We have a God-given responsibility to the world we live in. In America we have the rare privilege of having a say in our government, unlike other nations. That gives us all greater responsibility. If we believe that God judges nations based on their culture and choices–as we’ve seen over centuries in the past, not to mention in the Old Testament–then we are responsible to elect leaders who will take our country down paths that won’t bring more judgment.
Millions of babies are murdered every year on our own soil, and if that won’t bring God’s judgment on our country, I don’t know what will. I fear God and know that when that judgment comes, it’s going to effect me and my children and my neighbors. I can choose to elect officials who will push back that line or hold it back as much as possible, or I can elect officials who have voted again and again that it’s fine to stick scissors in a baby’s head just before it’s born, or let it die after it’s born alive, for the convenience of the mother. Does this make me a one-issue voter? No, because I’m a news junkie, and there are many issues that matter to me. But a person’s stand on abortion says a lot to me about what his judgment and wisdom. I trust our country’s nuclear trigger to a person who values the lives of everyone more than a person who only values some.
I hope before we go to the polls, we’ll each go down a list of the things we hold dear, the things that make our country great, the things that we believe with all our hearts, and then vote for the person who will fight for those things, or at least hold off the forces that threaten to beat those things down. And that goes for everyone on our ballots, not just the presidential candidates.
Terri