Apparently some Pastors are using their pulpits to endorse a candidate in this election. I have mixed emotions about this. I believe that a pastor should have the right to make it known who they will vote for and why they will vote for them. I believe that a pastor should have an interest in the community and therefore politics.

However, does a pastor have the authority to say “Who”  his congregation should vote for? if so, who gives him that authority…show me where. Whose WILL is the pastor enforcing? Does a church-member have the right to ask God who to vote for instead of relying on the Pastor’s will? If a church-member votes opposite of the Pastor, are they committing a sin?

Obama is being attacked by the “Religious Right” because of his stance on abortion and gay marriage. Some christians will overlook every other sin except those two. They could care less about:

  1. Loving their neighbors(even homosexuals and deathrow inmates)
  2. not lying (George Bush)
  3. not stealing (as in Golden Parachute)
  4. not coveting (as in I will not covet my neighbor’s oil)
  5. not committing adultery (one of the presidential candidates has while the other hasn’t)

Our current economic crisis and on-going War in Iraq can be traced directly to the first three listed.

I am against both abortions and gay marriage. If you are a Christian, the answer is clear. They are both sinful behavior. Christians can’t endorse sinful behavior…or can they.

I want to address abortion.

What sin does abortion break? As far as I can tell, abortion is murder. Thou shalt not kill. That was easy enough. Abortion was banned in the Ten Commandments. But what about Capital Punishment? That’s murder as well. Who gives us the authority to condemn someone to death? Where is the uproar from the religious right concerning the Death Penalty! Here is a radical concept. The people on death row, usually have committed the most heinous crimes and may still be unrepentant/unsaved. Unborn babies are sinless. When either are murdered (abortion or death penalty) where do they go? Even if there was a 5000:1 abortion to death penalty ratio, that 1 death row murder would be more important if the inmate was unsaved. I’m not endorsing abortions. I lost a baby daughter to illness. I get comfort in knowing where she is now. She was not of the age of understanding.  Little children die and go to heaven. Where do unrepentant death-row inmates that are lawfully murdered go?

Obama does not support abortions. He does however advocate finding and fixing the root of the problem. Stopping unwanted pregnancies in the first place is a proactive solution. Banning abortions is a reactive and after-the-fact attempt at solving the  problem. Banning abortions will not change the rate of unwanted pregnancies. It will help increase the number of children:

  1. born into poverty,
  2. dropped of at hospitals and orphanages,
  3. born addicted to drugs,
  4. abused by unfit parents
  5. killed by unfit parents

Be careful for what you ask for.

As Christians, we can’t make people live or believe the same as we do. Christ didn’t do that. So why do we try to force our beliefs on people instead of just living our beliefs, glorifying the Father, and allowing our example to draw men to Jesus? That’s because we are pushing our own agendas instead of His.

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