RBWords - Volume 19 - Number 10: October 2006
Something to Think About
Next Tuesday, November 7th, is election day - not that we are permitted to be totally ignorant of that. The media and the political placards that festoon yards, billboards and telephone poles trumpet the event. As precious as the right to vote undoubtedly is, the turnouts in non-presidential elections are rarely very high. For many people nowadays the candidates are much like the ones in the first race that the famous Gov. Huey Long ran in as a young man. The historian, T. Harry Williams, recounted in his prize-winning biography of Long that he described his two opponents as similar to two \"patent medicines\" called \"Hipopalorum and Lopopahirum.\" One was made from the bark of a tree skinned from the top down. The other was made from the bark of the same tree skinned from the bottom up!
Despite mighty efforts by many groups to \"educate\" the electorate, it seems clear to me that no amount of education on \"issues\" is going to help if the candidates lack integrity. Often we do not know about their integrity until some scandal arises! The electoral process is not one that aims at any truth worthy of the name. Public polls (they seem to be taken every second) are showing a very low opinion of our Congress on the part of the public. It really doesn\'t matter which party is \"in power.\"
The political process in our nation encourages discussion of the \"issues\" and public debates by candidates. But that is only one part of the process. Once a candidate is elected, another process comes into play and it is that process which has the capacity to help or injure the public. The scandals arising out of lobbying in the past few years show that human weakness is all too prevalent among our lawmakers. To some this comes as no concern. We elect human beings to be Representatives and Senators. They have human weaknesses. We shouldn\'t be surprised by scandal. To others, the right to expect a high standard of moral integrity in a person holding a high public trust means that we should always be surprised and indignant about a violation of that trust. This standard looks for consistency between what is said in the campaign and how the one elected votes in office. It also looks for moral integrity in personal life as well as in the exercise of the public office. This is my own approach. Yes, the issues are indeed important: stem cell research, immigration, medical insurance, the judiciary, the war in Iraq. But what happens to my vote if the candidate lacks integrity? He or she is for sale to the highest bidder. It matters not what party the candidate belongs to if he or she is taking bribes or telling lies.
My prayer for the election is that people of integrity will be elected and that they will respect the human person at every point in life. I pray that they will resist the temptation of money and power and seek to serve rather than rule. If they are people of faith, I pray they will not sell their faith for a mess of political pottage. If this all seems to idealistic, well....just chalk it up to RB\'s own opinions and vote the way you think best. IT\'S SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT.
**************************************************************************
It Has Been Said
One strand in the Church\'s theology of grace sees grace as divinising man. Another, which summons us collectively to vastly greater Christian social effort today, sees grace as truly humanizing man. And this we can only do by striving to humanize the structures and institutions of human society, by replacing the sin of the world by the grace of the world. It is by an increase of this grace of the world that individuals will be enabled to exercise fully the moral freedom with which Christ has made us all free.
from the essay, \"Moral Freedom, Grace and Sin\" in SEEKING THE SPIRIT - ESSAYS IN MORAL AND PASTORAL THEOLOGY by John Mahoney
config
view
logs
3840.0 KB
95 ms
4
