54 Million Evangelical Christians; Any Difference?

In the MEME Senator Ted Cruz states that 54 million evangelical Christians didn’t vote.  That’s roughly 1/6 of the US citizens.  That is not the actual number that didn’t vote, just the evangelical Christians.

At face value, this seems like it could have turned a narrow victory into a windfall.  If we look at it deeper, I doubt that the actual percentages that each candidate would have received if they had turned out would be much different.  Why do I say that?

Ted assumes that the evangelical Christian are true followers of Christ, believe the Bible to be the infallible Word of God and that God’s Words are timeless (doesn’t change with the times or society). I don’t have a sanctioned study to back me up but I believe that this is not the case of many Christians, let alone the evangelical ones.

2 Case in points are the two biggies; abortion and LBGT rights.  I know many that feel it’s not up to them to correct anyone and that’s it between abortions/LBGT and God.  They say they may not be in favor of abortion, but it’s none of their business, let them and God hash it out.  LBGT isn’t hurting me, I’m not in favor of it, but let them and God hash it out.

Where and how can Christians, evangelical or otherwise, have such a nonchalant attitude towards these issues?  How can they justify the Bible and these sins?  Either these ‘Christians” don’t know their Bible (and I’m willing to bet they don’t) or God isn’t the same yesterday, today and tomorrow (which the Bible states) and thus disposes all Biblical authority.

Abortion is murder and homosexual behavior is an abomination of the life God created.  Unfortunately, those that have attended church may have heard that abortion is wrong and being gay is wrong.  And that’s about it.  Most churches don’t emphasize it, some won’t even talk about it and now, lots are endorsing it; at least the gay portion.

Many don’t even know why murder is wrong other than God said it was.  Of course that’s reason enough.  Most have no clue why gay and the LBGT is wrong other than God said it was.  And again, that’s reason enough.  The churches should be telling people why it is wrong, besides God said it.

But why should we expect the congregations to take any head into abortion and homosexuality being wrong?  There are other things that wrong but the church glosses over them as well.  Divorce, Civil unions and honesty to name but three.

Many churches require the intending couple to go through ‘premarital counseling’.  OK, I guess that’s good.  However, I know of no one that ended up no getting married because the premarital counseling showed them things about each other or marriage that would cause them to cancel their wedding plans. It’s nice that someone is showing interest in their relationship but what of showing interest in that relationship after the marriage?  Sure, if eh couple asks for marital counseling someone may give them some but by and large the church will shrug their shoulders, not get involved even though they/it knows there’s problems and just ignore the problem.

At the beginning of my split some 12 years ago from my ex, us both being “Christians”, I wanted to talk to the preacher (he wanted to be called pastor but he was far from a pastor) stated that he didn’t do counseling.  My ex insisted that he was the only one she would talk with and all he could say is that ‘Divorce Happens’.  Divorce certainly does happen.  However, he never mentioned that God hates divorce.  Not once.

Of course, my wife had already made her mind up long before us speaking with him about it.  If a preacher, or let’s pastor as he wanted to be titled, isn’t willing to counsel to potentially avoid a divorce, and if he doesn’t give the number one reason to not divorce, that being that God hates it, and if he wasn’t willing to try to intervene when he knew there were problems, then why should he or the church be against divorce?  For that matter, why put an additional burden on himself and the couple to do counseling before the marriage? Why have vowels that most couples break?  More than half of Christian couples divorce which is pretty much the same rate that non-Christian couple divorce.  The preacher performing the wedding ceremony is just setting up the couple to lie by stating the richer/poorer, sickness/health and so forth.  And for that matter, if the church is going to have such a nonchalant attitude toward marriage and divorce, then why perform marriages or encourage then at all?  Why not just tell them to go live together, get a civil union arrangement contract if it makes them feel better, and do the best they can.

These are the evangelical Christians Ted speaks of.  The numbers in this area show that the Christian pretty much has the same views as the non-Christian.

And many perceive that if a baby is made outside of marriage, it is an abomination.  Though the baby made have been conceived in sin, it certainly is not an abomination and is so very precious in God’s eyes. A marriage makes the method of baby making right, not non-marriage makes the baby wrong.

Man, and woman and babies, are made in the likeness of God.  Killing man, woman or babies is a direct attack on God.  For a Christian to sit back and make a statement that it’s between them and God, I’m voting for the guy that will put some extra cash in my pocket is non-Biblical.  Besides devaluing a human to the measly few dollars that a candidate promises to put back into your pocket, God commands us to look after the helpless and seek justice.  Although the ‘Blood on your hands” that He speaks of in the Old Testament is different but similar to the innocent blood in our society.

