Bjcorbin's Blog

A good friend asked me what I thought the election results (i.e. 2008 Presidential) meant – I attached my response below.

I think your question is the same one that most of us have and there are probably a thousand answers I could give. Obviously the long term impact won’t be understood for a great while. I will say that I don’t think that we’ve gotten a very clear picture of who Barrack Obama really is and so it is difficult to project what his administration may look like. Though he promised all types of “change”, the president doesn’t really have the power to affect significant changes without the support of the congress, and though the Democrat’s have the clear majority, I don’t think that it is a given that they will necessarily support everything that Mr. Obama proposes. While the party didn’t want to break ranks during the election season, the primary’s (between Obama & Clinton) seemed to indicate that not everyone in the party was in agreement about the necessary direction, so it may not be as drastic as many fear. I do think that it is safe to assume that we will see advances in both the homosexual and pro-abortion agendas.

I do think that the two positive things that I can point to from this election are that we elected a man of color as our president and that a lot more people participated in the process. I do believe that breaking the color barrier is worthy of celebration; I think that many of us wanted to believe that we’d progressed in the area of racism, but until a barrier actually comes down, it’s hard to be sure. While I don’t have any illusions about the fact that racism still exists, I feel like this is a clear step of progress. I’ve also been appalled in the past by how many people didn’t vote, so I believe that seeing a good turnout is encouraging.

For me, the most troubling aspect of this election is the hearts of the American people and most especially those who count themselves as “Christians”. In a broad sense I’m discouraged by how little integrity there seems to be in our political process and how little people really seem to be after the truth. For example, the economy was cast as the primary issue in this election and both candidates vowed to fix the economy if they were elected; yet these men, the media and economists everywhere know fully well that the government (including the president) does not have direct control over the economy. To me it is fundamentally dishonest to pretend that it is otherwise. I think that the media has become particularly biased in their reporting of events, to the point of deception at times. I think that this is a very dangerous trend and could eventually become a significant threat to the freedom of the American people. I feel like the level of hostility and negativity associated with this election was outrageous and unnecessary. For a society that touts it’s “tolerance” of diversity, there seemed to be very little tolerance for diverse viewpoints. It seems that the last three elections have had this polarizing effect on the country as a whole. While I can chalk a lot of that up to human nature, I’m absolutely baffled by the group of people who call themselves “Christians” (a.k.a. Evangelicals, Catholics, Born-Again…). Increasingly, the word “Christian” is becoming absolutely meaningless in terms of understanding the worldview of the people who use it as a way of describing themselves. I can’t help but think that the rampant moral decay of our society can be directly linked to the double-mindedness of those who are presumably meant to be salt and light to the world. I have long doubted the concept of the “moral majority” (i.e. that there is some silent group of highly ethical people who comprise the majority of the population) and I believe that the results of this election present the clearest evidence that even if such a group ever did exist, that it is no longer the case.

The good news is that we’re exactly where God always knew that we would be and He stands ready to guide us through the coming days if we’ll “follow” Him. I believe that the overall lack of resistance has made the church in America weak and that though it won’t necessarily be pleasant; the increased resistance will make us stronger (& smaller). There is nothing in the scripture that pushes us toward fixing the government or trying to convince the society to think differently; in fact the biblical recipe is that we’d simply turn from our sin and cry out to God. I do think that it is important to recognize that we are living in a culture that is becoming openly hostile toward Biblical Christianity and that seems to want to take a proactive role in the indoctrination of our children. If we’re not living this stuff out in our homes, our marriages, in our relationships and friendships, our children will have no reason to believe it. Ultimately, we are not Christians by virtue of the fact that we were born in America, or that we were raised in Christian homes, or because we’re moral people or because we go to church or even by the fact that we believe the story of what Jesus did. We are Christians by virtue of the fact that we’ve taken up our cross and are following Him. If He is for us, who can be against us? God bless.