Tuesday, November 04, 2008

It's Funny

It's Funny That...

...for the first time in my life I voted for a Democrat for President.

...I lived to see an African American become president.

...I have read the information sent to me and still feel I made a logical, rational, choice.

...I have read the information sent to me and am amazed at how blind people can be if they don't want to vote for a candidate.

...at this point our president seems to have won by a landslide. If he was Republican Christians would claim that God overwhelmingly spoke through the people. Because he is a Democrat I see that Christians are already claiming that America failed. Death, RIP, Destruction. We used to call this pouting or being a sore loser. Now, I just shake my head.

...when I lived in Memphis Clinton became president. I heard Christians claim that evil was upon us, our religious freedom would be taken, homosexuals and baby murderers would take our Christian rights away. Our freedom was gone. However, little changed. I never felt threatened.

...during Clinton's office people said that our country was going to hell. During this time the church began to decline and lose young people. However, they did not leave because of the president--they left because we stopped reaching out. They left because we were irrelevant. We have no one to blame but ourselves.

However it is always easier to blame someone else.

...the more I work with social justice, the poor, and reaching the unchurched the more I see not only the need to become more politically involved--I see why so many unchurched people are upset with "Christians."

I am upset with some "Christians" as well. When we don't get our way, we pout. We claim to be concerned about our neighborhoods but obviously, we aren't reaching them. We talk about outreach, the needs of the poor, and ethnic diversity--but we spend most of our time avoiding people like this. Maybe "God's man" in the whitehouse will come from the outcasts. Maybe our leader should understand the pain of racism, poverty, and social justice. Maybe we need someone who will make us uncomfortable and get us to befriend "sinners and tax collectors."

Unfortunately, many Christians don't care.

However, I welcome change. Since 2 years ago our spiritual lives have been about change. We see the joy in that. We see God moving. We will continue to see God move.

7 comments:

James T Wood said...

I'm tired. This conversation has really taken a lot out of me. I think we need to rally not for the separation of church and state, but the separation of state from church.

It sickens me when on party tries to co-op the Christian position to the exclusion of any other position or party. How can you say that Jesus wants to end abortion, but he does not want to end poverty? How can you say that God is against gay marriage, but he is not against racism?

That is the same as trying to say that God only has masculine qualities. God created people in his image--male and female. Both are the image of God.

Tim said...

I just hope we can stop talking about government doing the work that we should be doing. Government is going to be there regardless, and no matter who is office we have no excuse for not sharing Good News with people.

rich jandt said...

This entire proccess makes me sick.
Just seeing the time wasted by people trying to get "thier guy" into office is astounding.
It is the day after the election and the poor are still being taken advantage of by the rich. The weak by the strong. The just by the un-just, you get where I'm going here.
If McCain had won we would still have to deal with these issues in our communitity. Nothing changes. When Clinton was in office we had the same issues as when Bush was in office, and we will continue to have them for ever.

Glen said...

Ron, Very good blog! And even though you, James,Tim and Rich are upset, tired and sick, look at the situation this way. You men are the saying what needs to be said!
God Bless You.

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

Anonymous said...

Ron...well said bro. Well said.

Rebecca said...

Ron,

Thank you for sharing these words. I have to say that in all of my years of being raised "going to church" I've heard a lot of support for the Republican agenda and not a lot of support for the Christian agenda. Please do not misunderstand me folks, I'm not saying the Democratic agenda is the Christian agenda- I'm saying the Christian agenda, you know, from the Bible, hasn't been as heavily pushed as "Keeping God in our schools" or "we deserve our freedoms...but only the things we believe should be freedoms". I have heard more hate spewed from the mouths of Christians than from any other groups I've met. It breaks my heart. I voted for Barack Obama and my heart felt good about it. I'm excited to see what happens next. Will he make mistakes - OF COURSE - he's human. I think the most important words I've heard come out of his mouth(during an interview with Katie Couric) was him saying that he understands that he's asked people to trust him and he sees it as a huge responsibility and he doesn't want to let people down who have put their trust in him. HUMILITY.

tabitha jane said...

let's stop depending on a president to make or break this country and lets do our parts as citizens.

word.