Three Views and Points of Advise for Christian Patriots in Tomorrow’s Election:

1.  THE 2006 MID-TERM ELECTIONS: SURPRISE ENDORSEMENTS

                - by Rick Marschall, Managing Editor, Rare Jewel Magazine

2. GOP "PARTY OF DEATH," TOO

                -  by Chuck Baldwin, Constitution Party 2004 Vice-Presidential Candidate

3.  EVANGELICALS AT THE CROSSROADS

                -  by Rod Martin, Founder and Chairman of TheVanguard.Org

A Word from the Publisher

Ultimately if we’re to change America and restore its Christian foundation we need the Holy Spirit to change the hearts and minds of American citizens. However, that should not prevent Christian Patriots as “salt and light” in politics and culture to actively work to destroy all philosophies that are against God (2 Corinthians 10:5) and to replace them with principles, laws, and practices consistent with a Biblical worldview. Fighting the Culture War on these two battlefronts—restoring America’s Christian foundation via “bottom-up” Christian discipleship and “top-down” political activism—is necessary. If we neglect the latter, and Christians avoid political involvement, then our nation is assured of its destruction (“For lack of guidance a nation falls” Proverbs 11:14).

A primary means for Christians to provide “guidance” is to vote on Election Day. Our instructions from God are clear, “Select capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain—and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens” (Exodus 18:21).

My great-great-great-great-great grandfather, Reverend Gad Hitchcock, preached an Election Day Sermon in Boston on May 25, 1774. He stated, “When a people have rulers set over them, of a religious character on the gospel plan—who own and submit to Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour, who are sanctified by the divine spirit and grace, and, in a good measure, purified from those corrupt principles which too often work in the human heart, they have reason to expect the presence and blessing of God will be with them, and that things will go well in the state.”

Forty-two years later the first United States Supreme Court Chief Justice, John Jay, echoed Hitchcock’s teaching: “Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers.”

Christians make up the largest voting bloc in America. If Christians obeyed God and voted according to Biblical guidelines, we should expect that “things will go well in the state.”

The following three articles provide various points of perspective for the Christian voter. On this Election Eve, read each of these and prayerfully consider the advice and assertions. The first two articles challenge the common approach to voting by “choosing the lesser of two evils” while the third makes a case for doing just that.

For God and Country,

Tim Ewing

Founder, Rare Jewel Magazine

tim@rarejewelmag.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1.  THE 2006 MID-TERM ELECTIONS: SURPRISE ENDORSEMENTS

- by Rick Marschall, Managing Editor, Rare Jewel Magazine

If you are 100 per cent sure of the candidates you intend to vote for this Tuesday, Nov 7, 2006, by all means run, don’t walk, to your precinct’s voting booth and cast your ballot. If you are a Christian Patriot and have prayed over that vote – candidates, issues, and propositions – you likely have prepared all that you should.

If a shadow of doubt, or unease, inhabits your decision, please read this proposition.

If you are a Christian Patriot who belongs to one of the pollster’s categories – “unhappy with the direction the country is headed” – maybe you should stop voting against candidates more than voting for other ones. Maybe you should mark your ballots NONE OF THE ABOVE. Maybe you should write in names of people you admire, even if they “have no chance of winning.”

Maybe you should stay home.

I know all the arguments about non-voters getting the kind of government they deserve. I’ve heard all the clichés about non-voters surrendering the right to complain when things displease them. It is all nonsense, of course. Since Uncle Sam discarded the fine old suit that represented a Republican form of government, and started wearing that slick polyester outfit called Democracy, one of the new civic ground rules exalted Bellyaching to a forensic art. Whether it’s welfare mamas or illegal immigrants, those who yell the loudest get their way in the United States of America.

So vote or no vote, you can yelp. Or not yelp. We’re excruciatingly close to the official point, in this place called America, where Christian Patriots’ votes don’t count anyway. Big Media tells us we’re deranged psychopaths. Liberals tell us we’re bloodthirsty Fascists. Post-modernists tell us we’re not compassionate enough. The courts tell us we’re inventing new and spectacular forms of repression. Muslims take their feet off each other’s throats just long enough to kick sand on us. Abortionists probably reserve their most novel methods of euthanasia for us, once they establish American gulags.

