Alan Keyes
I'll trust my vote to God
By Alan Keyes
[This is one of those posts written with my fellow believers especially in mind.]
Yesterday, I spoke at a rally in Manassas, Va., that was part of the kick-off events for this year's 40 Days for Life campaign of prayer vigils to end abortion. (If you don't know about this powerful effort and/or haven't participated in it in years past, click on the link just provided.) Through the decades since the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, the shadow of murderous death has gradually obscured the true ideas of right and law on which the United States was founded. The Court's conscience-searing travesty of law produced a tidal wave of murdered innocents. But throughout those years, the renewing transformation of hearts worked by faith in God and Jesus Christ has also borne fruit, in persistent efforts to snatch innocent lives and mortally-wounded souls from the murderous wave. Precisely because of their faith, however, true pro-life workers understand that the harvest of lives saved and reborn in consequence of their labors was not, as the Apostle said, their work, but the work of the Savior whom faith admits to dwell in them.
40 Days for Life is the offspring of that understanding. It reflects in action a truth sometimes imperceptible in the way we refer to faith in the English language, but always at issue in the Greek expression translated by the word — i.e., the intrinsic relationship between faith and trust. Because it is all about prayer, the 40 Days for Life campaign enacts with pure integrity the truth that absolute trust in the benevolent will of Almighty God is the intrinsic substance of faith's free and absolute reliance upon God's judgment in all things ("Not my will but thine be done"); and of faith's unreserved acknowledgment that, as creatures intentionally made by God in His image and likeness, we and our good works, all, all belong to Him. ("...and to God the things that are God's").
As I prepared for the speech I was to give at the 40 Days for life rally, and as I listened to what was said by other speakers there, the preoccupation with political affairs that presently characterizes my work day inevitably affected my train of thought. Despite all the professions of faith in God and Jesus Christ, real trust in God seems almost entirely lacking as self-professed believers in Christ discuss the choices we are to make as citizens and voters. If Christ is our example, true trust in God means that we surrender the election of our actions to God's will, whatever the inclination of our own ("...not my will but thine be done"). When Christ spoke those words of perfect surrender, did he not speak in a way that expressed his perfect understanding of our fallen and conflicted human condition? Did he not foreshadow the ultimate fulfillment of that surrender which came upon the Cross ("Father, into thy hands, I commit my spirit")?
These days, I hear from so many who pretend that among human beings we will find no perfect choice to represent the will of God. Is Christ then not also a man? And in the living Christ (for He is Risen! And where two or three are gathered in his name, there also is he in the midst of them — Matthew 18:20), do we not find the perfect representation of God's will?
From the seats of the covertly scornful comes the worldly-wise admonition: "But, Alan, Christ isn't running for President." What makes this admonition so suspect is that it was the same at every stage of the process, even when the choice of who's to run was being made. It turns out that Christ isn't running for President because we refuse to make it so. We have listened (all the while pretending not to do so) to the plausible lie of those who tell us that politics is no place for God and Jesus, no place for our thirst for God's justice and righteousness, no place but for our material needs and fears and fantasies.
But when the perfect choice for God is banished from our consideration, what becomes our standard of choice? No matter what it is, the choice that results from it must fall away from God.
Perhaps that's why Christ admonished us to be "perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." He does not say "be all that you can be." He points to the One, who seems to us to be more than we could ever hope to be, and says "Make God the standard which marks the completion of your quest, the goal of your journey, the place where your work-in-progress is done, contented, fulfilled." Christ challenges us to reach, where we alone must fail, because by longing with all our hearts to be like God, we come to the place where Christ, being like us, becomes the way for us to do what we alone cannot.
In spite of Christ's direction, we have succumbed to the delusion that some standard can be maintained when the One that constitutes the standard has been cast aside. On that account, our political logic has gone from the one that gently nudged perfection from our view ("You must not make the best the enemy of the good"), to the one that introduced us to the standard of imperfection ("He is not so good, but the other guy is much worse"), to the one that makes evil our standard ("Sure he's bad, but nothing is as bad as Obama").
