Election is Nigh

My dear friends, we stand on the cusp of great changes in this country, changes that may last for generations, and may affect this country in a profoundly negative way.

America is founded on great and true principles: that all men are created equal, that the government derives its power from the people rather than people receiving *rights* from the government. Yes, we have blemishes and incidences of hypocrisy in our history, starting with the ownership of slaves by some of the Founders (an evil, BTW, fought and finally excised with the blood of many more than half a million men). What other country offers the freedom, the generosity, the *City on a Hill* that so many peoples from other countries run to? What other country has liberated so many others, not to keep but to help and guide to become free, independent?

Read again the words of Emma Lazarus, whose poem is engraven on the Statue of Liberty:

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame,
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
by Emma Lazarus, New York City, 1883

Our God-given freedoms have been eroding for awhile, but this election seems to have the potential of putting in place a great acceleration in the process. Please, dear friends, don't let our blood-bought freedoms go so easily. We need to turn back to God. Pray for His mercy on our land.

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2 Chronicles 7:14
If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. (NIV)

Presidential End Game

As I watch the playing out of this election, I find myself increasingly dismayed. One thing that I'm noticing is the very different outlook of the two major candidates. There are many policy points, but a general observation might be that one party champions individual efforts while the other wants to establish governmental monopolies that will produce *universal* solutions to groups of people to *make things more equal*.

Whenever people start talking about *groups* I get nervous, because it's very easy to lose the individual's autonomy within the group's well-being. For example, I am horrified at the vilification of *Joe the Plumber*. Doesn't the character assassination of this man seems like overkill for his simply asking an honest question? Is *Joe the Plumber's* individual reputation worth trading for whatever group benefit may supposedly result? The point is, ad hominem attacks don't change the fact that he asked a good question that applies to many many people.

I'd like to quote CS Lewis from "Man or Rabbit?" in his collection of essays, God in the Dock. He says:

"To the Materialist things like nations, classes, civilizations must be more important than individuals, because the individuals live only seventy odd years each and the group may last for centuries. But to the Christian, individuals are more important, for they live eternally; and races, civilizations and the like, are in comparison the creatures of a day."

No matter what your political views, I hope that you are in prayer for our country for this critical election. (2 Chronicles 7:14)