As I emailed Deace, I agree with him. He only confirmed what I believe that God was telling me. Between Obama and McCain, that Obama is the lesser of two evils. But rather than saying how I got to that, I’ll post his statement since he wrote it first, and I’m too lazy to reinvent the wheel. I’ve known from the beginning I would never vote for McCain.
Well, this is going to tick off … pretty much everyone, but here goes.
Podcast is here: http://a1135.g.akamai.net/f/1135/18227/1h/cchannel.download.akamai.com/18227/podcast/DESMOINES-IA/WHO-AM/on%20christian%20voting%20part%202.mp3?CPROG=PCAST&MARKET=DESMOINES-IA&NG_FORMAT=newstalk&SITE_ID=1165&STATION_ID=WHO-AM&PCAST_AUTHOR=Steve_Deace&PCAST_CAT=Talk_Radio&PCAST_TITLE=Deace_in_the_Afternoon
Special Pre-Election Blog: Part 1 (The lesser of two evils)
Friday 10-31-2008 6:28pm CT
Why I’m Voting for Barack Obama
I realize that for many of you that know me well, that headline is stunning. No one is more stunned at it then I am.
This came out of nowhere.
Recently I was awakened by a dream so vivid I could remember it in great detail, and I might remember like 3-5 dreams a year to ps. This dream totally came out of left field, sort of like Sarah Palin.
Unlike Governor Palin, though, I don’t come from an especially charismatic theological tribe, not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’m just more of a Reformed theology guy: Calvin, Knox, Zwingli, Luther, Kuyper, Spurgeon, Sproul, Zacharias, Schaeffer, Piper, and Driscoll are more my speed. That means I don’t totally rule out things like speaking in tongues, healings, or revelatory dreams, but it does mean I am going to check with more sources then Woodward and Bernstein needed to write All the President’s Men before going along with them.
In other words, my theological proclivities aren’t predisposed to such things as what I’m about to describe. .
In this dream I am sitting down with two old friends telling them about the dream. Weird, huh? A dream in which you’re dreaming about telling others about the dream. I’ve never had one of those before. Maybe that’s a sign of something psychotic or prophetic. Read on and you can decide for yourself.
I’m sitting down with two old friends in my dream. One of these friends’ has a dad that is a liberal – theologically and politically – mainline minister who once invited folks in an advertisement to get baptized because “it’s nice.” He voted for Dennis Kucinich in the Iowa Caucuses – twice.
The other friend is a typical right-of-center cultural Christian. Meaning he’s not born again but since he’s a vet, tries not to disobey the 10 Commandments, believes “the Lord helps those who themselves” is somewhere in the Bible, and votes Republican, he thinks it ’s okay that he frequently takes the Lord’s name in vain since Hell is only for serial killers, child pornographers and Osama Bin Laden.
These two friends represent everything wrong with American Christianity – relativism on the Left and moralism on the Right. In the dream I’m explaining my dream to them by explaining how God told the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute, and how God had the prolific prophet Jeremiah urge the leaders of Israel in his day to surrender to their Babylonian captors, whom God had sent to punish Judah for her disobedience.
In the dream I’m explaining to them that these dramatic moves of God through rather ordinary fellows – neither of whom had a seminary education, television ministry, or had ever hosted a 50,000-watt radio program – were made for dramatic effect contrary to conventional wisdom.
It was God trying desperately to get His people’s attention.
God in His Word strongly condemns adultery, so what better way to demonstrate the spiritual infidelity of His people then to have Hosea married to a prostitute? God in His Word promised to be Israel’s protector provided they kept His commandments, so what better way to demonstrate the fact they had disobeyed His law then by having him them surrender to a pagan conqueror? In hindsight, over an eon later, the symbolism makes perfect sense to us now because we’re looking at these events through a New Testament lens. But imagine how these contrarian stances appeared to the people of Israel at the time.
Self-righteousness was chic in Israel in those days, so the people being spurred to repentance by listening to a man married to a prostitute was going to be a tough sell for the moralistic natives. Likewise, for a people who believed they had Jehovah all to themselves simply because His temple (which they had ironically defiled on numerous occasions) was still erect in Jerusalem, the idea of surrendering to an uncircumcised heathen is like…well…me voting for Barack Obama.
So I’m sitting with my two friends in this dream and telling them that I had a dream that God wants me to vote for Barack Obama to make a similar point about how we as His people have almost totally turned away from His grace and His Word. I also told them the dream never tells me to convince other people to do what I’m doing, just that I am to do it. As I’m explaining all of this, neither one of my two friends get it, and the dream ends with me telling them I don’t totally get the dream myself.