In truth, the art direction of a Newsweek cover; the choices between “leads” and “spiked stories” in The New York Times; the arch of a network anchor’s eyebrow; the “play” of stories – the choice of adjectives that color news-copy – all these things have immensely more impact on the ultimate democratic process than a dozen Senate speeches, a hundred town meetings, a thousand pamphlets. Maybe even more effect than several lobbyist’s cocktail receptions or even a couple of well-placed bribes of politicians.

Net effect: Christian Patriots are out in the cold.

Oh, if you Googled us, you’d be forgiven for thinking we actually had an impact on the political process. As in: Republicans love us; Democrats hate us; Conservatives understand us; Liberals fear us. You don’t have to search Google – you see it on, well, Newsweek cover stories; and on cable news channels, where evangelical leaders are paraded on for their 12 minutes, interrupted by ignorant suppositions and outnumbered by opposing voices.

The main function of the Christian Patriot, in the political process, in recent years has been to be the plantation slave of the Republican Party. We have been whipped into frenzies – and compliantly whipped our fellow believers into similar frenzies – by the prospects of partial-birth abortions and same-sex marriages. So we get people to change their registrations, or rouse friends from their torpor and persuade them to vote straight Republican.

Let’s not neglect the liberals and Democrats: we have served an essential function for them too: the new national sport has become caricaturing, demonizing, and distorting Christian Patriots and what we hold dear. Like drug fiends who constantly crave higher highs, liberals and Democrats are not content to twist contemporary truth: they re-write history and condemn all segments of humanity that hold faith and values dear (unless they are hostile to Christian faith and values).

So, as to the proposition that the system has failed us, I will address the plaints of those who claim progress-by-votes in the political wars. Seven-ninths of the Supreme Court is Republican, yet it and the federal bench (likewise Republican majority) has delivered us the removal of the Bible from public schools, the outlawing of prayer in public places, abortion, abortion-on-demand, the denial of parental notification of abortion, making displays of crosses and manger scenes illegal, euthanizing helpless invalids like Terri Schiavo, the state’s sanction of perverting the sanctity of marriage, blessing the sin of homosexual practice with state sanctions… so on and so forth.

This – and worse – has happened on our watch, enacted by our “servants,” enforced by our heroes. And yet what gets Christian Patriots whooped up in this election cycle? Two words: Speaker Pelosi! Boo!

We should be storming the courthouses and throwing rotten vegetables at the honorable politicians instead of explaining to friends at church that they should vote for, say, someone “soft” on homosexual rights because, you see, we need to organize the majority so that, see?, committee chairmen can shepherd, like, strong court nominees through, and then, hey, we’ll get the courts deciding everything our way. Speaking of storming courthouses, if King George had added “no Bibles in American schools” to his list of indignities, do you think that earlier set of Christian Patriots would have rolled over? Or let’s say Muslims take over the United States, and outlaw New Testaments and prayers and crosses and manger scenes and – ssssh! – saying Merry Christmas to shoppers. Would we stand for it? Why do we do little more than lick envelopes at campaign headquarters when it is, instead, some idiots in black robes who attack the core of our American heritage – our rights – who should be our focus?

In recent weeks we have seen the unraveling of the pleasant fiction that conventional political action can lead to a Promised Land for Christian Patriots; that the Republican Party has been our invariable ally and reliable friend. David Kuo, former Deputy Director of President Bush’s White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, has written (Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction. Free Press, 2006) of the cynical political use of clergy contacts and of dismissive treatment in private of Christian leaders… at least, Kuo says, in equal proportion to the genuine personal faith and sincerity about some issues on the part of Bush, Karl Rove, and others.

We were told that Harriet Meiers, a likely third-rater, should have been supported for the Supreme Court because she was a woman of faith who prayed. We are assured the same thing about George Bush. Yet isn’t this a bottom-line expectation of all our leaders? Why does this news about a politician make Christian Patriots suspend other criteria?

Meanwhile, let us leave moral issues aside for a paragraph. If Christian Patriots, in their Traditionalist modes, are upset that the friends we have elected have abandoned all the provisions of the Contract with America – to be precise: breaking their word – and driven up deficits, printed black-checks for countless pork-barrel and entitlement programs, presided over all sorts of corruption… then we Christian Patriots must see the blood on our own hands. We put these people in office, we anointed them, we sustained them, we supported them, usually unquestioningly. George Bush is Commander-in-Chief, but Christian voters have been the Enablers-in-Chief.

