Confessions of a Stupid Elephant (Sample Chapter from “Stupid Elephant Tricks – The Other Progressive Party’s War on Christianity”)

CONFESSIONS OF A STUPID ELEPHANT

THE REPENTANCE AND REFORMATION OF A CHRISTIAN CONSERVATIVE

…what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God…

2 Corinthians 6:14-16

                                                                                 .

“Of two evils, choose neither.”

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

                                                                                  .

Is my vote honoring to my God? This is the question that, by His grace alone, I’ve aimed to sincerely ask and honestly contemplate, and the serious consideration of this question is what I hope and pray to inspire in all other American Christians through this book.

As a thankful child of the ’80s, I have a soft spot and deep admiration for Ronald Reagan and what God chose to do through him for America in what was truly a desperate, dark time in the nation’s history. As a politically inclined young man in the ’90s, I also have something of a soft spot for Rush Limbaugh and the radio revolution he began “back in the day” of George H.W. Bush’s “kinder, gentler nation”. (I even refused to purchase the text bookfor a college sociology class taught by a gay (“homosexual”, not “happy”) Marxist, instead opting to carry a copy of Rush’s The Way Things Ought to Be with me to class every day.) And as a vocal supporter of the younger Bush’s campaigns in the decade that followed his father’s presidency, I have a very warm affection for good ol’ red state, Tea Party patriotism and sensibility.

   None of these things have changed.

I love America. I love her Constitution. I love her history. I love her unique wonder and witness to the providential hand and power of God. I love her role and influence in a dark world insofar as she has been able to attain and sustain that biblical “shining city on a hill” position mentioned so frequently and so fondly by President Reagan.

I love conservative books, I love talk radio, and I love the fact that God has given American Christians all of these things along with the power and opportunity to use them to shape our own government – something that is breathtakingly rare in human history. I love that we have no Caesar in America (at least not yet). I love that We the People are Caesar (at least for now).

But each of these loves have been, for me, cast in a new light. By the grace of God alone, I’ve only recently been granted enough light and the desire to face it so that I might come to see and contemplate that question differently. More seriously. More urgently. More faithfully.

Is my vote honoring to my God?

Considering what I have been graced to learn and live through His perfect Word, is my vote honoring to my God? Knowing what I have been blessed to see and understand about His nature and necessity as the center of all hopeful human endeavor, is my vote honoring to my God? Having embraced the truth that He has given me through His written revelations regarding the need to exalt and submit to Him in all things at all times, even (and especially) when doing so is decidedly unpopular and non-pragmatic by every self-serving standard and worldly impulse, is my vote honoring to my God?

   As I first began to seriously contemplate this question a few short years ago, I immediately realized that repentance was required. And in that same moment I also realized what it was that had played such a large part in my having previously avoided the true weight of the question altogether: Pride.

It was anything but comfortable to realize that  I  had been so far off the mark. And it was hardly a warm and fuzzy feeling that washed over me at the realization that I had been that far off the mark when I had, all along, had my God’s perfect truth plainly preserved and presented before me the whole time.

It wasn’t as though Scripture was vague, cloudy, or ambiguous regarding such vital truths as the centrality and lordship of Christ in all things at all times. It wasn’t exactly wishy-washy as to the price of submitting to Christ in each and every one of those things, either. And it sure wasn’t the least little bit wobbly or wiggle-room-friendly as to how counter-intuitive and downright peculiar the Christian life in action would appear from a worldly perspective. God’s Word couldn’t have been more clear on any of these things. It was as though it was perfect or something….and that perfection was cutting through a lot of pet positions, perspectives, and traditions that I’d proudly held close and dear for a very long time.

I realized that I had been very secularly pragmatic in my political thoughts and actions. I had been very self-focused, self-referential, and self-centered in my political thoughts and actions. And I had been all of these things in spite of my having known better all along.

Now here I am, in the year of our Lord 2012, and I see an America that is circling the drain in every significant, measurable way. Realizing that it is doing so in no small part due to the choices that  I  have made, the causes that  I  have supported, and the candidates for whom  I  have voted has not exactly proven to be my idea of a good time. It really was much more fun when I could just blame those evil and/or stupid Democrats for everything.

But the course that’s been charted for America isn’t an exclusively Democrat construct. Far from it. It isn’t a Republican creation, either. It is the product of a progressivism that has captivated both parties, and the “progress” at the heart of both its right wing and left wing variants is a progress toward a man-centered worldview and away from a God-centered one. If this path is followed for just a little while longer, we really will see the doom that has been waiting for us since we started down this trail.

   I love America. I love God more than America. Infinitely more.

So it is that I love America enough to root for her when she seeks and submits to His will, I love her enough to root against her when she goes the other way, and I love her enough to fight for her shifting to the former path when she is presently choosing the latter. My fidelity is, happily and adoringly, to God above all else, and that is the prism through which, by His grace, I aim to test all things – including all political things – and then ask the question: Is my vote honoring to my God?

My prayer is that the hard truths and bold statements made in the pages of Stupid Elephant Tricks will be understood with four keys kept on hand and in mind:

1. This book is written primarily to Christians. There is a roughly zero percent chance that much of what’s written in these pages will even begin to make sense to anyone else. That said, it is hoped that the Gospel presentation contained in these pages might be used by the Lord to add to His church as He sees fit. He is trusted completely in this regard.

2. All that any of us have – including any bit of knowledge or wisdom or insight – is a gift from God. None of us have any room to boast in ourselves, though we can and should boast in the Lord who has given us all of these things. I certainly do not imagine for a moment that I am inherently any better than any of those whom I may criticize herein. I am not. Of all the people I’ve ever met or heard of or even read about in a history book, the one of whom I am most aware as a sinful, selfish person is: Me. By God’s grace, He has saved me, and by His grace He is sanctifying me, but based on what I know about my own heart and my own mind, I do not for a single solitary second seriously present myself as inherently better than anyone.

3. This book does not pretend to represent or aspire to become a benchmark or standard setter for Christian political thought. The Bible is that book. This one is just an imperfect set of observations written by an imperfect man who hopes and prays that God will choose to graciously use these clumsy words and expressions to draw His people toward Him as the source of every meaningful bit of knowledge. I am not proposing or implying or even close to implying that those who arrive at different conclusions than I express on the subjects covered herein are in any way, as a result of such a difference, demonstrating that they are not “real” Christians or that they are in any way less of a Christian. The Bible is their proving ground for such things; this book is not.

4. We must seek biblical answers to every question – including the political. The whole thrust of this book is aimed at simply inspiring Christians to cast every political question in the perfect light of Scripture and then submit to what is revealed in that light – no matter the cost in this fleeting, temporal world.

So have grace towards others – including me and every target of criticism noted in these pages. Love as you have been loved. And then stand for the truth as the Lover of your soul has commanded, with all boldness and confidence in Him.

I trust that He will guide us all along the way as we take this journey together. He has placed us purposefully in such a time and place and situation as this. That reality is both a matchless comfort and a magnificently daunting challenge. And we shouldn’t want it any other way.