On the Fourth of July this year I attended a big patriotic pageant at a local Protestant (Evangelical Free) church. I’m patriotic and I revere veterans and I like the Andrews Sisters and all that, but of course this doesn’t have anything to do with church. World War II also isn’t really what we are celebrating on Independence Day, but nevermind. Towards the end, the pastor came up gave a rousing speech about how important it is that our currency says “In God We Trust.”

What do you think? Does God bless Nations? It seems important for many Protestants in America to fight to Keep America Christian, but as I see it we already have by far a secular/atheistic/idol-worshiping society. It seems like we can give up that fight, and embrace our minority status, and focus on our salvation and on loving and teaching our neighbor.

In terms of Abortion, it seems at least helpful to keep up the dialogue. Maybe this is a cliché, but I look at countries like the ex-USSR and India where nobody has even heard that it is wrong, and just do it en masse without thinking–including the particularly disgusting late-term abortion–and that doesn’t seem like something I could ignore if it came to my own land.

This is interesting to me - you and I start from the same place: a disconnect from politics. Your Father taught me the same Lenten path (although it was during my first Advent at HTC) and I liked it so much I try it most of the time (other than the Internet).

Although I see myself (and recognise a blog is supposed to be) a media source: therefore while it is all personally flavoured, I report what is enjoyable…

I can’t say what would have happened with Gore or with me in 1600 PA Ave. We go along. Politically I have many readers who would disagree with you, but I am with you 100% here:

Christ had nothing to do with politics–much to the shock and disappointment of his followers. The “eastern” tradition is more concerned with an ascetical withdrawal from the world in preparation for the Judgment, than with creating a better social order here on earth (let alone a Utopia). We look back on the Conversion of Constantine and are not sure whether it was a blessing or a tragedy.

That was, ultimately, why I was asking the question posed in this post. Killing our children is evil…

But there are so many other things that set a woman in the position that pose the question, that set a family into the situation to consider the option, etc, that I don’t know that *simply* voting against it is any more an answer.

The Christians in the Roman Empire (where abortion was legal even after the fact) lived their lives and grew by keeping babies alive. Using that as a political model: they didn’t set out to change the laws, they set out to live differently and change the world.

And they did.

I think that’s the political model we should use…

I guess I just don’t get the fascination with politics. Christ had nothing to do with politics–much to the shock and disappointment of his followers. The “eastern” tradition is more concerned with an ascetical withdrawal from the world in preparation for the Judgment, than with creating a better social order here on earth (let alone a Utopia). We look back on the Conversion of Constantine and are not sure whether it was a blessing or a tragedy.

That is, I totally find politics addictive, but during Lent I shut off radio, tv, and internet news/politics, and try to focus on the people around whom I live. That is perhaps the ultimate sin to most Liberals, and words like uninformed, closed-minded, and xenophobic come into play. But, seriously? While I’m not paying attention, it all keeps going just the same without me.

But we’re talking about voting. Ah yes, every American’s patriotic duty! The “Which Party Will Screw Me Less” Game. While I do have views on everything, in the end I think almost every issue is morally ambiguous. I mean, it’s not like anyone in American politics is actually a Stalin, and if there were, we couldn’t vote against him anyway! War is never good, but wasn’t it good to unseat Hussein? Didn’t Al Qaeda declare war on us first, and didn’t we simply choose the battleground–far away from home–and thus not suffered further attacks in our own land? I see the validity to these points, even though overall I fall squarely on what they call the “Anti-War” side (in terms of Iraq) (as I’m sure you guys do).

But, can you say with assurance what you would have done in Bush’s place on/around 9/11? Do you think Gore would have done anything different? I doubt it. I also doubt that there is an ounce of difference in the way Obama or McCain will handle it from this point on. And that goes for most issues. They’re both just media darlings with no substance.

But I digress. The ONLY issue that comes anywhere near to being morally black-&-white is abortion. It’s only grey around the edges–its core is black as night. The issue is not an “idol” to me. In our country, nobody talks about it; no politician makes it an issue; it never comes up on a ballot. So it’s only The Most Important Issue to me in an abstract sense. Maybe in Italy it’s different. I don’t know.

“Abortion is worse than anything else I can imagine, so it trumps all other issues. As long as the man is not directly killing innocent babies, he is better than someone who does not sufficiently oppose the direct killing of innocent babies by abortion, regardless of circumstances, even if he is opposed to killing innocent babies through indiscriminate warfare, or by ignoring the reality of famine and so on.”

