There are plenty of non-Christians (even atheists) who exhibit fruit of the Spirit, and this is primarily because God causes the rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous, or otherwise known as Common Grace. However, suggesting that someone who exhibits the fruit of the Spirit (a snapshot in time) is more Christian than one who may not demonstrate as many is a logical and moreover theological fallacy, and you know it. The apostle Paul, when he was still Saul, was murderous, breathing out threats against the Christian Church. Yet he would go on to be the most prolific writer of the New Testament and the most well-travelled apostle and evangelist of his day. The fictional character Jean Valjean in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, the former criminal would be a less likely pick for a saint than the policeman Javert, but you also know how that pans out. That one exemplifies characteristics that are similar to the gifts of the Holy Spirit hardly means that they are 1) growing in those, especially deliberately and 2) that their lives are controlled by the Holy Spirit that those gifts and fruits are supposed to be manifestations of.

Let me countersuggest that righteousness has always be laughed upon by those who are unrighteous, and the qualities that make an excellent statesman and politician, well, sadly, let us examine those: a man who speaks well, who is able to handle half-truths and turn lies into things that advance his cause, who hand waves and does not represent correctly. In fact, if I look at Obama, I see plenty of things that do not exemplify the Holy Spirit (more things that are in Galatians 5:19-21 rather than 22-23). In fact, the best statesman ever is none other than the fallen angel, yes, Satan. May you as a Christian not listen to his voice.

Hitler, too, was one of the greatest orators and statesmen of his day. He had great visions of hope and change. Yes, I can go further and look at Obama’s associations if you’d like, but it would only draw out more parallels between Hitler and himself.

You have to ask yourself, do you have a Manchurian candidate on your hands?

You yourself have failed to represent Obama correctly. Obama is not pro-choice. He is pro-ABORTION. There is a big difference. And whenever questioned about his voting record, he has not fairly, accurately, nor truthfully represented himself. You are endorsing in your blog a candidate who fully calls for the expansion of abortion laws. Does he even love his unborn neighbor as himself, or his kids? You’ve failed to understand that the Evangelical movement (at large) is not trying to get Roe vs. Wade overturned, although there are some elements who are. There are some who don’t want new abortion expansionist laws, including FOCA signed into law.

My mother is a maternity ward nurse in Canada, where hospitals conduct abortions. She right now has the freedom of conscience not to participate in them, and the hospital recognizes that. However, if Obama’s laws were enacted and if Canada were to mirror these, she would have no RIGHT to obey her conscience; she would have to conduct it. Do you believe abortion is a good thing? Moreover, as a young seminarian at one point, I once believed that this was not my cause; I had other causes I needed to champion and told an elder of my church, now the executive director of a CPC, that I was glad he was championing his cause. He shook his head sadly and we talked about it at length. Now, ten years later, I find myself agreeing with him.

If the church does not take up the cause of the unborn and give them a voice, who else will? This is a matter of social justice and fairness. If the church will not be the prophetic voice of one calling in the desert, who will fight for their lives? How many have been lost already? How many doctors and lawyers and teachers and great people have we failed to see? I heard the conversion testimony of a great evangelist last night, Stephen Lungu, who was an unwanted child. His dad did not want him, and blamed his mother that he must have been the son of someone else. His mother did not want him; she ran away from the family when he was 10. He joined a violent gang, the Black Shadows, and armed with bombs, was going to blow up a bank as well as a Christian gathering, but was converted by the powerful preaching of an evangelist. That evangelist told him the most amazing story about a man of suffering and sorrows who had had himself a questionable birth, born in poverty, who lived a borrowed life, carried a borrowed cross, and was buried in a borrowed tomb, but would be resurrected to life to give us new life. That evangelist knew himself about the redemption of God, that he told a story of a woman who had been travelling in sub-Saharan Africa and had been jumped and raped. This woman was his mother. In modern day and modern society, she would have been encouraged to abort. But this man grew up and became a great evangelist and touched the lives of many, including Stephen. And God redeemed Stephen’s life too.

