I was reading some of the press today about the Super Tuesday primaries. It seems as if everyone has an opinion on who should win and why.
In one of my class's the conversation of who we should vote for came up. It started because the professor was talking about who he voted for and the reason why. I'll call the professor, "mumbling professor" because he always mumbles whenever he talks. So mumbling professor says, "I voted for John McCain because he seems to be a solid person." I wondered in my mind what he meant by that. A student seemed to have read my mind and asked him, "What do you like about John McCain?" Mumbling Professor responded by saying, "Well you know he was a P.O.W (prisoner of war) so he has a lot of character. That kind of experience, you know, makes him rich."
This made me go hmm in my mind. Is that how we choose our leaders these days? As I broke down what mumbling professor said into logical terms, his argument for why he chose John McCain in my words are:
1. John McCain was dumb enough to get caught by the VietCong.
2. As he was caught, he survived.
3. This series of getting caught and surviving makes him rich in person and solid.
I was dumbfounded by mumbling professor. This guy not only has a masters degree, he has a phd and is in the process of publishing his work.
If anyone would mesh the ideologies of Christ and the power of politics together, it should be this guy! But no, he is happy that John McCain, the man he voted for was a p.o.w.
I wonder if Christ was still here today who he would vote for. I think thats an interesting question isn't it? If Christ was still on our earth today I wonder what he would be looking for in a presidential candidate.
I think that Christ would be looking for more then what either political party candidates have been saying as part of their campaigns. Jesus would be looking for faith. He would be looking for a person that would have faith to trust in him and to lean on him for advice. Jesus would be looking for a person who had more then just ears and eyes. He would be looking for that person to use those eyes to see the brokenness of the people and for those ears to listen to the stories of the poor. Jesus would be looking for a heart. A heart that seeks to love the other. To love the unloved. Jesus would not care if the candidate was black, white, asian, male or female. I would think that Christ would look beyond those trivial aspects of a candidate.
Jesus and politics is an ideal that we should think about deeply. We cannot vote because of political party or because of a dislike of a person. What shapes our view of policies and the men and women that we vote for should come from an understanding of Jesus and his views on justice, economics, and power.
Now if only we can find a person who represents those values.
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2 comments:
Even if someone were to have "Christian" values, or some moral/ethical philosophy that is modeled after Christian values, you never know how those values will play out in real life situations. They may or may not be real to the person in practice than in theory. Look at our President now... makes me raise an eyebrow to every candidate who waves their Christian flag as to get the "Christian" vote.
Although, voting for Obama because he's black, Clinton because she's a woman, and McCain because he's a war vet are equally bad reasons.
I think the important question then is, "What should we be looking for then when we vote?"
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