However, abortion is not a political issue.  It’s been made into a sudo one by laws being made around it; authorizing it.  But it is murder.  That is the law that is to take precedence.  But Christians gloss it over and reason it away.  It’s between someone else and God; now give me my few dollars.  Of course the church doesn’t speak directly about abortion much.  It will just, maybe, say it’s wrong.  Or some have even said it isn’t wrong but we need to cut down on the number of abortions.  Hillary Clinton said this during her campaign for president.  It isn’t wrong but we should reduce the numbers.  Talk about a fence sitting position.  If it isn’t wrong, then why the need to cut down?  Well, by saying it isn’t wrong, you keep the pro-abortion people happy and thus maintain their votes hopefully.  If you say we should cut down, you might get some new votes from those that are against abortion with a sketchy hope of maybe decreasing the number one murder type in America, abortion.

I suspect the churches do the same.  Let’s not talk much about it (in hushed voices ‘abortion’).  Maybe more people will come to church that way.  If this is what a church is doing then it is wrong.  Never ever should he Word of God be diluted in an attempt to bring new people to the Lord.  Period.

Add to that the Christians that just in it for business like insurance agents that get the Christian business but don’t have any ethics different than other insurance salesmen, business owners that clam a church congregation but certainly don’t show many signs of being a Christian, Christians making up lies about other Christians, Christian ex’s doing what they can to keep their ex from being with their children, Christians buying off people to keep them out of their hair.  “Christians” not really being any different than non-Christians, staining the word Christian, mispresenting Christians to non-Christians and making God ashamed.

I don’t know where Ted personally stands with the Lord.  However, the things he says and the ideas and policies he has tends to line up with what I believe God wants and what I believe is best for America.  Maybe he is just saying this to pander to the “evangelical Christian” for a vote, or maybe he really is a Christian trying to follow the decrees of the Lord as best he can within the best government, but not perfect, the world has ever seen.  I hope it is the later.

I’m gonna different a little here.  I get dinged for this often but….  Don’t do what the Christian does.  Sure, everyone is a sinner and at times a hypocrite.  But it seems that the Christian practices being a hypocrite.  Hey seem to meditate on it and how they can look or appear to be the Christian that society thinks Christians are.  Be the Christ follower.  Do what Christ says.  Yes, a Christ follower sins but they don’t practice how to avoid getting caught, they avoid trying to sin altogether.  They don’t practice being a hypocrite.  They don’t run people down or lie about them.  They admit their wrong doing not lie and pawn it off on someone else.  They don’t use the court system and lie to the Child Protective Services to keep children away from their non-custodial parents.  Hey sin but they try to avoid it.  They look at the Bible as the last word on any topic that it speaks directly of and look to it in guidance on anything that it indirectly speaks of.

Senator Ted Cruz believe that if the 54 million ‘evangelical Christians’ had gone out and voted that it would have made for an overwhelming victory last time and his pretense is that if these 54 million go out and vote this time, that the Republican party will come out on top.  Unfortunately Ted, I believe you put too much confidence and faith into these ‘evangelical Christians’.  As I encounter most Christians, I have trouble discerning them from anyone else in the world.  Often times, they have to tell me that they are Christian because their language, actions and works don’t show it.

When asked if he thought God was on his side, President Lincoln responded by saying that he hopes that he is on God’s side.  Are Christians on God's side?  Are you on God's side?

Before you vote, in fact in anything you do in life, ask yourself, is this what God is in favor of?  Does this this thing I am going to do line up with what God want or would want?  Most likely if you see or conclude that what God wants lines up with want you want, it’s a no brainer on what you should do.  However, not doing it, when you don’t like it and God does, is rebellion.

I don’t want this post to be a strictly political one.  It’s a two banger.  One, showing our hypocrisy at being a Christian.  Why the Christian influence isn’t there any longer (the Christian influence isn’t any different than that of the general populace unfortunately) and secondly choosing bad policy because you don’t like the on the other ticket.  I don’t believe there are any saints on either ticket.  I know there is a lot of bad on both.

Our system isn’t perfect, but it is the best in the world and the one that most of the world wants to follow.  But we have to work within the system.  God actually ordains governments.  God granted America a very free nature that works on laws.  Nothing is perfect and no one is without their flaws and probably skeletons.  Are duty, as Christ followers, is to make this government as God like as possible.  And as such, since there are no saints, we have to vote for the lesser or the two evils.

I don’t want you to be am evangelical Christian or even just a Christian.  I want you to be a Christ follower.  Vote in a manner that won’t make God ashamed of you.  Don’t live your life as a Christian or even an evangelical one; live your life as a Christ follower, always; there is no time out for elections, or anything else.  Don’t live in a manner that will make God ashamed of you.

After the election, let’s live as Americans.  Let’s work together to find common ground, however it has to be with the goal of getting to within Gods will.  If you don’t like the way things are going, there’s going to be another election in four years, but in the meantime, work together, don’t put your heels in the ground and get nothing done until the time when you get the party in that you want.