{"id":26476,"date":"2014-10-08T09:58:33","date_gmt":"2014-10-08T13:58:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/?p=26476"},"modified":"2014-10-08T09:58:33","modified_gmt":"2014-10-08T13:58:33","slug":"using-jesus-to-get-votes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2014\/10\/using-jesus-to-get-votes.html","title":{"rendered":"Using Jesus to Get Votes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I\u00a0spotted some\u00a0conservative\u00a0organization\u2019s voters\u2019 guides in the room where a very conservative member of my church leads a small Sunday school class. I was struck by the way the pamphlet\u00a0tries to hijack conservative religious concerns to garner votes. A couple of points seem worth noting.<\/p>\n

\"jesusvotesrepublican1\"First, there is a consistent record of Republican and other conservative candidates featuring in scandals that show they do not actually practice what they claim to stand for. And so that ought to have made unambiguously clear to everyone that they do not actually stand for those things<\/em>. And yet still the voters guides are made which show favored candidates as \u201cpro-life\u201d or \u201cpro-marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since there is such a significant chance that the pro-life candidate has gotten (someone) pregnant and\u00a0an abortion was sought, and that the pro-marriage candidate\u2019s marriage is falling apart while he or she is involved in a clandestine relationship with a member of the same sex, why on earth are conservative Christians\u00a0still\u00a0falling for this patent attempt to manipulate them into voting for candidates who do not actually\u00a0share their morals?<\/p>\n

Second, the attempt to turn voting into a question of only one issue (abortion) or a very small number is likewise an attempt to manipulate voters. David Brin put it well in a recent post<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n
What conservatives needed was a\u00a0single issue<\/em>\u00a0that would make the crucial difference, like an on-off switch. Something so pure and absolute that Jesus would\u00a0have to switch sides,<\/em>\u00a0holding his nose and saying: \u201cI disagree with you right-wingers on every social and economic and general moral point, and yet\u2026\u00a0I must\u00a0still side with you against the goll-durn lib\u2019ruls.<\/em>\u00a0Bcause I can\u2019t abide baby-killers.\u201d<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
If you had to come up with such an all-or-nothing test, \u201cbaby-killing\u201d would pretty much be it. Just by defining humanity at conception,\u00a0you eliminate any need to consider Jesus\u2019s wishes on other matters,\u00a0<\/i>like economic fairness, or pacifism, or inheritance by the meek, or\u2026 You get it; nothing else need be considered!<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The rest of his post is focused on showing how this is manipulative \u2013 on the one hand, the Bible\u2019s treatment of the subject of abortion (or rather, its relative silence on the subject) does not line up with the modern \u201cpro-life\u201d stance, while on the other hand, \u201cpro-life\u201d legislation does not consistently reduce the number of abortions people actually have. And at any rate, Christians should be concerned with more than one issue<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It is shameful that\u00a0politicians use the name of Jesus to try to gain votes for themselves.<\/p>\n

But it is even more shameful that Christians so often fall for it.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u00a0spotted some\u00a0conservative\u00a0organization\u2019s voters\u2019 guides in the room where a very conservative member of my church leads a small Sunday school class. I was struck by the way the pamphlet\u00a0tries to hijack conservative religious concerns to garner votes. A couple of points seem worth noting. First, there is a consistent record of Republican and other conservative […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":26495,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[297,2148,2478,4259,5677,9305,10240,10243,13467],"class_list":["post-26476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-abortion","tag-conservative","tag-david-brin","tag-guide","tag-jesus","tag-politics","tag-republican","tag-republicans","tag-voters"],"yoast_head":"\nUsing Jesus to Get Votes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I\u00a0spotted some\u00a0conservative\u00a0organization's voters' guides in the room where a very conservative member of my church leads a small Sunday school class. 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