H/T to Biltrix and A Succinct Defense of Marriage.
When we vote, we each vote for our own reasons. However, to create a functioning society, we must have shared values. Why is that the case? Consider what a society does. Doesn’t a healthy society:
- Create order so that people can work together in harmony?
- Provide an environment safe for child rearing?
- Enable its members to create, enjoy, protect, and transmit a healthy culture?
Commonsense would suggest the answer to each of these questions is yes. Yet why are shared values necessary?
- How do we distinguish order from disorder? Don’t we all have to share a similar notion of the purpose of our society? Otherwise, how will we define the rights and the responsibility of the members of our society? Are those our rights God-given and inalienable, or does government define people’s rights. Are we each responsible for our own behavior? If not, who is? Are we responsible for our own behavior and self-directed, or does someone need to be in charge of each of us?
- Who is responsible for child rearing? Doesn’t someone have to have authority over each child and be responsible for each child’s upbringing?
- What distinguishes good from bad? As each generation of children grows and reaches maturity, what do we teach these children? Who is responsible for what they learn and how well they learn?
We have a Christian heritage. Christian teaching has defined our nation’s shared values for generations. Now that heritage is being threaten, and what is being offered as a replacement? Nothing. We are replacing Christianity with the empty void that is multiculturalism, the teaching that all Truths are equally valid. That is why people such as Ryan Anderson must testify in defense of something that our forebears once took for granted. The fundamental building block of our society is a man and a woman joined in holy matrimony.
Citizen Tom 
So, Tom, how do you and Keith “know” that I am not a “conservative”? Is it because I have some different views of things than you guys do? If so, I suppose that is how I know that you and Keith are not “conservatives”. But I don’t really feel that way. I simply think that people tend to self-brand themselves with labels that they want to adopt (you and Keith included) for a variety of reasons, some more rational than others, and that it is very difficult to measure these things objectively. Which of my views do you (or Keith) view as “unconservative”? I’d be please to discuss how my conservatism leads to my conclusions.
We have covered this ground more than enough. If anyone wants to read about scout’s Conservatism, here is a good place to start: https://citizentom.com/2014/01/11/prison-break-reblogged-from-keith-dehavelle/
If you just cannot get enough of the subject, try googling scout constitution conservative conservatism site:citizentom.com.
Reblogged this on BPI reblog and commented:
WHY DOES VOTING FOR A CHRISTIAN CONSERVATIVE MAKE A DIFFERENCE?
The country’s Christian heritage and the current push toward moral relativism are not opposite sides of a coin. Some of the people leading this moral relativism charge are Christian Marxists like Jim Wallis, for example, and many of the people who are members of the ACLU and the “People for the Separation of Church and State” claim to be Christians.
Atheists and non-theists tend to be on that side, but this is a matter of odds, not a reliable channel-marker.
The issue is that moral relativism is bad. Unraveling the country’s Christian heritage is bad. Re-writing history is bad. Making the attack upon traditional Christianity in particular (and morality in general) a State function is particularly bad, and people like Wallace et al are doing all of these. But you risk pointing at the wrong end of the beast when you aim at atheism as the cause, it seems to me.
Figure out why folks like Jim Wallis and Jeremiah Wright can lead the attack on America as Christians and you will be closer to a key point.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
Keith,
Let’s go back to our discussion with scout. How did you and I react when scout called himself a Conservative? Anybody can call themselves whatever they want, right? Nonetheless, we know scout is not a Conservative. So what if someone calls himself a Christian Marxist? What basis is there for that in the Bible? Are there verses that require Christians to share what they have with others? Yes, but Jesus made sharing a personal responsibility. How can government make us love each other?
Isn’t this generation of Americans for the most part abysmally ignorant of the Bible? Don’t we both know that? When you know what the Bible says, why take someone who calls Himself a Christian Marxist or even a Christian Socialist seriously?
One of the stranger things I have read is C. S. Lewis talking about Christians as Leftists. He does this in the section on Social Morality in his book, Mere Christianity. If people behaved as Christians, he conceded our society would look like a Socialist society, but…well, here is the quote.
However, when Lewis discusses charity, he discusses charity as a personal responsibility. Latter he says:
I too am just the same.
Now please consider three questions.
1. Does being a Conservative and Christian require a Christian Conservative to be against people who are not Conservative and Christian? I think the answer is NO.
2. Don’t we promote those candidates who share our values? Of course, the answer is YES.
3. Because I believe what the Bible says, I promote Conservatism. I believe God is the source of our rights, not government. Although you are not a Christian, you also promote Conservatism. I am not certain why you promote Conservatism (Have you written about that?), but doesn’t the fact you do make us political allies? I hope the answer is YES.
Because of our educational system and relentless propaganda in the corporate mass media, we have been conditioned to think that whenever a Christian promotes Christianity, that is an attack upon anyone who believes something different (See https://citizentom.com/2007/07/01/reviling-christian-fundamentalism/ for a personal example.). Yet the propaganda is a falsehood. As a Christian, I believe I must support your right to believe what you wish. As a Christian, I believe I must support your right to freedom of conscience. I hope you will eventually come to the conclusion that Jesus is our savior. But because God Himself has given you a choice, I cannot choose for you. I don’t have His wisdom.
It is God Himself who saves. Consider what Jesus commanded.
Our Lord and Savior did not command us to make war in His Name. He just commanded us to spread His Gospel.