I’m not going to encourage you to vote for McCain.

I’m going to sum up reasons not to vote for Obama. If you’re looking for someone who aligns with Christian ideals, this is not your man. If you want to lose all the pro-life advances for the last 30 years, this is not your man. If you want to see the number of abortions rise, this is your man. If you want to see the degradation of morals, this is your man. No matter how presidential or stately he may seem, based on his substance, he does not agree with Christian ideals.

Re: Fubar,

Well, it sure didn’t take long for Godwin’s law to come into play.

Frankly your claim that Obama will lead to “the degradation of morals” seems a bit hysterical to me.

On the abortion issue, I feel that the correct way to fight abortion is through changing hearts and minds and transforming the culture. Right now the pro-life cause would lose a straight up or down vote on whether abortion should be legal. Trying to ram the pro-life position down society’s throat via the supreme court is not the correct way to be pro-life and it won’t work in the long run if the majority in our democracy are pro-choice. (And in any case, overturning Roe vs. Wade will not make abortion illegal). If abortion is your issue then you should be out their volunteering in crisis pregnancy centers, speaking in high schools, persuading people, etc. Casting a vote for John McCain, though, won’t make a difference.

Also, you seem to think the fruit of the spirit is somehow irrelevant. You point to Saul who was a murderous villain but who went on to become a good man. It is seems like you don’t believe there is any connection between a man’s character and his fitness for leadership. There is. Sure, there are examples in history of people who have changed from bad guys to good guys, but this certainly doesn’t mean that we should disregard the fact that someone is a good guy when we go to the election booth.

Godwin’s Law is lovely. But we should ignore Godwin’s law, it’s a red herring for the sake of this discussion.

Why don’t you google: William Ayes, Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko, Saul Alinsky, and Obama?

If you find “degradation of morals” so amusing, why don’t you explain it? The expansion of abortion laws, as well as Obama’s already established voting record, these things make me think that we will have a coarsening of the public conscience, if we accept Obama — by the way, have you read Robert George’s articles and one other?

Obama’s Abortion Extremism

Pro-Life Politicians Have Made A Difference

Obama And Infanticide

I don’t agree that the culture is “pro-choice.” I think that where you are located might be “pro-choice,” but Christians should be about pro real choice. Obama wants to take away funding to CPCs and doctors who want to tell women about the health risks to abortion. Is that giving choice or removing choice? You tell me. Tell you at least one story. A good friend who’s a pastor in my area is strongly about “pro real choice.” He wants to give real choices to women who are considering abortions. Let’s give them even more options, and try to find a win-win solution, that’s really what everyone wants. He’s not a rich guy. He lives in a neighborhood, which, at best is lower middle class and much more likely lower class. But he’s made it clear to friends, family, his congregation, the neighborhood, the town, and so on, that he would gladly open up his home and take in and care for and love, and even treat as part of his family, anyone, who even felt that he or she would not be able to take care of his or her child, of any age.

When I met him, he had taken in 16 kids. Now I’ve found out he’s taken in 32 over the years.

This man is not rich. He’s not wealthy. But the kids that I’ve talked with have indicated they have been cared for and they’ve been given opportunities. We’re talking about being pro real choice, real choices such as adoption and visitation. There are many couples who can’t conceive or would love to have a child or adopt. And why have to run off to a third world country when clearly there are many opportunities here. Nobody can change the fact that a woman is her baby’s biological mother. But we can change the difficult circumstances and give her viable real alternatives that allow for a win-win situation.

I don’t think that the instantaneous snapshot of the fruit of the spirit is relevant. I would care more that someone is being lead by the Holy Spirit and lets the Holy Spirit direct their lives. A murderous villain who has zealously converted may seem much less sanctified than a man who was raised as a Christian all his life but has rejected God, but in mathematical terms, the first derivative of his life is far more significant than his absolute position. Put a different way. The Pharisees would have been the type of people that dads would have loved their daughters to marry, but most of them, while everyone would think that they were very religious and had great outward lives, were, by Jesus’ standards, far from God. Meanwhile, it was those tax collectors, former prostitutes, Mary Magdalene, and other repentant “sinners” who were entering the kingdom of God ahead of most of the Pharisees.

