Part Seven of A Call to Christian Patriotism

By many accounts Mitt Romney won last Wednesday's televised debate. He has my vote. He has my prayers.

Can a Christian vote for a Mormon? Christianity Today  posted the following comment by Stephen Mansfield on August 31 here :

In the 2012 election, voting for Mitt Romney—yes, a Mormon former bishop—is certainly a moral option for followers of Jesus Christ. For those who want a pro-life, pro-free market, pro-business, pro-defense, and "America first" champion, Mitt Romney is their man. It is no sin or dishonor of God to vote for him, even though his Latter-day Saint religion is far from orthodox Christianity.

To believe otherwise is to commit to a perfectionism that would make it nearly impossible to live in this world. If a candidate must be precisely aligned with our religion before we can vote for him, biblically faithful Christians will not be able to vote for either man in the upcoming election. Nor could they have voted for Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, or Reagan. Washington and Reagan seldom attended church. Jefferson and Lincoln had disqualifying doubts about who Jesus Christ was. 

 . . . It's good to heed the apocryphal quote summing up Martin Luther's understanding of civil governance: "I'd rather be ruled by a wise Turk than by a foolish Christian." For some voters, though, there is still danger in casting such a vote. That's because they confuse the role of a President with the role of a pastor. While both are positions of leadership, they serve very different functions.

This 10/8 Time magazine also has an excellent article "The Mormon in Mitt" pointing out that Mormons traditionally are very patriotic towards America and its founding Constitution and Bill of Rights. In the Time article Jon Meacham quotes Romney on p. 33: 

Romney's commitments to liberty and individualism as organizing American principles also have Mormon origins. "People from all over the world who prized freedom--the innovations, the pioneers, the dreamers--came to America," Romney wrote in No Apology. "And so they continue today. . . It is this love of liberty and the accompanying spirit of invention, creativity, derring-do, and pioneering that have propelled America to become the most powerful nation in the history of the world."

Yesterday my pastor in his sermons pointed out that we do not baptize nations. We baptize people (Matthew 28:19). America has not been awarded special favor from God, but as are promised that if we humble ourselves, etc., the LORD will heal and bless our nation (2 Chronicles 7:14).

 Meanwhile in the Opinion page of October 2nd USA Today there is an article called "Shifting Story on Libya Attack Leaves Questions Unanswered."

Among the most significant unanswered questions: Did U.S. intelligence fail to get warnings of the plot? Or were warmings ignored? Why weren't Marines stationed at such a dangerous post. Did Stevens seek more security only to be denied, or did the ambassador fail to act on the concerns expressed in his diary? And most urgently does the success of the attack suggest that other foreign outposts could be inadequately fortified?

We are going through Howard A. Eyrich's A Call to Christian Patriotism in ten posts and I have divided his book into ten sections. Dr. E did not know of the current events when his book came out earlier this year. Eyrich goes on to bring up that issue of the Muslim:

In contemporary England and America we are witnessing a growing alliance between state governments and Islam. This can be observed in preferential treatment for Islamic interests. One example is the establishment of sharia law (the sacred law of Islam) as parallel to civil law in some European countries. Currently there are five sharia counts in England. Islamic banking institutions exist in other Western nations such as Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, and Switzerland (p. 100).

So again I wonder if our current Obama administration is heading the way these European nations have gone. Are we adding a “new will of the people” or a “new form of government”—Sharia law as in Europe?

Eyrich notes how change can happen by neglect: Rehoboam [in the Old Testament] does not listen to the seasoned advisors but acts on the advice of his peers and increases taxes (p. 91). Eyrich notes that the U. S. Department of Justice has a new motto on their website here:

The common law is the will of mankind,

issuing from the life of the people.

Our country needs our Constitution and Bill of Rights to be our law, not the life of the people. Israel got in trouble when they did what seemed right in their own eyes (see Judges 17:6 and 21:25), which is what Eric Holder and the U. S Department of Justice motto implies.

Eyrich qualifies his book by stating:

This book is not about promoting Dominionism, Theonomy, or Reconstructionism. It is not an appeal for, or suggestion that, only Christians should occupy positions of power in American society. It is saying, however, that Christians should examine the lives of potential leaders in terms of their understanding and commitment to the Judeo-Christian ethical framework embedded in the founding documents. It is saying that Christians should seek to convince the public of the necessity to use this grid in their determining for whom they vote. It is saying that Christians should not be--in fact cannot be--intimidated by those who would bully them by name calling and misrepresentation while calling for a new form of government. (p. 168)

We need a return to the founding principles of our country. Ronald Reagan said, Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same. Dr. E calls on fathers.

Fathers have failed in America. To a large degree fathers have depended on the church to teach their children who God is and what God has done. In the same manner, fathers have depended on the schools to teach the meaning of the memorials of American history. As a result, our children grow up with very little appreciation for the unique hand of God in the lives and actions of our Founding Fathers. So, once again, we see that the model God provides in the Bible in the life of Israel is instructive for us as Christian Patriots. Will we learn from their failure to capitalize on God's model (p. 98)