That’s when I woke up, shaken that I had remembered the dream so vividly but didn’t know what it meant. I called a likeminded friend of mine to get his take on the dream and talk it through. Then I spent the next 24 hours thinking and praying about it myself. I could find no peace about the dream except when I was willing to entertain the notion I should vote for Obama. But I couldn’t possibly vote for such a man for the highest office in the land, could I?
I am 100% pro-life. I am 100% pro-family. I am 100% pro-Second Amendment and I believe its intent was to give you the means by which to defend yourself against your own government, not just to hunt. I believe judges do not make law, that their rulings only apply to the specific parties of the dispute in question, and that the Constitution is not a living, breathing document. I believe in a strong national defense, and am glad America is the world’s only super power.
I believe in relatively low regulation and low taxation.
I think the Federal Department of Education ought to be abolished, and that government education has ruined the last three generations of Americans. I think the National Education Association is the organization in most direct opposition to the Gospel in the United States. I think people in the country illegally should have no access to the American way of life beyond emergency services until they pay restitution for breaking the law and get in the back of the line to become a citizen. I believe compulsory charity as practiced by our income tax system is unbiblical.
I think we ought to consider bolting the United Nations and not give it another dime of our money. I think we ought to repeal NAFTA and most other erroneously named free trade agreements. I don’t think the government should pick winners and losers based on race or gender, whether it’s Jim Crowe or Affirmative Action doing the picking. I don’t think the government ought to take over healthcare nor the free market. I believe the so-called Fairness Doctrine is anything but fair. I believe all the Great Society did was bankrupt our nation and sentence a generation of the poor – mostly minorities – to a life that is worse then what they were living before.
I believe that some of the wisest words ever spoken were spoken by Thomas Jefferson when he said, “The government big enough to give you everything you want is powerful enough to take away everything you have.”
I believe the death penalty is Biblical, and that it ought to be expanded to serial rapists, pedophiles, and child porn distributors. I’m skeptical of the pseudo-religious cult of global warming. I don’t believe in Darwinism (random evolution without causation as the origin of species). I believe we should immediately freeze all government spending and seriously consider returning our currency to the gold standard.
I believe there is no other name under Heaven by which men can be saved then the name of Jesus Christ, and that he was born of a virgin, crucified at Calvary, raised in the flesh on the third day, and there is no other God but the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. I believe that all other so-called gods are either demons in disguise or our own imagination. I believe the Bible is the literal, inspired Word of God. I believe that one day every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess, that Jesus Christ alone is Lord of Heaven and Earth.
Last time I read it, I couldn’t find a single policy statement in the Iowa Republican Party platform that I disagreed with. Except for a two-year period when I was so disgusted by President George W. Bush selling out my principles and governing so ineptly I became an independent, I have been a registered a Republican since I first registered to vote when I was 18 years-old.
Because I believe these things, I have never voted for a single Democrat in my entire life. Yet, sadly, because I believe these things I find myself voting for fewer and fewer Republicans nowadays as well. I’ve turned in some rather incomplete ballots the past several elections as a result.
But for the first time in my life, this November I will vote for a Democrat. And not just any Democrat, mind you, but perhaps the most unbiblical and leftist major party candidate for president in American history.
Why would I do this? Why would I seemingly turn my back on everything I believe? Why would I go beyond just protesting John McCain’s Whig-like tendencies by voting third party and instead sleep with the enemy?
But is Barack Obama the real enemy here?
My Bible says: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Ephesians 6:12, NIV)
Barack Obama is wrong about nearly every conceivable issue, in my opinion, and his worldview is utterly unbiblical in terms of how he seems to view human nature and the nature of God. In many respects, his policy preferences are a direct correlation to the unbiblical discipleship he received from an arguably heretical pastor at his home church of nearly 20 years (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lV8x_-Uk2c).
Yet too many orthodox Christians the last several years, me sadly included, have forgotten these wise words from C.S. Lewis: “Aim for Heaven and you will get Earth thrown in, aim for Earth and you will get neither.”
Many believers I talk to in the political sphere on and off the air can’t tell me why they’re running for office, or they have a reason other than soli deo gloriai! Most of the believers I talk to really believe they’re choosing their leaders, not God, and therefore have to plot and scheme just as the pagans do for the desired result. I’ve been to meetings with Christians clamoring for more of Christ in the culture, yet we often don’t begin those meetings by bowing to Him in prayer and asking for His wisdom and grace. Without that divine wisdom and grace, and minus a true knowledge of His Word, we end up doing what we think is right and expecting God to either bless it or clean up our mess for us afterwards if it blows up in our face.
