Conservative Christians have successfully identified themselves as a powerful “voting block” in the United States. So much so that political candidates now find in necessary to pander to what they call the “Christian Right” in order to get elected in many parts of the country. Sadly, pandering usually works.
The Christian Right voting block claims to desire “principled leadership” but has shown itself to be a sucker for the right words — actions mean little. Just claiming to be principled is enough. President Bush said all the right things while running for office and so he got the vote. He claimed to be a small-government conservative but then pushed through the largest entitlement program in decades with his Medicare-funded prescription drug plan.
The Christian Right still supports him.
Even when he expressed a patently unbiblical belief, like he believes Christians and Muslims worship the same god, his support waned not.
Conversely, when a genuine believer in Christ comes along who stands firm on his principles and expresses the same beliefs in his stump speeches (regardless of the audience), not only is he not embraced by the Christian Right but he’s actually vilified by many.
Ron Paul is prepared to deliver the “principled leadership” others only pretend to support and the very people who ought to be rallying around his campaign are taking shots at him. Many may say, “We don’t know that much about his faith.”
Alright, here you go — an article that outlines his beliefs, asks whether or not he will be the candidate of the Christian Right, and then answers that question (pay close attention to the answer, it’s right on the money).
Others will say, “He can’t win” and they don’t want to “waste” their vote on such a candidate. My response? If the man believes what you believe then voting for another candidate merely on the basis that candidate has a chance of winning (even though you disagree with their positions) is wasting your vote.
Other objections I hear include:
- He is pro-gay: Nope, he is not “pro-gay” he just doesn’t support a constitutional amendment defining what marriage should and should not be — and I whole-heartedly agree. In fact, I don’t see where it’s the government’s role to be involved in marriage at all.
- He is isolationist: Nope, he is a non-interventionist. Isolationism is withdrawing from the rest of the world entirely. Ron Paul advocates non-intervention whereby we engage in commerce and friendship with everyone while not trying to force others to run their countries the way we think they should be run. Again, I agree whole-heartedly.
- He is not anti-abortion enough: Nope, Ron Paul is a doctor who has delivered more than 4,000 babies during his medical career and is adamantly anti-abortion. It’s true, he does not support a federal ban on abortion but that is because the constitution does not provide for such a thing. He believes the matter should be handled at the state level without any federal interference. And I couldn’t agree more.
The fact of the matter is this: Every other candidate running from president (both Democrats and Republicans) are big-government politicians. The Christian Right tends to support the Republicans because their form of big government is closer to what conservative Christians think life should be like. However, it is still mandating behavior. And here is a little secret — you can’t force someone to be a Christian.
In fact, trying to create a “Christian nation” through the force of the state is unbiblical and completely contrary to the notion of liberty. Please consider the words of the apostle Paul in his letter to the Corinthians:
“What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside.”
As believers in Christ we have an obligation to hold one another accountable inside the church. But for those non-believers we are merely to bear witness — not try to force them to conform to our way of living. They are God’s to judge. As a society we need only prevent people from violating the rights of others — which is the sole biblical role of government as per Romans chapter 13.
I realize this concept is foreign to many conservative Christians. But libertarian ideas and orthodox Christian theology go hand-in-hand in many cases (here is an example in Economics that illustrates the point). Unfortunately we’ve misunderstood the idea of a “Christian nation” for so long that we’ve come to equate the state with the church — which has led to our confusing nationalism for patriotism.
In this presidential election there is only one man who recognizes these problems and has the will to change them. His name is Ron Paul. He is the Christian Candidate.
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