Please Vote Thoughtfully 2024

I am sad about what many of my friends, my family, and my fellow Christians are saying about the upcoming election. 

I don’t understand how you don’t see what I see. 

I don’t understand why you don’t look for what’s true, what’s good, what’s right. I don’t understand why you blindly follow instead of checking facts and objectively seeking truth.

I watch the news and hear speeches, read articles and watch videos and I see speeches filled with racism, hatred of women, disregard for violence in our schools, calls for treason and dictatorship, and incoherence. 

I see off the cuff comments that cause people groups to be persecuted, hated, and hurt. 

I see a candidate who is a convicted felon, a bully, a rapist, a narcissist, a director of a coup, and a thief. 

This candidate is not a Christian, not anti-abortion, not a respecter of life or a protector of humanity. 

He lies to us and some believe it because we are concerned about things that matter to us personally and things that have traditionally been platforms of his party. His lies make you afraid - of people of color, of immigrants, of an economic crash, of the loss of democracy. Democracy includes the right to vote and the peaceful transition of power. This man isn’t interested in these things. 

I know that you are concerned about abortion and the right to life. We have to remember that Jesus valued all lives - sinners, prostitutes, women, immigrants, children, and even tax collectors. He wants us to love and protect the innocent and care for those in need which includes the women who give birth to those babies they didn’t abort and are now alone with no food, no home, no education. He wants us to care about people who can’t get healthcare and people who legally come to our country. He wants us to care about people who are different from us.

Jesus calls for kindness and respect. He didn’t preach about hate, fear, and division but about love and acceptance. 

We have come to a point where we need to evaluate character over what we perceive as safety and ethics over what we have traditionally believed to be the most important issues. 

I can’t vote for someone who stands so directly in opposition to all that I believe. I care about so many of the things that you do but I don’t believe that this man will protect our values, our democracy, and our lives and neither will his running mate. 

 

Followers of Jesus, are we really going to become followers of man at the expense of truth and love and honesty? We don’t have to agree with everything the other candidates say but it’s time to stand up and vote thoughtfully and not blindly.  Please research, consider and pray before you vote.

Thank you.