Wednesday, March 07, 2007

What About It, Candidates???

I just read this list of questions Gordon MacDonald would like to put to the men (and woman) putting their names in there names in the hat to be the world's most powerful leader.(link)
1. Can he/she give us a government that will recoup our reputation in the world as a generous and compassionate nation? And could he/she take more seriously the fact that a large part of this world now finds our country distasteful? And this goes for Christians in other lands also. (I’m embarrassed every time I go abroad.)

2. Is there a candidate brave enough to influence the formulation of bold new initiatives regarding energy-consumption, health-care, and Social Security? (If there isn’t, the year 2030 isn’t going to be a good year.)

3. Does he/she think they could stop putting our grandchildren in hock with hideous deficits? (Isn’t being debt-free a Christian value?)

4. Would he/she take the issue of climate change and environmental care seriously? (It is God’s creation, and some more generations may have to share it.)

5. Would he/she pledge to be so truthful with the American people that no reasonable person would question their integrity? Let’s describe this as being Lincoln-esque. (I’m tired of spin.)

6. Would he/she renounce all forms of torture in the treatment of prisoners? (I’m ashamed that this is even an issue in America.)

7. Is he/she concerned about the growing social crisis of the separation between the rich and the poor? (It’s becoming a gated world out there and one day there may be a new kind of homegrown terrorism.)

8. Does he/she think they might rethink the exporting of billions upon billions of dollars to places like Iraq when a few billion would make a lot of difference in the education of American children and the absurdly rising costs of college education? (I can’t believe we are so silent on matters like this.)

9. Might he/she intend to offer any form of moral influence that would raise the tastes of our nation in its choices of entertainment, the spending of its money, and its growing addiction to sports? (Or does Rome live again?)

10. If there is ever again a justifiable reason to take this nation to war, could he/she make sure that everyone becomes involved in the sacrifice that war requires? To date the burden or war seems to be on a relatively small percentage of Americans while everyone else goes on living the so-called “good life?” (You destroy a nation by doing it the way we’ve been doing it. How did we forget Viet Nam so easily?)

11. Could he/she see themselves being as turned on by the dream of alleviating diseases, suppressing genocide, and rescuing the dying nations (debt forgiveness comes to mind) as America once was about getting someone to the moon?

These are all questions with an admitted political ring to them. But each arises from my convictions as a biblical person.
HT: Out of Ur

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It is nice to see someone actually put some thought into a Presidential candidate (even if that person is not out there...or too under the radar to matter). I think that too many evangelicals get all hot and bothered by abortion and gay rights issues (and rightly so in some instances, as they are important issues, but not the be all end all by any means) and everyone else wants to know about the economy. I guess it just frustrates me that there is not a place for open, honest exhange of ideas (both new and old) and real, non-sound-bite, thoughtful, inteligent candidates and voters. But that is too hard, so I'll probably vote for the person that'll lower my taxes.

Anonymous said...

Amen and Amen. (to the comment above and to Bryon's post!)