Politics is something serious. We must never forget that we can’t sell out to “anybody” for the “possibility” of personal gain or corporate gain. We can’t allow ourselves to be duped into a “photo opt” for the benefit of any particular party or personal candidate. We are called to prophesy and to speak truth to power and even to counsel kings. We are called to prick the moral conscience of the nation in which we abide. To be involved in politics for personal gain and public hype is dangerous and also embarrassing. To look to a man for hope is also a ill advised practice.
Jeremiah 17:5,7
5Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD…Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.
—Bishop Vaughn McLaughlin
“To be involved in politics for personal gain and public hype is dangerous and also embarrassing.” ~Bishop V. McLaughlin
There was a time (in the days of our Puritan forefathers), when almost every soul in America acknowledged the Ten Commandments as the cornerstone of ethics and morality. Today most Americans can’t even name three of the Ten.
There was also a time (not so long ago) when Americans universally disapproved of homosexuality, adultery, and divorce; they believed sexual promiscuity is absolutely wrong; they regarded obscene language as inappropriate; they saw abortion as unthinkable; and they held public officials to high moral and ethical standards. Nowadays, most of the behavior society once deemed immoral is defended as an inalienable civil right.
How times and the culture have changed! The strong Christian influence and scriptural standards that shaped Western culture and American society through the end of the nineteenth century have given way to practical atheism and moral relativism. The few vestiges of Christianity in our culture are at best weak and compromising, and to an increasingly pagan society they are cultic and bizarre.
In less than fifty years’ time, our nation’s political leaders, legislative bodies, and courts have adopted a distinctly anti-Christian attitude and agenda. The country has swept away the Christian worldview and its principles in the name of equal rights, political correctness, tolerance, and strict separation of church and state. Gross immorality—including homosexuality, abortion, pornography, and other evils—has been sanctioned not only by society in general but in effect by the government as well. A portion of our tax dollars are now used to fund programs and government agencies that actively engage in blatant advocacy of various immoral practices.