The Living Good Samaritan Deserves Our Votes

My amazement continues with some of my fellow Christians who think they're not only justified in voting for Obama but some how are doing what Jesus would want them to do in doing so. Here are two of their most common arguments (be sure not to mistake the stuff in italics as my beliefs as they are what I'm arguing against).

1. Mitt Romney is a Mormon and Barack Obama is an evangelical. We should vote for the man who's religious views are more Christian.
   – So we're assuming Obama is what he says he is, but in that case let's consider what Mitt Romney says he is. He believes in Jesus Christ as his lord and savior, so doesn't that make him a christian in his own words too. What's that you say? Mormons say they follow Christ but there are elements of their beliefs and practices that are definitely not Christian. As a seminary trained Methodist I will give you no argument there, but doesn't that mean if we are going to question Mitt Romney's relationship with Christ based on his other beliefs and actions we must question Barack Obama's as well? In both cases we must not just take their words for it, and once we come to that point we must then study their lives to see the evidence of the veracity of their words about following Christ.
   – Jesus Christ said in Matthew 7:16, “By their fruit you will recognize them. … ” Looking at what we know about the lives of these two men, which one has personally shown up to help those in need or who were suffering? Which one has shown up in this way again and again to such a degree that people who know him will tell you that it's just the way he is, he doesn't seem to put a thought to if he can, he just does?
   – The answer to that question is an easy one for all except those determined to believe what the other side says about the man instead of what is obvious to see, Mitt Romney is that man. If this isn't obvious then you missed the personal testimonies at the Republican National Convention. Perhaps the news source you chose to watch chose not to show them to you. They were important for any Christian to hear.
   – One might wisely ask why it is Barack Obama doesn't have similar testimonies being told about him. We can only wonder and conjecture, but he does have two auto-biographies out about himself and the evidence isn't there. That doesn't mean he doesn't do this kind of thing. He could be like Mitt Romney and not want to boast about his good deeds personally, but isn't it possible and even quite plausible that it's because Barack Obama just isn't that kind of person? How many of us are? Mitt Romney is the kind of person that puts most of the rest of us to shame for our lack of responsiveness to others in need. He's almost like a living breathing retelling of Christ's parable about the good Samaritan. Obama on the other hand is not an exceptional example of compassion for individuals. No fault there, just not evidence in support of his claims to Christian faith. The evidence here favors Mitt Romney.
   – Now what about the influence of Christ's teachings on their politics? What does it matter if a president is a Christian or not if he some how separates his politics from Christ's teachings? That brings us to another argument I hear to support the claim that voting for Barack Obama is somehow a Christian thing to do.
2. Christ teaches us that we should take care of the poor and needy and that we should stand up for those suffering injustice, therefore we must reject cold and heartless Republican public policies.
   – This argument is old and worn out, and by that I mean both sides of it. Our lord never wanted us to delegate our Christian duty of compassion to government, I keep saying, and these fellow Christian brothers and sisters of mine just keep right on as though I said nothing. The government is a wasteful and relatively heartless way to address these things, I keep saying, and they tell me that Christ's church just isn't up to the challenge. Christ's church is up to any challenge God presents us with, I keep saying, and they shake their heads and tell me I'm naive.
   – So I keep trying to find a way to get through to them. There's got to be some way they will come to see how government is only the rescuer of last resort and a necessary evil at best, so I keep writing and talking, and they keep voting for the wrong people.
   – My best argument so far is from Jesus's own words in Matthew 22:37-40, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” I point out how loving your neighbor as yourself cannot possibly mean getting the government to do it for you, at least not usually, government with its inevitable mission creep that eats up the liberty of those it tries to help, amongst other things. Christ's own instructions here pretty much insist that we not get government to help people unless there is absolutely no other way to help them. This is precisely because the people He wants us to love are individuals, just as we are individuals.
   – There perhaps is a reason why Barack Obama's PR people make absolutely no effort to show us him in a situation where he was confronted by the suffering of an individual and responded to it with great compassion. It's because, like these Christian brothers and sisters of mine who support him, he has been deceived into thinking that Christ's greatest commandment is telling us to love collectives, and to love individuals as part of collectives. How impersonal! How unloving! Did not our lord when entering a community burdened by a crooked tax collector choose to save the tax collector first? Did He not, when presented with an adulteress about to be stoned, save her without regard for the collective feelings of those gathered around her? Christ came for the 'least of these', those who were outcast, the individuals, yes the individuals. This is so missed on the believers in social justice. That's why the belief in such a thing as social justice is so very very dangerous, so very very perverse, something worse than heresy. It separates our efforts, our thinking, and ultimately our caring from the individuals our lord commands us to love.

Why must we choose between individuals and groups when groups are made up of individuals? If you start with groups in your heart and mind and then deal with individuals you will be too late. How many children raised up in churches go astray and never return? It's not because God's word was wrong where it says, “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it”. It's because the child was never reached as an individual. Deal with individuals first and then, one individual at a time, reach groups. Then you will never be too late. It seems the obvious meaning of Matthew 22:37-40. It's what our lord commanded us to do.

Now back to my brothers and sisters in Christ, who while being mislead by their belief in social justice, believe it right for them to vote for Barack Obama. I wont give up, even after this election is over and many of them vote for the opposite of what they claim to be dedicated to, for the reason many of them will vote against rather than for what is right will still be there, no matter who wins this election. This social justice that perverts the Gospel and neuters the Church in a world full of suffering and need must be confronted and sent into history's trash heap along with all the other great heresies. It will likely be the worst of them.

In the mean time I will not give up on brothers and sisters in Christ who are so mislead.  I will keep prodding them with the truth and come election day I will be voting for the closest thing I know of to a present day Good Samaritan, Mitt Romney.