More recently, some have trumpeted terrorism as the worst possible thing. If a person is a terrorist, or not sufficiently opposed to terrorism, or even remotely connected to someone else who may not be sufficiently anti-terrorist, then that person must not be elected.

So, does terrorism trump abortion? Pro-life people have been known to kill doctors, haven’t they? Oh, but that’s to stop the murders. And what do you think terorists are trying to do? Many think they are trying to stop what they perceive as the murder of innocent victims by the military and economic policies of their enemies.

Does support for gay rights trump opposition to health care access for the poor? Do I vote for someone who supports my right to marry my partner, but who gets most of his financial backing from Big Pharm and consistently votes against health care initiatives that he proclaims are steps along the way to socialized medicine?

Does support of universal health care trump support for teaching only Intelligent Design in schools and teaching that global warming is a myth? There must be some compassionate conservatives out there who want universal health care but are adamantly opposed to teaching impressionable children about “the theory of evolution” or the anti-business propaganda of tree-huggers.

It seems to me — and what do I know? — that making any issue the ONE and ONLY ISSUE risks turning that issue into an idol before which all else must be sacrificed. And we all know what the Bible says about idols. (And I don’t think the issue here is iconoclasm or iconodulia.)

As for all of it, I am taught that we try for progress. Just because perfection is not yet in our grasp (it can only be a Gift, anyway, from SomeOne Else), doesn’t mean we opt out.

Though I admit that I find opting out attractive at times.

It’s simple. The Republican party did not keep its promises on those issues that called me to support them, in spite of the things with which I disagreed. And, the moral weaknesses of the Republican party piled up to the point that they seemed to overcome the moral weaknesses of the Democrats, who now have a candidate that may very well presage some significant change.

I am still very worried about the Democrats. The far-left grouping is still a scary bunch of people who remind me of the Lenin and Castro types. In other words, give me power and I will return the favor by making sure you never get power back again.

But, what were the moral weaknesses that caused me to turn against the Republicans? They are mainly social: a middle class that is becoming quite stressed, out of control healthcare costs, workplace rules that increasingly allow mistreatment of workers, etc., etc. That is, I was forced to weigh the Democratic support for the murder of babies against the Republican lack of protections for its own citizens. Oddly enough, I consider the war to be an issue that favors neither side, because the Democratic statements are often either incredibly naive or deliberately misleading.

So, why did I not choose Republicans, again, based on abortion? Because they have not seriously tried to stop it. It does them no good to have a plank on abortion that they do not enforce, whereas I have a reasonable hope that the Democratic planks on social issues may very well be enforced.

Your reply backs up the suspicion I voiced: if you assume the murder of children is the greatest evil the rest doesn’t matter. While I’m convinced it’s evil I can’t say it’s *so* evil as to offset any good one might otherwise do. (Just as I can’t imagine that “gay” is such an overarching good as to offset any other problems.)

To be clear: it seems just as odd to think of other issues as “most important”, even in the short term: pro/anti-war. Gas prices, etc. Not that anyone will be perfect, but it seems that one has to pick a whole package - and be responsible for it. Those voters who, for example, unthinkingly voted for GWB over John Kerry *simply* because GWB was pro-life must answer for their support of the Iraqi War as well.

Your last paragraph touches on something that, increasingly, I fear none of us will be able to ignore - no matter who gets into office in November.

Very nice to hear from you. Oddest coincidence (?) as I just posted a link on Facebook to the Schmemann.org website.

Long time no… anything. ;-) Greetings from Wisconsin!

Anyway, I guess as I see it, yeah, if you believe that abortion is the murder of babies, then that is the great evil of our age, and things like big government/small government, gun control, tobacco, death penalty, war on terror, and the rest of the laundry list of unrelated topics are essentially irrelevant in comparison.

It’s not that “He’s pro-life, he must be in line with me on other issues as well.” It’s also not that “He’s pro-life, I should fall in line with him on other issues as well because he must be right.”

It’s just that, well, I don’t care enough about the other issues.

Granted, I live in a country where liberties are considered to be God-given and therefore inviolate–so I have the luxury to ignore politics for the most part. A luxury which my father didn’t have in the USSR, for example.

Anyway, cool to run into you out here in the blogosphere…