In other words, we’re doing works with faith and not faith with works. We are wise in our own eyes as we travel the way that seems right to us, rather than rely and wait on the way, the truth, and the life.
We have toxically mingled our faith, or worse replaced it, with our own worldly principles and philosophies, just as the liberals have. We are the people described by Uncle Screwtape to his dear nephew tempter Wormwood in The Screwtape Letters with the following timeless passage, also by C.S. Lewis, published in 1942:
Let him begin by treating the Patriotism or the Pacifism as a part of his religion. Then let him, under the influence of partisan spirit, come to regard it as the most important part. Then quietly and gradually nurse him on to the stage at which the religion becomes merely part of the “cause”, in which Christianity is valued chiefly because of the excellent arguments it can produce in favor of the war-effort or Pacifism. The attitude which you want to guard against is that in which temporal affairs are treated primarily as material for obedience. Once you have made the world an end, and faith a means, you have almost won your man, and it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing. Provided that meetings, pamphlets, policies, movements, causes, and crusades, matter more to him than prayers and sacraments and [love], he is ours—and the more “religious” (on those terms) the more securely ours.
Special Pre-Election Blog: Part 2 (The lesser of two evils)
Friday 10-31-2008 6:26pm CT
Inspired both by Screwtape’s cynicism and the powerful prophetic symbolism of men like Hosea, I’ve finally decided to agree with the majority of my largely conservative audience that has repeatedly attempted to convince me to vote for the lesser of two evils.
That’s why I’m voting for Obama. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
Its one thing for Obama to flippantly answer “that’s above my pay grade” when asked when does a baby in the womb deserve human rights, and then favor infanticide on demand. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ7DVFDOMzc)
It’s entirely another for McCain to say he believes life begins at conception, but then to say states can still decide to kill babies if they want, and we can destroy embryos, too. (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/news/ap/politics/2008/Jun/03/where_they_stand__obama__mccain_on_the_issues.html & http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageIdd177 & http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/as-president-jo.html & http://thehil l.com/leading-the-news/mcc
ain-launches-pro-stem-cells-ad-2008-09-12.html &
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID6356)
What’s more evil? Obama believing a baby in the womb and an embryo aren’t life and thus telling people they can kill both if they want, or for McCain to say he believes life begins at conception but he won’t do everything possible to protect it? On top of that, Obama opposed the war in Iraq all along. McCain, of course, did not and even mislead people early on that it would be an easy invasion to win. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyADaggSBEY)
Are the lives of the innocent women and children killed in an aimless war in Iraq that seemingly has no purpose, no direction, and no end any more or less worthy of defending than those babies Planned Parenthood is killing?
I would say Obama’s position is the lesser of two evils.
It’s one thing for Obama to say he doesn’t believe in gay marriage but that the Sermon on the Mount allows for civil unions. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWqLcCBOzE M)
It’s entirely another for McCain to say he believes in marriage between one man and one woman, but to openly oppose not one but two Constitutional efforts to protect it and calling those efforts “un-Republican.” (http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/07/14/mcc ain.marriage/ & http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/06/06/same.sex.marriage/index.html)
What’s more evil? To be guilty of abhorrently poor hermeneutics as Obama is, or for McCain to say he accepts the orthodox Judeo-Christian view of marriage but then to oppose those he says he agrees with to uphold it?
I would say Obama’s position is the lesser of two evils.
It’s one thing for Obama, who has always openly supported the homosexual agenda, to score an 89/100 on the latest Senate report card done by a pro-homosexual organization. (http://lesbianlife.about.com/od/lesbianactivism/p/BarackObama.htm)
It’s entirely another for McCain to say he doesn’t believe homosexuality is a sin (if it’s not a sin why oppose gay rights at all then?) and for his Christian vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin to apparently agree with the entire homosexual agenda except for allowing them a marriage certificate. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?vutdzFPJg & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYBSjvDIsHE).
What’s more evil? Someone like Obama consistently exercising a flawed worldview, or someone like McCain and/or Palin claiming to stand for the Judeo-Christian view expressed in their party platform yet essentially giving homosexuals everything they want, including marriage by just another name?
I would say Obama’s position is the lesser of two evils.
