As you know if you read this blog, I was not a supporter of Barack Obama. However, he won fair and square and will become the next President of the United States of America. I admire him, and wish him well. I will pray for him and support him as far as my conscience will allow.
My thoughts the last few days have been more along the lines of how will life, work and the living out of an orthodox Christian faith be affected in the next four years? I don’t have lots of answers yet, but here are a few others who have been thinking along the same lines, and coming up with some good early thoughts that I appreciate and find helpful.
Michael Hyatt - President of Thomas Nelson Publishers – My Four Commitments to Barack Obama
Cal Thomas – syndicated writer and columnist – Transforming Culture
Ajith Fernando – National Director of Youth for Christ in Sri Lanka – Thoughts After the US Elections
- In the history of the church, sometimes when she faced some challenges to its beliefs and practices, she responded with restatements and demonstrations that presented the Christian truths challenged in a more beautiful, clear, appealing, persuasive and practical light. I pray that this would be the response to possible challenges coming to our belief in the sanctity of heterosexual marriage and the sanctity of human life.
- We must always battle for legislation that accords with the plan of the Creator of humanity. Surely, the Creator’s plan alone is what is best for humans. Therefore, legislators must continue their battle for social righteousness. However, no amount of bad legislation can overcome the power, the joy, the appeal and the goodness of biblical morality demonstrated in the lives of Christians. We now have the challenge of demonstrating this afresh.
- Whether we like it or not, people in the non-western world associate Christianity with the USA. Recently there has been a growing sense among people in the non-western world that the USA is not concerned about or sensitive to their feelings, sentiments and convictions. There even has been a sense that the US thinks it is superior to others. Because of the unhealthy association of the USA with Christianity, this sense has negatively affected people’s attitude towards the gospel. Insensitivity is alien to the Christian spirit, as Christians are those who become all things to all people so that by all means they may save some (1 Cor. 9:22). Superiority is alien to the Christian spirit because this spirit springs from grace—resulting in the acknowledgment that all our merit is undeserved—and issues in Christians always in humility counting others better than themselves (Philip. 2:3).
Christianity Today – The Evangelical Electoral Map (This is interesting)
A friend read the post above and sent me a private email saying, “I was happy to see that you did not support Obama and appreciated the articles and links you posted about his views on socialism and abortion. What saddens me most is how many Christian friends of ours voted for Obama … I was just wondering what your thoughts were on why so many Christians voted for him.”
I have several thoughts on this.
1 – Barack Obama is thoroughly post-modern in his thinking and worldview. Many younger people in the evangelical church have also adopted this worldview perspective, or are at the very least heavily influenced by it. This is part of the attraction… they feel kindred spirit because they view reality in similar patterns and through a similar grid.
2 – The evangelical church has done a very poor job in passing on a balanced view of the Christian faith to the “Net Generation” – defined as the generation born after 1987. We have focused primarily on “right-thinking” and “right-belief” (also know as orthodoxy), and neglected “right-living” and right-practice” (also known as orthopraxy). We have largely assumed that if we told our kids what to believe, and told them that what we believed was right, they would accept this and be like us.
This has not happened. Our kids have grown up in a world and culture where everything is being questioned. Even the possibility of knowing truth is questioned. This calls for a church to not only focus on orthodoxy, but to demonstrate that it is real on the experientail level as well. It demands that we be authentic in our faith and live it out, in line with what we say we believe. Sadly, we have not done this. The demographic statistics for “Christians” and the rest of society are almost the same. We get divorced, have abortions, sleep around, etc… just as much as the world around us. We are virtually no different. We have lost credibility.
I think your observation about the voting patterns is the result of this trend. Many younger “evangelicals” do not have a worldview foundation that makes certain views, beliefs and behaviors non-negotiable and incompatible with orthodoxy. Many tend to view these issues as relative, and changeable in importance based upon the circumstances.
Our response (orthodox Christians) to this trend will be telling. We will either see the needs and change the way we live and engage the culture, or we will hunker down, and retreat from the “world.”
In some ways, I think this radical shift in politics, and the likely changes coming in our culture could be very good for the church. We needed a kick in the but… question is, will we see it for what it is and get going on the transformation that is needed in our own lives and outlook. That is the challenge I face and am thinking about these days.
On a further note, today I received an email report from the Barna Group, on how the “faith” vote turned out. I think the following paragraph sums it up well.
So, it is possible that Evangelicals in the rest of the country made up for the perception that we share that many younger evangelicals voted for Barack Obama, or that more “older evangelicals” offset the perception.
I guess there is one more possibility… that younger evangelicals did not actually vote for Barack Obama more than they would have any other Democrat candidate.
The evangelical church has done a very poor job in passing on a balanced view of the Christian faith to the “Net Generation” – defined as the generation born after 1987. We have focused primarily on “right-thinking” and “right-belief” (also know as orthodoxy), and neglected “right-living” and right-practice” (also known as orthopraxy).
This ties in with how Brian McLaren begins his recent book “Finding our way again”. He tells of a time he interviewed someone (Dr Senge) with an audience of 500 Christian pastors listening. Dr Senge asked the audience “Why are books on Buddhism so popular and not books on Christianity?” Then he replied “I think it’s because Buddhism presents itself as a way of life, and Christianity presents itself as a system of belief. So I would want to get Christian ministers thinking about how to rediscover their own faith as a way of life, because that’s what people are searching for today. That’s what they need most.”