Over the past few days I've heard from people who have been elated at the election of Barack Obama to the office of President of the United States. I have also spoken with people who are furious about his election and are convinced that America is done for, that he is a socialist, anti-American and a secret Muslim (yes this idea is still out there).
What's interesting to me is that all of the people I have spoken to, without exception, would state that Jesus Christ is their Lord and Savior.
How can this be?
There are number of reasons for this...
- The priority that we put on certain social issues
- The best way to address certain social issues
- Questions of foreign policy
- What we think is the best economic policy for the country
- How we were raised
- The influence of our peers
This is a short list and I'm sure many more issues could be added and each of the above could be expanded greatly.
My point is simply this, Christians did vote for candidates of different parties for many different reasons and that's OK. No political party in the United States (or any country) represents the Kingdom of God and neither party in the United States is so anti-Christian or so wholly Christian in its morality that it would require all Christians who chose to vote to vote for only one party.
The election is over, Barack Obama is the President elect. Romans 13 will apply as much to Christians under the national leadership of Obama as it did under the leadership of Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter... all the way back to Washington and even King George!
My prayer is that followers of Jesus, from both sides of the divide and even those in the middle, will pick up their bibles, read them and be challenged by what they read. That we will see our own imperfections and take the logs out of our own eyes before we go after the specks in the eyes of others.