It’s one thing for Obama to bow down at the altar of man-made climate change (global warming) as the greatest threat to humanity in our time and to even go so far as to offer a cabinet position for former vice president Al Gore to continue his phony crusade.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk3G-5-VVwc&feature=related)
It’s entirely another for McCain to consider a federal post for a man like Gore, who has worked against the policy goals of conservatives for decades now, while asking the American people to foot the bill for it. (http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed2/idUSN02296341)
What’s more evil? Obama acting consistent with his party and his platform, or McCain betraying his party and his platform to reach out to the other side on an issue that still isn’t settled among scientists?
I would say Obama’s position is the lesser of two evils.
Its one thing for Obama, who considers himself “a proud citizen of the world,” to believe in forfeiting our national sovereignty through open borders. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-9ry38AhbU&feature=related)
It’s entirely another for McCain – a man ironically running on a slogan of “country first” – to attempt not once but twice to forfeit his country’s national sovereignty. (http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=leg_hethmon_nov2005 & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WaZgF1rEYU & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQ4Foc90Yxk%26feature=related & http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/1/25/131758.shtml).
What’s more evil? An admitted globalist who wants open borders, or a man running for president on a platform of duty, honor, and patriotism who wants them?
I would say Obama’s position is the lesser of two evils.
It’s one thing for Obama, who voted against confirming both John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the United States Supreme Court, to say he’ll appoint activist judges. (http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/what-kind-of-justice-would-presid ent-obama-mete-out/ & http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23276453/)
It’s entirely another for McCain, who frequently uses his stated desire for more judges in the mold of Alito and Roberts on the campaign trail, to vote yes to grant Ruth Bader Ginsburg – perhaps the most activist judge ever nominated – to a life-time seat on the High Court while he was in the Senate. (http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid 080816195645AA0Tspx)
What’s more evil, someone honest about wanting activist judges and promising to appoint even more, or someone claiming to detest them and promising not to appoint them who votes to confirm the most activist judge of them all to the Supreme Court of the United States?
I would say Obama’s position is the lesser of two evils.
It’s one thing for Obama, who owns the most liberal voting record in the Senate (http://nj.nationaljournal.com/voteratings/), to authorize the government taking over the mortgage industry and now unconstitutionally managing our allegedly free-market economy through the unelected office of the Treasury Secretary. (http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/10/obama-urges-bai.html)
It’s entirely another for McCain, who consistently refers to himself as a “proud Reagan conservative” and promises to expose those in the Congress who profit off of “pork” (http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/9/11/02449/9021), to not only support the unconstitutional bailout bill that is full of pork, but to also vote for the three other biggest attempted infringements on our liberty in my lifetime: McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, and the Patriot Act.
Sadly, we also can’t rely on the reform-minded conservative Sarah Palin has been said to be either, since she’s out on the stump calling this selling out of the American taxpayer a “rescue.” (http://glassbooth.org/explore/index/john-mccain/10/civil-lib erties-and-domestic-security/2/ & http://www.mentata.com/ds/retrieve/congress/vote/VC107S22 & http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/21/mccain.hispanics/index.html & http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/10/03/with_bailout_vote_mccain_voted.html?hpid=topnews).
Not only that, but now McCain proposes the taxpayers pay off those bad mortgages, which Obama opposes, to the tune of at least $300 billion. So now McCain is for more government intervention into the housing market then is Obama. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTn9TAVhHGo)
What’s more evil, Obama consistently applying his party’s nanny state beliefs, or McCain thwarting his party’s ability to stand up against them and stand for the individual liberty and personal responsibility espoused in the GOP platform?
I would say Obama’s position is the lesser of two evils.
It’s one thing for McCain to run an ad linking defrocked Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines to the Obama campaign (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2008/09/obamas_fannie _mae_connection.html). It’s entirely another for McCain to do so all the while hoping America forgets his role in the infamous “Keating Five” back in the day (http://mccainkeatingfive.com/).
What’s more evil? The guy who may have knowingly placed an At-best incompetent and at-worst unethical CEO in close proximity to his campaign, or the guy who is calling him on it despite the fact he was linked to a financial scandal that sent at least one person to prison?
I would say Obama’s position is the lesser of two evils.
There, that settles it. After months from hearing incessantly from so many of you about how I’d be throwing my vote away by refusing to vote for one of the men who’s eventually going to win, and that there’s nothing wrong with voting for the lesser of two evils, I have decided to finally relent and take your sage advice.
When looking at the preponderance of the evidence presented on several major issues, it’s clear that Obama is the lesser of two evils because he’s not pretending to be something he’s not. He won’t do unspeakable evil with the help of mind-numbed Bible-believing Christians punch-drunk on group-think. Jesus told me to beware the wolf in sheep’s clothing, and it’s clear that one candidate will so bastardize orthodox Christianity and conservatism, while simultaneously claiming to uphold each of them, that under his watch both of those belief systems will lose whatever credibility they still have left with much of the American people.
