A Time To Choose (Or How Rachelle Ticks Off Her Liberal Friends)

"Love of country, my friends, is another way of saying love of your fellow countryman."

--Sen. John McCain

John McCain, Hilary Clinton, and Barack Obama were walking down a street when
they came upon a homeless man.

John McCain gave the man his business card and told him to come to his office for a job. He then took $20 out of his pocket and gave it to the man.

Hilary Clinton didn't want to be outdone, so when they came across a second homeless man she walked up to him. She gave him directions to the welfare office and reached into John McCain's pocket and came up with $20. She kept $15 for her administrative fees and gave the homeless man $5.

Coming across a third homeless man, Barack Obama went up to him and told him to "have hope, change is coming" and gave him nothing.

Now do you understand the difference?

-anonymous email forward

The difference between a Democrat and a Republican in 2008 seems to be this: The Republican believes he/she should be helping the poor by giving of their time and earnings; the Democrat believes he/she should be helping the poor by voting to take more money out of their neighbor's paycheck to give to the poor.

A lot has been said of younger evangelicals, the Don Millers and Cameron Strangs who have fled the Republican party for the Democratic one largely because they think that somehow the Democrats are those who are working on behalf of the poor and oppressed and the Republicans are not. Sadly, this kind of thinking demonstrates several things:

• a deplorable lack of biblical knowledge The Bible speaks a lot about the obligation of Christians to help the poor. It never speaks about a government taking on this responsibility. The Democratic platform has eschewed any notion that this is a "Christian nation" and yet these new evangelicals act as if our Christian obligation to give to the poor is that of a Christian government. In fact what we have been charged with is giving as churches and individuals.
• a failure to understand the simple sociological truth that people take less responsibility for something the larger the group gets. Sociology 101: If you come across a person being robbed and you are the only one around, you are more likely to act on behalf of the victim than if you come across someone being robbed and there are 20 people standing around. It is human nature to think someone else will take care of it. The rhetoric I've heard from Democrats is that the rich should do more for the poor. But the rich are always someone else. (Even to Obama who while in the top 2% of US household incomes managed to give less than 1% to charity. He started giving a little more when he started thinking about the presidency.)
• that statistically conservatives give more than liberals While as a group, conservatives make less than liberals, they still give about 30% more. Talk about hypocritical. We have one group that talks about helping the poor and another that is actually doing it.
• a failure to understand the historical and philosophical roots upon which our nation was founded The Founding Fathers largely agreed that charity begins at home; they also threw off a nation that taxed them excessively (and without representation). They wouldn't be pleased with our current rate of taxation and they would be disgusted with what we use that money for.
• that freedom includes economic freedom That means that as a Christian I should be able to give to the poor in the name of Christ and to the causes I believe in and not have my money taken from me and given to causes I don't support. Government welfare is anything but charity; charitable giving should affect both giver and receiver in profound ways. Taxing me to death so that I'm limited in what I can give personally decreases my interest in the poor; it removes me having to meet needs proactively. It ends initiative.

Sadly these young evangelicals seem to have fallen prey to a common problem in their generation. One of the liabilities of hiring Generation Y is that they have trouble prioritizing; they can take in huge amounts of data but they can't figure out what is most important or analyze and rank problems. It appears this may affect the way that they vote as well. They are pro-life (they say) but find it hard to say that working to protect the life of the innocent unborn should rank at the top of a prolife agenda. There are other important things to consider but they don't all have equal rank. I'm not sure how you can say you are prolife and vote for a candidate whose voting record has continually ignored the cause of the unborn and supported the infanticide of infants who survive abortion.

I would be first to say I've deplored the way some of the so-called Christian right have sought to amass power. I don't (politically) care if John McCain is a Christian and I don't care if Obama is a Christian. I care about whose policies I can support and not leave my Christian values at the door.

This November, a Presidential pick shouldn't be a hard call for anyone who calls themselves Christian. At least if they mean it.