So now comes another election, and another series of impassioned “barbarians at the gates” threats from our typical friends. Again. And, again: “Trust us. We’ll come though this time. We’re your best friends.”

I, for one, am inclined to say, “none of the above.” Maybe “throw the rascals out,” whoever the incumbent is. I’ve come to the point where I wonder whether voting only encourages them. Or whether – more seriously – that if I see the whole system as so rotten as all I have described… then maybe I’ve got to stop contributing to it.

You see, we should be more afraid of what happens if we are out of God’s will, if our actions anger Him, than whether we please (or displease) other people, for instance by putting our faith in politics.

I can save some of you postage stamps (or electrons) if you are preparing to rhetorically wring my neck and challenge this point of view: you would ask whether I realize the implications of a Democrat Congress, a liberal bureaucracy (huh?), the courts given over to radicals (double-huh?), and various boogeymen like Speaker Pelosi, Chairmen Rangel, Kennedy, Kerry, and Barney Frank? Of course I realize that it would be calamitous.

Worse than what we have now? Let’s think:

Christian Patriots can stop being parts of the problem, and return to meaningful opposition.

The assorted gang of traitors, perverts, and airheads (that is, the new gang) would scarcely be able to accomplish much, at least in two years. Remember how successful the liberals and Democrats have been – although in the minority – at stymieing any decent legislative initiatives? If the new Opposition did not learn from those daily lessons, they do not deserve to govern again.

Speaking of governing again: although it is a biological improbability, in two years the assorted and erstwhile allies – Christian Patriots, conservatives, traditionalists, even Republicans – could even grow spines.

These previous scenarios are predicated on the supposition that one or both houses of Congress will change party-control this Tuesday. Maybe not. But if so, maybe not for the worse in the ultimate scheme of things. God not only chastises those whom He loves, but He has used enemies of His people as instruments of His wrath, His correction, His purpose. For my sourcebook, I refer to… practically the entire Old Testament.

If God would allow the destruction of the Temple, if He allowed the Babylonian captivity, and – this is important – if America currently is an offense to the Almighty (add pornography, widespread child abuse, adultery and divorce, greed, false gods, and pride to the lists above)… then we must shiver at the thought of judgments to come.

So if you have ever compared the two parties and said you were voting for the lesser of two evils – or if you’re thinking that way this year – stop treating it as a joke. The lesser of two evils is STILL evil.

I’m going to close with a quotation – I honestly believe a letter written directly to us, here, at this time – from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The letters He dictated to John on the Isle of Patmos and recorded in the Book of Revelation were addressed to real churches in real places. Yet many scholars believe that history is progressively revealed in the letters to the seven churches, that in dispensational terms the churches, their problems, and their challenges, reflect the situation the Church has found itself in throughout history.

So it was to the church at Laodicea, John addressed these words from Jesus:

“I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were cold or hot. But because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spit you out of My mouth. Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked— I offer you gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.”

[Revelation 3: 15-20]

One election pales when compared to this standard – our overarching responsibility to serve God, fervently, at all costs… and with the promise of this astonishing result.

It’s hard to mark a ballot while you’re using one hand to hold your nose. Should this be the year we stop doing that?

Maybe we can start discovering our true friends, our measurable purity… and our strength as Christian Patriots, doing God’s work in God’s kingdom.

2. GOP "PARTY OF DEATH," TOO

-  by Chuck Baldwin, Constitution Party 2004 Vice-Presidential Candidate

Chuck recommends Christians put Biblical principles over politics when choosing candidates. Read his article at the Constitution Party website:

http://www.constitutionparty.com/news.php?aid=348

3.  EVANGELICALS AT THE CROSSROADS

-  by Rod Martin, Founder and Chairman of TheVanguard.Org

Rod Martin counters the above two viewpoints in his article posted on The Conservative Voice website:

http://www.theconservativevoice.com/articles/article.html?id=19912

Rod D. Martin is Founder and Chairman of TheVanguard.Org (http://www.thevanguard.org), America’s premier conservative movement online. A writer, speaker and technology entrepreneur, former special counsel to PayPal.com Founder Peter Thiel and policy director to Arkansas Gov Mike Huckabee, he is a member of the Arlington Group and of the Council for National Policy’s Board of Governors, and also serves as Executive Vice President of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies (NFRA), “the Republican Wing of the Republican Party”.