Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Donald Trump, or …

By Chris Johnson A few nights ago I happened to catch Chris Matthews on MSNBC as I sat in  a restaurant waiting for a pizza to arrive. The ever delightful TV talk show host and his guests were going back forth pretending to objectively discuss the various 2012 Republican candidates as they very soberly decided that none of them could stand up to President Obama. The reason, of course, is that none of them have Obama's charisma. They're all boring. No one will ever know whether my indigestion that night came from watching that segment or from the 3 pieces of meat lovers pizza that I ate to get the bad taste out of my mouth. The fact is that it is about time to start thinking about the 2012 presidential election, particularly as this could be one of the most important elections we have ever had.I don't think there's any question that we need a leader to wrest the country's controls from Barack Obama and pull up before we run into the mountain called Reality and explode in a ball of fire. The question is – is that leader out there? There a lot of possible candidates – Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, even Donald Trump, and those are just a few of the more well known possibilities – but are any of these people the right one for the job? God only knows. There are even more important issues out there than there are potential candidates and nobody is perfect on all of them. Each has their own strong suit. Many conservatives today are tempted to put social issues on the back burner, until we "get our fiscal house in order." After all, if America collapses on itself economically, there will be a lot more to worry about than whether a dude can marry his boyfriend. That may lead many to favor the candidate who is strong on tackling the debt, but not quite as strong on defending DOMA, for example. I think that is a mentality that Christians must avoid like the plague. It's easy to get caught up in political activism and forget that we are Christians first. We owe Christ everything, including the freedom  we have enjoyed in this country. It must be more important to the church that we defend God's laws than that we defend our own self interests. So far, we haven't really had to make that choice. As I wrote before the midterms, tea partiers and values voters have been able to walk hand in hand. We got a lot done in the midterms and put some good people in the seats of some real corrupt people. But in this next election, the choices may not be so easy. There are a few people who sound really good when they talk about the economy, but aren't so strong on abortion; and there's some who are strong on abortion, but not on immigration; and some are strong on immigration, but could care less about homosexual marriage. God help us to keep first things first.  We need God in our thinking, living, breathing, praying, being. Each and every issue above is capable of destroying America.  Much more could be said about our great embattlement on each of these fronts. One thing that is very clear is that the Bible makes it CLEAR that God will bless the nation whose god is the Lord. He sends cursing to those who disobey Him.  That’s what concerns me! May God raise up that individual who is capable of being molded,  strengthened and made fit to lead this wayward but once great country.  Without God's grace (once again) we are surely doomed.