So we have come to live in a place where we have no choice but to accept the rule of evil; no motive for our choice but our fear of the greater evil; no standard for our choice but one that, by brandishing the perfection of evil, seeks to evoke the greatest fear. We have moved from the kingdom of God's rule to the domain ruled by our own imperfection; and from the domain of our imperfection to the kingdom ruled by our fear of the perfection of evil which, by feeding upon itself, forever grows more fearsome.
From this place of fearful bondage, there can be no release unless and until we remember the true standard of God's perfection. If we have been renewed by Christ, as we profess to be, why are we not rejecting any standard but the one he represents to us? People who have read the Platform Republican approach I intend to follow in this election nonetheless keep asking me who I will vote for for President. As I participated in the 40 Days for Life rally yesterday, I realized my answer. I will say NO to OBAMA. I will say NO to ROMNEY. I will say NO to SOCIALISM, no matter what party label it wears. I will vote for everyone on the Republican ticket who has not repudiated the Republican Platform. For the rest, I'll trust my vote to God. I mean to cast my write-in vote as I know Jesus would. I will say YES to my Father GOD, the maker of heaven and earth, the President of all that is. By His will I have the right, when I choose, to respect the standard of His perfection. I will do so in my heart and in my prayers, though there may or may not be a way to do so on my ballot. In many places now, the outfitters of the sham election slyly leave no place for a true write-in vote. It's too risky. It would allow people directly to demonstrate their utter rejection of the sham choices now imposed upon us, against our will. This absence of an empty line each voter can fill as he or she chooses is yet another telltale sign of how phony the whole electoral process has become.
[Will you say no to Obama? Will you say no to Romney? Will you say no to socialism, whatever party label it wears? Will you join in giving an unmistakable, visible political mandate to the GOP "Platform Republicans"? If you will consider the "Platform Republican" voter strategy for the 2012 election, just send me an email at alan@loyaltoliberty.com. Put "Yes I will" in the subject line. No further message is needed. Of course, your additional thoughts and suggestions will be welcomed. As the implementation of this approach develops, I'll send email updates to the reply address you use. Also, please share this idea with others so they can consider it for themselves.]
September 25, 2012
[This is one of those posts written with my fellow believers especially in mind.]
Yesterday, I spoke at a rally in Manassas, Va., that was part of the kick-off events for this year's 40 Days for Life campaign of prayer vigils to end abortion. (If you don't know about this powerful effort and/or haven't participated in it in years past, click on the link just provided.) Through the decades since the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, the shadow of murderous death has gradually obscured the true ideas of right and law on which the United States was founded. The Court's conscience-searing travesty of law produced a tidal wave of murdered innocents. But throughout those years, the renewing transformation of hearts worked by faith in God and Jesus Christ has also borne fruit, in persistent efforts to snatch innocent lives and mortally-wounded souls from the murderous wave. Precisely because of their faith, however, true pro-life workers understand that the harvest of lives saved and reborn in consequence of their labors was not, as the Apostle said, their work, but the work of the Savior whom faith admits to dwell in them.
40 Days for Life is the offspring of that understanding. It reflects in action a truth sometimes imperceptible in the way we refer to faith in the English language, but always at issue in the Greek expression translated by the word — i.e., the intrinsic relationship between faith and trust. Because it is all about prayer, the 40 Days for Life campaign enacts with pure integrity the truth that absolute trust in the benevolent will of Almighty God is the intrinsic substance of faith's free and absolute reliance upon God's judgment in all things ("Not my will but thine be done"); and of faith's unreserved acknowledgment that, as creatures intentionally made by God in His image and likeness, we and our good works, all, all belong to Him. ("...and to God the things that are God's").
As I prepared for the speech I was to give at the 40 Days for life rally, and as I listened to what was said by other speakers there, the preoccupation with political affairs that presently characterizes my work day inevitably affected my train of thought. Despite all the professions of faith in God and Jesus Christ, real trust in God seems almost entirely lacking as self-professed believers in Christ discuss the choices we are to make as citizens and voters. If Christ is our example, true trust in God means that we surrender the election of our actions to God's will, whatever the inclination of our own ("...not my will but thine be done"). When Christ spoke those words of perfect surrender, did he not speak in a way that expressed his perfect understanding of our fallen and conflicted human condition? Did he not foreshadow the ultimate fulfillment of that surrender which came upon the Cross ("Father, into thy hands, I commit my spirit")?
