Jeff Block's Personal Idea Fountain

It’s Wednesday morning, Barack Obama is president elect, and the democrats have significantly advanced their majority positions in both houses of congress. I predicted this outcome almost a year ago, but it is certainly not the outcome I hoped or voted for.

If you know me, you know that I’m fairly seriously active on Facebook. I’m also a pretty social guy in general. I have 230 or so registered friends on FB, and I’ve noticed over the last few weeks that the vast majority of them have supported Barack Obama throughout the campaign, voted for him, and are now gleefully expressing their joy at his victory. I don’t know some of these people well enough to know if support for Obama in this election is the same as devoted liberalism in general. I am fairly certain, however, that many of them voted for the first time in a national election last night, not due to age but to an interest and commitment that hasn’t previously existed. Senator Obama has clearly inspired millions. But let’s leave aside for the moment the question of whether or not their perceived liberalism is thoughtful or what drove them to their vote, and just speak in terms of Obama supporters and McCain supporters. All that to say that of my many Facebook friends, I’d say the Obama supporters outnumbered the McCain supporters 5 to 1, at least. So, my long-standing theory that Obama would win and the Dems would pick up seats in congress was pretty solidly confirmed long before the election.

As a result this morning, my Obama-loving friends are rejoicing, and my McCain-loving and conservative-principle-loving friends (not the same two groups, necessarily) are crying in their Wheaties. I admit I’m experiencing flashes of sadness, fear, and anger, but my most prominent emotion is confidence, and I thought that it was worth talking about in this setting as a word to my Christian friends. So, if you’re one of the many liberal people I know who loves to debate, you’re welcome to comment on this blog entry, but it’s important to me that you understand up front that I’m not writing this either A) for you, or B) because I’m itching for a fight, debate, argument, heated discussion, or anything else along those lines. I’m also not writing because I think I’m wise or brilliant in any way. It’s as true as it has ever been for me this morning to say that “I will not boast in anything – no gifts, no power, no wisdom – but I will boast in Jesus Christ, His death and resurrection.” I’m expressing myself because I feel compelled to do so as a means of pointing to God.

So, where am I going with this? Simply put, I think Barack Obama is a dangerous man. Why? I’ll spend one paragraph and one only explaining this belief…

Barack Obama is very young, has very little real experience, has closely associated with myriad very shady and disturbing people, and believes in ideas that will bankrupt this country both economically and by robbing its citizens of the work ethic, self-reliance, and freedom they have long enjoyed (some of which has already been seriously eroded). His positions on abortion, healthcare, and heavily-socialist economic policy deeply concern me, and the fact that I have almost nothing to go on to help me predict what he might do in the face of very real Int’l threats from very bad people who want to kill us all is also quite disconcerting. And on top of all of this, it is my opinion that throughout his campaign and even his brief career to date in public office, he and his family have demonstrated a profound lack of patriotic allegiance to and awe of this country. They seem to display a fierce allegiance to race and to a set of (frankly) anti-America socialist ideas, but not to the core principles of the America I know and love. And it goes on and on. I haven’t even talked about how it feels like he’s used the race card in this contest in very inappropriate ways or that his support of the so-called “fairness doctrine” threatens free speech or how his “community development work” in Chicago doesn’t really feel like it’s gotten the city anywhere or about his support for and association with ACORN and other organizations which I think are patently and systemically corrupt. Any one of these things would be cause for concern, but we’re talking about all of them rolled into one man … not just a liberal, but possibly the most liberal person in the Senate and someone who I seriously doubt could get a “Top Secret” clearance coming in off the street (given his beliefs and past associations), but has now been elected to the most powerful office in the world. Lastly, the press and myriad millions of average Americans adore this guy, shield him from criticism, defend him with very little substance from which to do so (mostly it stems from strongly buying into the vague general propaganda that life currently sucks and he can fix it), and follow him around more like adoring fans than political supporters. The rock star savior persona makes me pretty nervous, and so does the fact that I believe a LOT of people of different races voted for him only because he’s black, such that almost no matter what he had said or believed, he’d have gotten their votes.

Okay, so that was a really long single paragraph, but… By the time you add all this up, in my mind, you get a person who (when supported by a strong democratic majority in Congress and empowered by the likelihood that he’ll replace as many as 3 Supreme Court Justices and dozens of federal judges) has far too much power to implement changes which will fundamentally change the fabric of our nation for generations to come. And that brings me to my real point…

That’s probably a good thing.

I believe Mr. Obama’s economic policies will bring economic disaster. I believe his foreign policies will invite attack and diminish our ability to defend ourselves and to do good in the world … yes, even beyond the depths to which these have already fallen. I believe his domestic policy will erode freedoms, crap on the constitution, and spit in the eye of the founding fathers. Jobs will disappear. Wealth will disappear. Freedoms will disappear. Rights will disappear. In general, I predict that life (when measured by these standards – economics, security, liberty, etc) will get much harder, and the democrats will continue to tell us that they can make it better with more diplomacy, bigger government, more taxes, less evil dogmatic religion, broader definitions of marriage and family, looser values, etc.

How is that a good thing? Simple, and here’s the real message in this long-winded rant… because the most important things in life (real faith, real spiritual maturity, real dependence on God, real worship, etc) typically operate in inverse proportion to these other things (prosperity, security, liberty, etc). Casual pseudo-Christians won’t understand this, and they are legion. But those of us who know God and seek daily to walk with Him understand that at the end of the day America is not our home. God’s Kingdom and economy almost always function in direct reverse of the world’s economy.

So, I believe today is a very significant day in the transition that is to come. For those who are willing to let God do this work in their hearts, real growth will become possible in a way that we haven’t seen in several generations … as dross is stripped away in a (probably brutally) painful refining process. This is the source of my confidence, and my hope for the future. Not that I will have more money, because I won’t. Not that my children will be better off (financially, and in terms of their career opportunities, home ownership potential, and upward mobility) as has been true for generations, because they won’t. Not that my kids will grow up in a safer, more secure, more free America, because they won’t. Not because we will be free from / fight against tyranny and continue to advance the cause of liberty around the world, because I see that screeching to a halt. But because God will be made strong in our weakness, and our dependence on Him will increase as our ability to depend on ourselves and on “the system” diminishes.

I boast now and will continue to boast then in Jesus Christ, His death and resurrection. In truth, He has not been my fortress the way I’d like to say He has been. I have not built my house on the Rock that is His life as I could have. And I certainly have not truly viewed Him as the pearl of great price, as He so rightfully deserves. Now, it looks like God will force my hand. He appears to be about to do with me what I have failed to do on my own all these years, and it seems I have a most unusual partner in that work… Barack Obama.

My admonition to all whose life is hidden in Christ (including to myself)… “Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of [anything or anybody], for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” - Deuteronomy 31:6 NIV

And so it begins.