It is Super Tuesday, and I know there are thousands of Republican Americans who are still trying to figure out how to vote in the GOP election. So forget delegates and polling numbers. Forget ad campaigns and Super PACS.
Let’s talk principles.
Let’s talk about how an average American knows who to vote for in the GOP nomination process today.
I’ll go a step further – let’s talk Christian principles. Let’s say you’re a Christian and you want to vote for someone who you think acts and talks like a Christian. I know that RIck Santorum keeps telling America that Christian principles involve three issues – abortion, contraception and gay marriage. Those are his ecumenical buzz words. But is that Christianity? Is that your Christianity? Are you a Christian if you don’t have an abortion, don’t wear a condom and aren’t gay?
Jesus, who let’s not forget, is the Founder of Christianity, said that the Pharisees neglected the weightier matters of the law, and included among the neglected items “judgment (or justice), mercy and faith” Matthew 23:23. Luke’s account in Luke 11 includes “the love of God.”
There are people who say they love God, and don’t. There are people who say they are Christians who aren’t. Those who don’t and aren’t often neglect the weightier matters of the law in favor of a form of godliness. They are pretenders.
What happens when we apply that to the GOP candidates and who we should vote for?
Well, we get clues, Republican America. Clues, at least, on who not to vote for.
For example, one of the candidates (RICK SANTORUM) last week was so desperate for votes he robo-called the Democrats in Michigan to help skew the Republican election results. Does that sound like “justice” to you?
Don’t you think that respect for the electoral process, democracy, the rights of the people… should be basic American stuff? Basic CHRISTIAN stuff NOT to cheat in your election?
Or is it OK to cheat as long as you don’t use condoms?
Let’s face it, America, if someone is willing to ask Democrats (who hate Santorum’s self-perceived moral superiority) to win a Republican nomination election, he is at least a weasel. That seems pretty obvious.
Can I get an ‘amen’?
Here’s another one: if you are actually a follower of Jesus Christ and you know Rush Limbaugh is voting for someone, you probably know he’s got the wrong candidate.
When Jesus met Mary Magdalene (see John chapter 8), He didn’t call her a slut, or a prostitute. And she actually was a prostitute. She had even been caught in the very act of adultery. That’s why the Pharisees brought her to Him.
Last week Rush Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute”, and said that if her contraception is paid for by her medical provider that America should get to watch her have sex. And Sandra Fluke was just lobbying. She was ‘caught’ doing something perfectly legal and legitimate and constructive – engaging in debate in a nation which values freedom of thought and belief.
I’m not saying I agree with Sandra Fluke. Scratch that. I am saying I agree with her, when the contraception is for a prescribed medical ailment. I was unaware, probably just like all of you, that Fluke testified about a friend of hers who was unable to get ‘the pill’ because it was contraception, when her doctor had prescribed it to her to help control ovarian cysts.
This is a real ailment and a real prescribed treatment. And she couldn’t get it paid for by her medical insurance because it was also a contraceptive. Georgetown, is of course, a Catholic institution.
Fluke also testified that a fellow student “knew that birth control wasn’t covered and she assumed that’s how Georgetown’s insurance handled all of women’s sexual health care, so when she was raped, she didn’t go to the doctor even to be examined for sexually transmitted infections, because she thought that insurance wasn’t going to cover something like that.”
Typical.
I am awfully concerned with the way Rick Santorum has handled Limbaugh’s comments. Rush Limbaugh is a huge Santorum supporter. http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/26/limbaugh-front-and-center-in-pro-santorum-mailer/ He’s been rallying fellow ‘Christians’ for months now, urging them ever onward to the Barack Obama foe, and waving the latex-smeared banner of Rick Santorum all the way.
Lots of big name Conservatives strongly condemned what Limbaugh said. John McCain. John Boehner. David Frum.They used words like ‘obviously inappropriate’, ‘appalling’, ‘wrong’.
Santorum was not among them. He brushed Limbaugh’s comments aside by saying they were ‘absurd’ and that Limbaugh is just ‘an entertainer’.
Where is the mercy, justice, the love of a Christian in that? Limbaugh spoke on Santorum’s behalf when he went after Fluke. And Santorum did not really object to what he said. He did not condemn it. There was no mercy for Sandra Fluke.
There was no Christianity.
eliaswittenberg 
Well put. Santorum is not just a theocrat, but a specific one. For him Protestantism is such a mess now than it’s not really Christianity anymore so, the only road to salvation is the Catholic Church. One look at the recent history of the Catholic Church, particularly in Ireland and you can see just some of the damage that power concentrated in the hands of a few corrupt individuals can have on tens of thousands of people. I’ll take a Quaker or Unitarian any day, Rick.
I’d take a Quaker or a Unitarian any day, as well, provided they believed in the Constitution and the separation of Church and State. One of the points that Rome takes pride in is that she does not change. The history is violent and oppressive. Quiet and toothless for the past 200 years relatively, but her power is growing. Her policies, procedures and purposes have not changed, nor would her punishments, should she find herself with power again. I believe that will be seen in Europe, especially, in the days ahead. Thanks for the comment, Elias.