Last night, Clint Baldwin invited me to be on a panel at the Peace & Justice Symposium that the Peace Center puts on once a month at George Fox University. I had one of those moments during the Q&A afterward where I heard words coming out of my mouth that actually were pretty good!
“What do you do,” the questioner asked us, “when someone says ‘I love this candidate’s stand on X, but on Y, he’s against everything I believe. And I really support THAT candidate on A, but what he thinks on B is practically heresy.'”
Us three local pastors each gave it our best shot. Then I had the flash of inspiration. “You know, I wish I got that question more often, because it betrays a sense of humility. Most often, I get people coming to me saying, ‘OF COURSE candidate A is the CHRISTIAN candidate. Why aren’t we doing more as a church to support him?'”
I think a little more humility (for all of us) would help us have more of the important conversations we need to have. Obama is not the messiah, nor will McCain save us from moral or literal Armaggeddon. This IS an important election; and there is no candidate or party whose platform matches my holistic life stance. We need to wrestle through that with humility, not the blustery certainty we too often have. And I include me in the we.
Gregg Koskela 
Very well said, Gregg. I really like your answer!
Regardless of who we prefer, both of these candidates (well, all four actually) are flawed human beings. Whoever wins will need a lot of prayer.
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Well done. I saw the forum coming up and would have loved to attend but our small group started last night. Please, share more!
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Render unto God that which is God’s and unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. Voting is Caesar’s. It’s hard for me to understand why Christians would ever proclaim a particular candidate to be God’s choice. We have some great examples in the kings that the Israelites chose. In 1Samuel 8 God told them what they were going to get for choosing a man to lead them instead of him. He told about the taxes they would face and the government that would basically “own” them and their children. He then said they would cry out to God because of the king they had chosen but “He would not answer them in that day”. Can we render our vote but not our lives to the “king” we choose?
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