6 comments

1. I’m not even sure Mr. Isbell’s opening statement is true from the macro perspective. It certainly is not true, in my experience, from the micro perspective, that is, for local elections. A week remains until the general election, and I am certain I can effect local outcomes with person to person advocacy, persuasion, exhortation. As a person active in political activity for over 50 years, I have come to believe that local elections are of powerful importance. I commend reading Kevin DeYoung’s article (in today’s Aquila), “The Church At Election Time,” for a perspective on politics that is both activist and biblical, in my opinion. As a Christian individual, I strive to live out glorifying God and obeying faithfully, and for me that means acting in politics in an informed, coherent, thoughtful participant. Not for me the activist church with, e.g., political handouts at the worship service and voter registration at the entry. As Dr. Clark has suggested, active POPPL allows me to do those activities in my home or in the public square, when possible. And pray. And to rest in God’s sovereign, wise, good will.

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   • Lola is right.

     In close elections, particularly at the state and local levels with smaller numbers of total voters, it is entirely possible for the actions of individuals — or the failure to act by overconfident people who think the election is “in the bag” — to change things in the last week or two before election day.

     Even at the national level, the last-minute surprise of George Bush’s long-forgotten drunk driving case, revealed shortly before the November 2000 ballots were cast, caused enough people not to vote for him that the presidential election ended up riding on the results of a few hundred votes in Florida.

     It would be nice, given the major problems with national candidates in recent years, if the worst thing in their backgrounds had been a DWI. But here we are.

     Is God in control? Obviously. We’re Calvinists, not Arminians or Pelagians.

     But we’re also not fatalists.

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2. “There is little at this point you can do to affect the outcome of the election except to vote pray.”

   If I may say so, this is so obvious, I am surprised it needs to be said, whatever the other merits of the advice.

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   • The obvious sometimes need to be said.

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     • Agreed. Which is to say that if 1 Pet. 4:17 is conspicuous by its absence in the discussion – that judgment begins in the house of Lord – does not bode well, regardless of what voting or the arm of the flesh can accomplish.

       IOW first things are first, whatever the merits of the secondary. We forget it at our peril/there are some things politics cannot solve.

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3. “There is little at this point you can do to affect the outcome of the election except to vote pray.”

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