To Senators McCain, Obama, & Biden, and Governor Palin,
As I follow this election season, I regularly hear that I am your target audience - that it is my voting group that you are particularly looking to receive this year. Yet it does not at all feel like it. Indeed, I feel quite often overlooked - and I am through.
You see, I am an evangelical. That is, I believe strongly in the power of the evangellion, the Gospel, to transform the lives of individuals, communities, and yes, even nations. In fact, that evangelical conviction is the center of my life: privately, professionally, and politically.
I am also a values voter.
I believe in the inherent value of all those created in God's image - regardless of economics, race, creed, or sexuality. And I believe it is the job those called to lead our country to protect and preserve that inherent value.
I believe in the importance of marriage, because the God of the evangellion is the God of love. Family life is the building block of our life of faith -in the many forms that modern family life takes. To degrade families with arbitrary legal definitions ("legal union," "life partnership") is to deny those families the validation of being at the center of our community life.
I am an evangelical values voter who follows the One who called us to care for the sick, the poor, the stranger, and the oppressed among us. I am an evangelical values voter who is ashamed at the behavior of the wealthy in our nation towards the poor. I am an evangelical values voter who thinks Jesus really did mean it when he said that we should love and serve our neighbor.
"God has shown you, O mortal, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?"
I am a values voter.
It is time you listened.
-RR
UKRAINE
1 year ago
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3 comments:
Rev, up front, I'll be honest and say that I an not an evangelical, but I am a values voter, as you are. We will not see the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God here in the earthly kingdom, and we certainly cannot count on a politician to get us there.
I the present situation, I see possibly a more equal distribution of God's gifts to us on this good earth, with Obama/Biden. I believe that's about as good as we'll get from any politicians, as none will be our saviours. At least Obama mentions the least amongst us from time to time, but I never hear a word from McCain about those folks. I'm not trying to convert you to a cause, but simply giving my opinion.
As to marriage, I agree with you. Let's call a union between two faithful people, who are committed to each other, what it is, a marriage. For what it's worth, I'd like to see the church out of the marriage business and into the business of blessing civil marriages after a period of discernment by the couple's Christian community.
Actually, Mimi, I am not an evangelical in the sense that most people mean it; i.e., religious right, conversion-experience oriented, etc, etc. However, I am upset that we have let words like "values" and "evangelical" be co-opted by (what I consider to be) fringe groups within the broader spectrum of Christianity - and I am fully intent on reclaiming them.
Yes, I am fully on board with the Obama-Biden ticket - no need for conversion there. Obama, in my opinion, speaks on behalf of those who haven't had a voice in the public square in quite some time.
And, that is my #1 comment to people about marriage: I don't want to be a state official anymore - get me out of the business of signing official state documents.
Evangelical was once a good word to describe good people, but it has been hijacked by the fundamentalists or the press, with the result that I would not want to be associated with it today.
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