Primary Election Thoughts

 

IN DISCUSSING the current election campaign, conservative Christian intellectuals are examining and almost bemoaning the dismissal of the importance of evangelical voters and the sidetracking of traditional evangelical values by the compromising choices of younger college educated believers in Jesus Christ.

Neither party gives more than lip service to the values of large sections of American voters. And many voters don’t seem to care. After living through eighteen elections, it feels smashingly irregular to watch masses of voters swaying and clapping to rhetoric and propaganda on both sides. It’s scary. Going to vote in our state’s primary election felt urgently important, but I didn’t know how to vote. I wasn’t sure any candidate was qualified.

A respected relative said my favorite was slimy and evil. What? A slimy and evil candidate is running for President of our nation? How could that be? And I thought that particular one was the cleanest of the bunch. Huh? One of us is deceived. Which one?  Whatever is going on? Who is talking and to whom are we listening?

I suppose there has always been mudslinging. And it’s to be expected that a faction of voters will respond to Presidential elections as popularity contests, with all the teenage clique-contamination, hype and hoopla of choosing a homecoming king or queen. But I’ve always believed that the immature and socially engineered factions will be balanced by millions of down-to-earth voters who ask, “Is the candidate honest? Is the candidate a good person? Does the candidate represent my values? Would he or she uphold the constitution? Would I trust the candidate to invest my life’s savings for me and give me a fair return? Would I trust the candidate with my grandmother? With my wife or my teen-aged son or daughter? Does the candidate treat people as people or as objects? Is he or she self-sacrificially concerned for our nation or is their candidacy all about themselves and their vision?

Oh me—oh my. Is that idealistic? Is it asking too much? For the first time ever I didn’t know who to vote for in either party—if I wanted my vote to count.

It was late in the day before my husband and I walked out of our polling place into the warmth of a March thaw. Our next stop was the gas station. The tank was closer to empty than I’d ever run it before.

How I wish that drive to the gas station might have been a prophetic act: that if America truly is running close to empty, she’s about to be refueled. Hope!

Ah hope—it became thinner this week as I watched more debates and primaries. The most troubling voice was a popular one—the speaker who said. “Peace, peace—when there is no peace.”

Ahhh—We must not let go of hope. As I was refueling, I started talking with the young man filling up his tank on the opposite side of the BP pump. Young? I’m seventy-six, he looked around forty-five give or take a few years. It all started with a smile and a politically safe comment about enjoying the warmth of early spring. He, perhaps thinking of his mother, asked in the neighborly way of our rural township, “How are you today?”

I was conflicted and rueful. I don’t usually talk politics to strangers, but that day it spilled over. I said, “I just voted.” It was a careful conversation—neither of us knew if the other were a Democrat or a Republican, neither of us knew which candidates the other supported.

We found common ground as soon as I said that I preferred candidates who didn’t rant during the debates. The ground grew firmer as I said I liked those who listened to the debate questions and tried to answer them—and didn’t use questions as jumping off places for self-promotion.

Together we decried the discernment and intelligence of those who are swayed by personality and publicity rather than truth. We agreed about other dilemmas. I didn’t say it, but in my heart I wondered if our nation might be getting what we deserved. I wondered if greed, entitlement, compromises, the gap between business and personal values and the strong media influence would make it possible for our next president to buy and advertise his or her way into office.

The young man and I were close to playing the game of “Ain’t It Awful,” but if you could have tuned in to the tone of our voices or looked into ours eyes and seen the emotion that we, two strangers, shared as we looked into each other’s eyes, you would have realized that we weren’t complaining or playing games. We were agreeing in a deep concern for our nation.

As our tanks were almost full, I recalled, “Oh, you asked how I am— I’m fine.” That put a smile on my face. He looked surprised by what I said next. I was too. The words just popped out. “I love Jesus. He loves me. His Kingdom wasn’t ever of this world—.   Everything is somehow going to be alright.” I meant it.

He smiled back and said, “You should smile more.” Later I wondered if he might have been an angel sent to help me balance and process the primary-election-blues.

Hope. There is hope for America. There are millions of decent people living decent honest lives. Thousands upon thousands of churches still open their doors on Sunday. There are leaves on a tree in the New Jerusalem for the healing of the nations. And the healing starts today, inside of you and me as we choose to turn our thoughts toward Jesus and His message of loving kindness and truth.

Can we turn our hearts and lives over to Him and pray that He not leave us as we pass through these troubled political waters and years of global unrest. Although we can’t see tomorrow, we can trust that God is at work—regardless of voting blocs.

As Jesus said, His Kingdom is at hand and the Kingdom of God continues to expand. It is as subversive as ever. It belongs to the poor in spirit, not to the proud. It is often as hidden as Jesus birth in a stable and it is always, despite outward appearance, as powerful as Jesus’ victories over sin, disease, demons, and death. King David was surely a prophet who saw Jesus, but did he also look ahead to today when he wrote Psalm 2?

Why do the nations rage,
And the people plot a vain thing?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
And the rulers take counsel together,
Against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying,
“Let us break their bonds in pieces
And cast away their cords from us.”

He who sits in the heavens shall laugh.
The Lord shall hold them in derision.
Then He shall speak to them in His wrath,
And distress them in His deep displeasure:

Yet I have set My King
On My holy hill of Zion.
I will declare the decree:
The Lord has said to Me,
You are My Son,
Today I have begotten You.
Ask of Me, and I will give You
The nations for Your inheritance,
And the ends of the earth for Your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron;
You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.

Now therefore, be wise, O kings;
Be instructed, you judges of the earth.
Serve the Lord with fear,
And rejoice with trembling.
Kiss the Son, lest He be angry,
And you perish in the way,
When His wrath is kindled but a little.
Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.
—NKJV