Re: Fubar,

It is apparent to me that I am faced with a one-issue voter in the comments section here. In addition, the fact that I am encouraged to google Ayers, Wright, Alinsky, Rezko, etc. indicates that this person lives in conspiracy-theory land.

As for the articles you linked to, well they make it clear that Obama is pro-choice. He has never shied away from the fact that he is pro-choice, and I never claimed he was anything other than pro-choice. Look — if abortion trumps every other issue for you, then you are a one-issue voter and you cannot vote for Obama. You probably voted for Bush on the pro-life issue and got an arrogant foreign policy, war, torture, expansion of executive power, a crumbling infrastructure, and a tanking economy for your vote. Oh, and abortion is just as legal as it always was.

I just want people to be aware that if they are voting for McCain mainly on the hope that Roe vs Wade will be overturned, they should understand that abortion will still be legal in this country even if Roe vs. Wade is overturned.

Godwin’s law is relevant — you made a ridiculous comparison between Obama and Hitler. You make yourself look both small and overly excitable when you make such a vicious and unfounded comparison.

You also “don’t agree that the culture is pro-choice”. Well, perhaps you should check out this article titled “A slight but steady majority favors keeping abortion legal.” It is from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. You made a patronizing remark about how it was perhaps only in my part of the country that the majority is pro-choice. This is simply not true. The Pew survey I linked to shows that as of September 2008 more than 6 in 10 Americans would oppose Roe vs. Wade being overturned. You are the one who is living in a bubble, I am afraid.

You are, in fact, incorrect.

So if I could summarize your post, it was 1) Obama displays fruit of the Spirit, with a sidepoint of Obama saying he’s not a Muslim but rather he’s a Christian and 2) some remarks about abortion.

So it is a strawman to suggest that this is one-issue vote. Let’s go a bit further. I am neither a registered Republican nor a registered Democrat. I would prefer to see myself as “pro-God.” For reasons that I will not disclose, but you could probably figure out based on my posts, I cannot vote. I am merely counterposing arguments against the items you have listed. You raised abortion as an issue, I merely answered you. If you want to talk about economics instead, raise that instead.

The Pew Forum’s finding of 6 in 10 Americans not wishing to overtune Roe vs. Wade is not actually the same as pro-choice (although we could argue the soft pro-choice and soft pro-life side until the cows come home). The fundamental question we could ask to cut to the chase is this one: Are all pro-Lifers committed to overturning Roe vs. Wade? (Or “Must one be committed to overturn Roe vs. Wade to be Pro-Life?”) Yes, it is hairsplitting of sorts, but since you are extremely versed in philosophy you should be able to handle this.

Moreover, I don’t think that the comparison between Obama and Hitler is unfounded. You’d LIKE to dismiss conspiracy theories, and certainly I would pose that time will tell. However, it is said (even in human resource management theories) that “the best indicator of future behavior is past performance.” So if we are going to be consistent, then certainly Senator Obama’s associations, teachers, voting record, and so on are of interest.

Of course the author of this blog has questionable objectivity if he lumps in a number of issues that have some degree of correlation (and being in finance you should know that correlation and causation are two different things) with the current regime. There are a number of things that the current regime has also gotten right. So let me throw down a challenge. Can you name three things (I was going to say 10, but that might be a stretch for you) that the current regime has actually gotten right?

Lump together enough things, you can always blame it on the current regime. I could always say that the runaway inflation in Q1 and Q2 was due to the current regime. Then I could blame the deflationary numbers on the current regime. But that hardly seems fair. If you blame the regime for inflation, shouldn’t you give them credit for slowing inflation down? And trying to blame all things wrong on the regime, that’s like people who reduce intelligence to GRE scores or people’s worthiness of credit to their credit score: a one dimensional reduction will always be problematic.