Freedom’s Battle

By: American Decency Staff

If I were a psychologist, I think that election season would be a fascinating study.

Think about it; out of the handful of candidates running for nomination, each member of each party has their favorite. Having made their choice, and often working tirelessly to win other's over to their favorite candidate, millions of citizens are disappointed when the primaries are over and the winners are announced.

Overnight,party members mentally re-categorize their least favorite people into their political heroes and the losers of the primary are quickly forgotten. Meanwhile, the arguments that they had used against their former enemy are often glossed over and dismissed, if not vigorously defended against, by the very people who only weeks before were using them themselves.

I remember this, most recently, from the 2012 Presidential election. I was a Santorum fan. I watched his numbers steadily climb in the primary elections, and my hopes were high that he, the underdog, could take down the wishy-washy millionaire and Republican Party prince, Mitt Romney. That wasn't to be, and yet weeks later, I was giving mental fist-bumps to the driver of any car with a Romney/Ryan bumper sticker.

Election politics are evidence of how tempting it can be to accept and interpret facts in ways that fit our predetermined opinions.

I'm sure we could go down the list of candidates on both sides of the aisle and find stances or statements we'd take issue with, yet we're more than willing to view our own favorite candidate's weaknesses as mistakes or missteps, while their opponents errors make them unelectable.

 It is important that we accept the bad with the good of our own candidate, as well the good with the bad of their opponents.

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not asking that we be naive. Politics is a corrupt business, and some scandals are every bit as damning as they seem, if not more so (secret email server, anyone?), but sometimes our opponents aren't evil, they're just wrong. Other times, they're just evil.

But as Christians, we should be deeply concerned with the truth, not blindly swallowing fictions because we want them to be facts, not giving the benefit of the doubt to our own camp and assuming the worst about everyone else.

As we look at the candidates for the nomination, remember that in just a few months we may be defending their weaknesses in the general election. If something that made a candidate unelectable in February is no big deal come November, that speaks more to the character of the voter than the candidate.

On the other hand there are those who don’t defend the character or views of the candidate, yet vote for them as the lesser of two evils, plugging their nose, as it were, as they cast their vote.  Regardless of how we vote, we must remember that our vote speaks to our character, both as a person and a nation.

Let's ask God for wisdom this election cycle, to see scandals only where there really are scandals, to see mistakes only where there really are mistakes, and most importantly that we see righteousness only where there really is righteousness – that we try to see the candidates for who they truly are, and not who it would be most convenient for them to be or how the media portrays them.

This is not a call to accept the party candidate, whoever it may be, regardless of their positions; I hope that it is rather a call to remember the humanity of each candidate. Each has had and will have lapses in judgment and character, including your favorite candidate, whoever that may be. That's ok. There's only one perfect candidate, He's already King. He's not going anywhere.

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