These days, I hear from so many who pretend that among human beings we will find no perfect choice to represent the will of God. Is Christ then not also a man? And in the living Christ (for He is Risen! And where two or three are gathered in his name, there also is he in the midst of them — Matthew 18:20), do we not find the perfect representation of God's will?
From the seats of the covertly scornful comes the worldly-wise admonition: "But, Alan, Christ isn't running for President." What makes this admonition so suspect is that it was the same at every stage of the process, even when the choice of who's to run was being made. It turns out that Christ isn't running for President because we refuse to make it so. We have listened (all the while pretending not to do so) to the plausible lie of those who tell us that politics is no place for God and Jesus, no place for our thirst for God's justice and righteousness, no place but for our material needs and fears and fantasies.
But when the perfect choice for God is banished from our consideration, what becomes our standard of choice? No matter what it is, the choice that results from it must fall away from God.
Perhaps that's why Christ admonished us to be "perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." He does not say "be all that you can be." He points to the One, who seems to us to be more than we could ever hope to be, and says "Make God the standard which marks the completion of your quest, the goal of your journey, the place where your work-in-progress is done, contented, fulfilled." Christ challenges us to reach, where we alone must fail, because by longing with all our hearts to be like God, we come to the place where Christ, being like us, becomes the way for us to do what we alone cannot.
In spite of Christ's direction, we have succumbed to the delusion that some standard can be maintained when the One that constitutes the standard has been cast aside. On that account, our political logic has gone from the one that gently nudged perfection from our view ("You must not make the best the enemy of the good"), to the one that introduced us to the standard of imperfection ("He is not so good, but the other guy is much worse"), to the one that makes evil our standard ("Sure he's bad, but nothing is as bad as Obama").
So we have come to live in a place where we have no choice but to accept the rule of evil; no motive for our choice but our fear of the greater evil; no standard for our choice but one that, by brandishing the perfection of evil, seeks to evoke the greatest fear. We have moved from the kingdom of God's rule to the domain ruled by our own imperfection; and from the domain of our imperfection to the kingdom ruled by our fear of the perfection of evil which, by feeding upon itself, forever grows more fearsome.
From this place of fearful bondage, there can be no release unless and until we remember the true standard of God's perfection. If we have been renewed by Christ, as we profess to be, why are we not rejecting any standard but the one he represents to us? People who have read the Platform Republican approach I intend to follow in this election nonetheless keep asking me who I will vote for for President. As I participated in the 40 Days for Life rally yesterday, I realized my answer. I will say NO to OBAMA. I will say NO to ROMNEY. I will say NO to SOCIALISM, no matter what party label it wears. I will vote for everyone on the Republican ticket who has not repudiated the Republican Platform. For the rest, I'll trust my vote to God. I mean to cast my write-in vote as I know Jesus would. I will say YES to my Father GOD, the maker of heaven and earth, the President of all that is. By His will I have the right, when I choose, to respect the standard of His perfection. I will do so in my heart and in my prayers, though there may or may not be a way to do so on my ballot. In many places now, the outfitters of the sham election slyly leave no place for a true write-in vote. It's too risky. It would allow people directly to demonstrate their utter rejection of the sham choices now imposed upon us, against our will. This absence of an empty line each voter can fill as he or she chooses is yet another telltale sign of how phony the whole electoral process has become.
[Will you say no to Obama? Will you say no to Romney? Will you say no to socialism, whatever party label it wears? Will you join in giving an unmistakable, visible political mandate to the GOP "Platform Republicans"? If you will consider the "Platform Republican" voter strategy for the 2012 election, just send me an email at alan@loyaltoliberty.com. Put "Yes I will" in the subject line. No further message is needed. Of course, your additional thoughts and suggestions will be welcomed. As the implementation of this approach develops, I'll send email updates to the reply address you use. Also, please share this idea with others so they can consider it for themselves.]
To see more articles by Dr. Keyes, visit his blog at LoyalToLiberty.com and his commentary at WND.com and BarbWire.com.
© Alan KeyesThe views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
