Please continue in much prayer for the election coming up November 7th.
Every day as I pray about this, and as I have been reading through 2 Chronicles at the same time, it does not seem to me that our country is in the same situation as ancient Israel in that period, where the leaders were all corrupt and led the people astray, and God brought judgment. Yes, there have been some corrupt people exposed in both parties (as the Lord in his providence “cleans house” and brings sin to light), but they surely do not represent the vast majority of people in politics today.
As I think through the different branches of US government (executive, beginning with the President, then the legislative branch, and judicial branch), and think about many people in leadership at the state level, I know of many, many people who are seeking to do right for our nation and are praying earnestly that God would grant blessing and success to their efforts. Many of them openly profess their faith in Jesus Christ, and many others are unbelievers but (by God’s common grace) are genuinely seeking to do what is right for the nation and have basically good goals for the nation (or so it seems to me).
Particularly with regard to President Bush, I was praying this morning, asking, “Lord, if you will not help this kind of a courageous President who earnestly seeks to follow you, and continually seeks to walk in paths of righteousness, then what kind of President will you ever help?” He has been frustrated by a wayward and timid Congress, and especially by a foolish Senate rule that effectively requires 60 votes to pass anything, but he himself has steadfastly done just what I (at least) had hoped he would do with regard to:
(a) appointing two excellent Supreme Court justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito,
(b) appointing dozens and dozens of Circuit Court and District Court judges who are committed to just interpreting laws, not making new laws from the bench,
(c) defense against terror – astoundingly, he has kept us free from attack for over 5 years (and been criticized and attacked for every part of that effort), and he has seen democratic governments established in the Afghanistan and Iraq, setting in motion a movement to change the history of the world by marginalizing Islamic terrorism in Muslim countries,
(d) school choice, doing what he can to promote this most significant of all needs to help overcome poverty,
(e) abortion – he signed the partial birth abortion ban law that President Clinton vetoed twice (1996 and 1997), and he has consistently been pro-life,
(f) support for a Constitutional amendment on marriage (which the New Jersey Supreme Court ruling last week shows we clearly need),
(g) the economy, pushing through several tax cuts that help everyone, and as the tax cuts have helped the economy they have done much good for the poor who need jobs, so that the economy has weathered both 9/11 and the 2001 recession and is now booming, the Dow Jones average is at its highest point in history, and we produce three times more goods and services than any economy in the world (we now produce about 33% of the world’s goods and services, and no other nation comes close),
(h) creation of jobs, with economic policies that have given a strong economy so that people who want jobs can find them (the unemployment rate today is only 4.4%, the lowest in years), something again that especially helps the poor,
(i) wise use of the environment, resisting the immense pressure to bring us onboard with the foolish Kyoto Protocol that is now harming European economies and helping nothing, and wisely supporting more domestic production of energy (especially ANWR in Alaska),
(j) embryonic stem cell research (that is, the creation of the beginnings of little babies just to harvest their parts), restricting federal funding and taking immense criticism for it,
(k) huge increases in aid to overcome AIDS in Africa, along with promotion of abstinence-based programs, for which he has again taken immense criticism,
(l) Social Security – he told the truth, and had plans to rescue it, but the timid Congress didn’t have the courage to touch it,
(m) faith-based programs – by executive order he is ending the discrimination against faith-based social services that actually work in changing lives through the power of Christ, and he had other excellent ideas, but couldn’t get Congress to go along,
(n) a sensible, comprehensive immigration program that included securing the border, some kind of path to citizenship for those who have broken no other laws and have been here working for some time, and also a documented guest worker program – good ideas, to my mind, in line with biblical injunctions to care for the “alien and sojourner,” but also including measures to punish those who do wrong -- but the Congress would not do much about it,
(o) racial justice and reconciliation, appointing prominent African-American and Hispanic citizens to high government posts, and pushing for education reform, which would do more than perhaps anything to overcome persistent Black poverty (but the Democrats and the public school lobby have fought this tooth and nail),
(p) seeking to repeal the wrongful “death tax” on personal estates (but the Democrats blocked it in the Senate, because of the foolish rule needing 60 votes to pass anything, never intended by our Constitution),
(q) appointment of wise, tough diplomats to key posts, like John Bolton at the UN, Condoleezza Rice as Sec. of State, and Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank,
(r) personal conduct that is “above reproach,” giving moral leadership to the nation by example of life and by kindness that amazes me toward those in politics and in the press who continue relentlessly to attack him,
Continued... |