What’s more evil, honest evil or the evil disguising itself as an angel of light? Give me the wolf over the wolf in sheep’s clothing any day of the week.
The amount of ineptitude, incompetence, dishonesty, deviancy, blasphemy, and double-mindedness those claiming to be doing God’s will on the Right have engaged in over the last several years simply must be punished. We sound just like the liberals who continue to defend pagan big government policies as a panacea despite all the evidence to the contrary.
We should be ashamed of ourselves in comparison.
I know that while Zell Miller was a hero to some of you for crossing the ideological picket line in the 2004 election, I’ll be a Quisling for doing it in 2008. So be it. In good conscience, I can’t possibly reward such unbiblical behavior from my own ranks by giving an even more lukewarm Republican/Christian than the current one four more years in the White House. Not to mention rewarding so many of the pro-life and pro-family sellout and/or gutless leaders who gave us this Demas-like nominee in exchange for another seat at King Saul’s table from which to launch another one of their endless stream of “the pagans are coming send money” fundraising campaigns.
The lukewarm values and bi-partisan sellouts euphemistically described as solutions McCain will engage in while in the White House, just as he did in the Senate, will destroy whatever is left of the Christian conservative movement, and it’s already mortally wounded after the Bush-Cheney years. Just look at the bailout. We couldn’t even count on him to stand up for middle-class Christian America when it was the right thing to do both politically and morally. Instead, he suspends his campaign to make sure this sellout bill gets passed, and then has the self-righteous audacity to call it a “rescue.” Dear friend, if we can’t count on McCain to stand for us now when it’s the right thing to do and it would benefit him politically, we simply can’t count on him to do it once he’s in office, either.
McCain’s entire political career can be summed up with these words from the Book of James: “The double-minded man is unstable in all of his ways.”
And that’s not even considering the eternal damage done here. Imagine how unbelievers see our Christian witness in the arena of testimony when they see us lie, manipulate, contradict ourselves, scheme and act out of fear just like the worst of the pagans do when money, power, and influence is on the line.
McCain’s record shows he did more damage to our cause while in the Senate then any politician alive today, because he did it while in a seat of power from a majority we gave him. I shudder to think what he’ll do to it as president. He’ll set us back to the 1970s, all the while doing it as the Republican standard-bearer.
And he’ll be doing it while perpetuating the unbiblical worldview of the current occupant of the White House, who is not only dangerously ignorant of Islamic history/culture, but also appears to accept Pelagius’ heretical view of human nature and Unitarianism as well. (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58026 & http://abcnews.go.com/US/Beliefs/story?id=1028370&page=1)
Pat Buchanan said it best about a McCain presidency: “The jobs are never coming back, the illegals are never going home, but we’re going to have a lot more wars.” (http://www.youtu be.com/watch?vDd-yg2A4E&feature=related)
Empty “hope and change” is clearly the lesser of two evils compared to that platform, if you ask me.
I know that most of you reading this won’t agree with me. Heck, I know most of you got so upset reading this you haven’t even made it this far. That’s what happens when you buy into a pragmatic worldview like “the lesser of two evils”—you become mired in subjective moralism. Which usually begins by viewing the evil your own side is engaging in as not as destructive as what the other side is doing, and then later devolves into justifying your side’s evil as necessary to combat what you believe to be the greater one coming from your opposition.
For the Christian, that means you’re now unevenly yoked, you’re using imbalanced scales and measures of justice, and concentrating more on the speck of dust in your brother’s eye then you are the log in your own. That’s quite an unbiblical trifecta if you ask me. We’ve inherited the whitewashed spiritual legacy of the Sanhedrin.
Just like them, we’ve become lukewarm, self-righteous hypocrites more concerned about political considerations than personal transformation. And Christ reserved his harshest criticisms in the Gospels for folks such as us.
Maybe that’s what my dream was about.
“These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” (Revelation 3:14-22, NIV)
In the end, if you don’t agree with my conclusion as a Bible-believing Christian to vote for Barack Obama as the lesser of two evils, I’m at peace with that. Just like so many other believers I talk to who have no Biblical rationale for the decisions they’re making, I’ll just reply by saying, “I prayed about it, and I feel real good about where I’m at right now.”
—————–
If you’ve stuck with it so far then you may know that this is not a political argument, but a theological one. I’ll post clarification later.
