Mossy’s Blog

My wife and I had a fight the other day.  Even now as I try to recall it I cannot remember what day it was or what we were fighting about.

As with most “differences of opinion”, this one started with a perception of what the other person meant.  Maybe it was me, maybe her, but somewhere along the way there was, at the root, a sense that the other person did not care, feel sorry, or empathize with something of great concern to the other.

Husbands and wives fight about such things because we are human.  Because we have made a vow to stay together, come what may, these fights usually result in little more than hurt feeling for a short while.  But when friends and brothers/sisters in Christ have a difference of opinion, it is fertile ground for the enemy to foment anger, hostility, and a host of other sinful behaviors.

That said, the mature Christian can agree to disagree without causing division.  I pray that my words bring understanding rather than division.  We can disagree and remain brothers and friends.

I woke up in the early hours of November 5 and went to my computer to see the election results.  My prayer for the election was, “God, please accomplish your will, and please do not let Obama win.”  As I read over the election headlines, I realized that the first half of my prayer (for His will to be done) had been answered, but it was not as I wanted.  There was an odd sense of peace with that, and you might say it was my first stunning revelation.  A few minutes later, as I was drifting off to sleep, a second revelation crossed my mind: I was making politics an idol, and expecting that John McCain would rescue the US from itself.

Our hope and our salvation is found in Jesus Christ, not Uncle Sam.

I agree that the election of Barak Obama is, in the arena of race relations, a matter of enormous positive impact.  My frustrations over his election pretty much died away when I came to understand that it was God’s will that he be elected.  I could see more clearly that God’s plan is more complex and exciting than anything I could ever imagine.  And as I have learned these past couple of days, this event is nothing less than a second emancipation proclamation for African-Americans.  I celebrate this achevement, for it represents a movement away from judgements based on race.

Still, I am deeply grieved that Barak Obama is our president-elect.  My grief has nothing to do with the color of his skin, or the origin of his ancestors.  In fact, Barak Obama was not the first black candidate on the final ballot for the presidency.  True, he was the first major party candidate, but one should recall that Alan Keyes ran unsuccessfully for president in 1996, 2000, and again this year.  But if the color of a person’s skin was a factor, why did the black community not support Keyes?  (I did, in 1996)

My grief comes from the fact that many believers went to the polls and voted for a man whose positions on issues are in stark contrast to the teaching of scripture.   I am not saying that John McCain was the perfect candidate, but he was not an advocate for the expansion of abortion rights, embryonic stem cell research, and homosexual rights.  Despite his promise to reduce the number of abortions, his stated goals, if enacted, will almost surely increase the number of defenseless babies murdered.

If I may make this far sharper, this toll does not fall equally across the spectrum.  Although African-Americans make up about 12.5 percent of the US population, roughly 35% of abortions are performed on African-American women.  President-Elect Obama would expand this genocide against African-Americans already under way.  Examine the issue and understand it well: Planned Parenthood was founded by Margaret Sanger, a woman who believed that the black race was inherently inferior to whites, and who advocated abortion and sterilization as means of eliminating the black population.

So we are left with this: We have elected the most pro-abortion president since Roe v. Wade.  This president has vowed to use abortion as a litmus test for his court appointments.  And we will resume funding of abortions through government programs.

Have we traded one curse for another?

We have clearly taken a momentous step in the healing of racial division in our nation.  It will truly be a great day for America when Americans of all colors and origins show a similar level of support for candidates whose color or origin is not the same as their own.  Lately I have heard many white conservatives, who strongly oppose Obama’s stated positions, say that they will be praying for his safety and that God will grant him wisdom to do his job.  Should President-Elect Obama follows through with the radical agenda he advocated in his campaign, I hope that our strong, vigorous opposition will neither diminish our prayers for him personally, nor be interpreted as racially motivated.

One final note: It is both my pride and shame to be a descendant of Thomas Jefferson.  My pride, because Jefferson was instrumental in the founding of our nation, and the individual who penned the words, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”  It is my shame because my great ancestor held human beings in bondage as slaves, despite his statements that slavery was morally wrong.  His hypocrisy on this matter would forestall, for less than one hundred years, a larger reckoning of the matter, when 618,000 men would die fighting in a terrible civil war.  Had he been a man of greater principle, perhaps the bondage that was broken last Tuesday would never have happened in the first place.  Let us pray that Mr. Obama not yoke us further with the culture of death.