WWJCF?

Religious leaders met to discuss Who Would Jesus Vote For? The "religious leaders" consisted of about 250 moderate to left-leaning clergy and lay leaders. This, of course, means it wasn't a serious discussion, but a chance for like minds to commiserate together.

I have personally questioned how any Christian could vote for today's breed of Democrats. While Jesus was concerned about meeting people's physical needs, he would never have forcefully taken from one person to meet the needs of the poor, hungry, and forgotten. We can show this very clearly by simple logic.

In the beginning God created mankind and breathed life into him. God gives each individual life and then allows each individual to choose how that life is spent on this earth; that is, God made each person responsible for his own destiny. These axioms are the basis for which each person has the right to life and the right to liberty. Because these were given to an individual by God, no other individual may use force to deprive another individual of his life or his liberty. Since this system was conceived by God and since Jesus is God incarnate (i.e., he has the same traits, philosophy and character of God the Father), then Jesus' philosophy of government must as a priority protect individuals' rights to life and liberty.

Since the modern Democrat is more of a socialist than a liberal, we need to understand the nature of socialism to see if that philosophy matches the philosophy of Christ to determine if he would vote Democrat. In two recent editorials, Walter Williams explores the morality of socialism and determines that socialism is evil. He does a much more eloquent job than I could do, so please read that and this follow-up editorial. I would just conclude that the Holy and Blameless Lamb would never vote for (and thus endorse) a candidates who would employ evil.

Does that mean, then, that Jesus would let people starve, live in their cars, and be denied basic medical care. Of course not! Jesus fully believed and practiced taking care of our fellow man. However, those acts of charity were always voluntary. If one looks at how God's law to the Israelites took care of the socially down-trodden, you will not see forced charity (that is actually an oxymoron). Instead, the people were instructed to give a tithe to the priests and to leave the corners of their fields for the poor. However, there was no criminal punishment for not doing this. Also, a farmer could decide for himself how big of corner to leave.

I think that charity is the responsibility of an individual. Now, granted, the ability to pool resources to a central location for charity does allow for a greater number of people to be helped. That is what churches are for. I believe that many churches have abdicated their responsibility to provide charity to their local community to the government. That is not how it should be. God had gifted His sons and daughters with the skills, abilities, and gifts they need to change their community. When we allow government to meet the needs that we were purposed for, we are doing a great injustice to those in need and to ourselves. Government must give without discrimination. Churches, though, can place requirements on charity that allow them to address the spiritual issues that cause a person to be in need. Voluntary communism (which is the example of the churches in Acts where each gave everything he had and all shared alike) is noble and God-like. Forcing people to share breaks an individuals right to life and self-determination, and therefore, falls outside of God's plan for mankind.

Fine, so Jesus would probably not vote for John Kerry on social and economical issue. What about the War on Terror? Many Christians wrongly assume that Jesus was Jesus a pacifist and would not vote for a guy who believes that war is sometimes necessary. The Ecclesiastes writer says "there is a time for peace and time for a war," God commanded the Israelites to go to war to claim the territory that He decreed to them, and the crucifixion was the Atom Bomb of the Spiritual War. We can conclude that war is not incompatible with the nature of God, and thus, not incompatable with the nature of Jesus. Jesus didn't mind resorting to violence to free the oppressed and remind the leadership to not use their positions for personal gain. It is my belief that the War on Terror is a spiritual battle that is bleeding over into the physical realm; so Jesus would vote for the candidate best able to lead that charge.

Golly, this is quite the diatribe. I could go on and on about how I think Christ would vote on certain issues and why. I think this post has the greatest chance of sparking controversy. There will be some disagreement with this post and so, I encourage you to use my comments feature to let me know where you disagree and why. I have had comments enabled since June 22 (just shy of two months) without a single real comment. I guess my stunning intellect leaves you all trembling in your shoes.