The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum Being a conservative Christian...

"Moreover, the Democrat party is so far out beyond left field now."
No, if you read of the working class in the late 19th Century and early 20th Century in the states, you would see that the Democrat party is not "left" in the least. The Democrat party is not advocating a socialist/communist revolution, like the various Socialist and Communist parties were. These parties gained a fair % of the votes in the early 1900's in the US presidential elections.
A critical analysis shows that Bill Clinton, president from 1992-2000, capitulated to the right, and made many concessions toward the right! In fact, Unions, Socialized Medicine, etc. are barely, if at all, spoken of by the Democrats!
Simply listen to what Kerry said...he was as hawkish, if not more so, than Bush on Iraq, and more so on Afghanistan. This is NOT "far beyond left field", this is centrist or right-center field, my friend.

Just out of curiousity, where exactly do you live? Would you live in a predominate red state or blue state?

I may not have made this point as clear as I could, but note that I stated the Democrat party is out beyond left field in moral matters, not necessarily pure socio-political matters.

I happen to live in a blue state and all that is talked about by the Democrat party is unions, socialized medicine and homosexual marriage. These are major agendas put forth by the mainstream Democrat party in the US and none of these positions are centrist and they are certainly far from being right wing. One thing I appreciated about the talk show host, Dennis Prager, is how he ventured into the Democrat national convention and spent time during his program to interview the delegates to the convention. The one question Prager always asked was, "Why are you a democrat?" and with out fail, 9 times ouf of 10, the key reason is that Republicans are "too religious" or they place too much emphasis on religion. Branching off from that anti-religious conviction was the issue of abortion, gay rights, national health care, and unionized labor.

Moreover, Kerry had the most liberal voting record in the senate; Edwards the fourth. So for a moment in time, in the months leading up to the election (and depending upon which context he was speaking) he sounded strong on Iraq, but that was not his core position. If you stuck with the guy's duplicit statements, it was obvious that he favored a more multilateral approach to Islamic terrorism, what he equated to being a criminal gang problem that just needs to be "policed" (which tells me how out of touch he is with what drives Islamic terrorism), rather than the US dealing directly with its enemies, if need be, apart from UN support. Please don't feel too offended, but your comments make me wonder just how informed you are about what Democrats believe.

Fred

My comment is that, in general, to pander for votes, the Democrats have abandoned their party lines. This is due to a general country shift.
I used to think the way you did, that the world was getting more "liberal".
And I will agree that Kerry's voting record, although mixed, is, comparatively, liberal.
I guess in a sense it is getting more liberal in the world, although liberalism is an interesting word, one for another conversation.

I would certainly agree with you: I do not see the US necessarily becoming more liberal. The outcome of November's election is evidence of that. I would further agree with you about Democrat candidates having to abandon their party's core values to earn votes, especially in the fly over, bubba, tractor pulling, pro-wrestling and domestic beer drinking country of the US. I still believe, though, that the Democrat party maintains convictions on the foundational level that do not comport with a biblical worldview, especially in the areas of the morality they promote.

Fred

On the contrary, the USA is becoming more and more liberal. The reason why we may not think so is that conservatives are taking liberal positions as it comes to government and/or political scientists are redefining what is liberal. When the populace expects government to take care of more and more of their problems, the government becomes more powerful and its citizenry loses more of its freedom.

Fred,

I agree with your assessment and categorizing of the Democratic Party as being far left in regard to its OFFICIAL platform. The fact that they use deception and guile for the purpose of soliciting votes, particularly in proselytizing Republican sympathizers, doesn't negate what they truly hold dear.

As a U.S. citizen living up here in Northern "Sodom", aka: Canada, eh!, I can tell you factually, that what Kerry and the majority of Democrats espouse and hope to achieve in the U.S. is very much in line with all but one of the political parties here; i.e., socialism. It's historical fact that the Democrats have always been the "quasi-socialists" of the U.S. And, I personally don't see how that has changed one iota. In fact, the Democratic voices who are screaming that the "religious right" won the election for Bush and that it is unfair, etc., only goes to expose their hatred of all that is good. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/rolleyes2.gif" alt="" />

In His Grace,

<img src="/forum/images/graemlins/ranton.gif" alt="" />
I warn you in advance, if you read this and are offended, it's your own fault for reading this, take it with a grain of salt cause I don't have a problem with moderates and Republicans or even Realistic Democrats. I voted Bush, deal with it. The latter part is just some comments flowing off the top of my head after 1 in the morning and if you don't like them and can't laugh about it, then I suggest that you take polotics too seriously and perhaps you have some messed up priorities. This said, :

Well of course a Conservative Christian doesn't have to be Republican, it was just that in the last election, the idea of voting for a papist that even the papacy doesn't approve of as vs. voteing for Bush (a Methodist) the only way you could vote is Bush. Plus, who really wants to see John Kerry's face on the TV all the time? The man is uglier than the backend of his parties maskot releasing from that end the same stuff that came out of his mouth during his speeches. And then their's the Edwards Issue, do you have any idea how confusing that would be for us who occaissionally discuss The Puritan John Edwards?

Then their's Bush, Bush is appealing to the common man, he's evangelically inclined, he seems willing to take risk, and he doesn't need the endorsement of France and Germany, and besides that, look at France and Germany, you really wanna take their advice? No offense to the French and the German people, they have produced some very nice things, but the last time France was really great was under the "Petite Corporal" (and who speaks French? Nobody, cause it's unspeakable, that's why they have a language council), and Germany well, I'll leave them alone for now. The point, Bush is American for Americans.

Bush, not so good for music, perhaps not so good for drinking or baked beans, but for decorating houses and running democracies, yeah, Bush is good.

In reality, democracy isn't really biblical, people (including Kings and other Aristocracy) are just too depraved to rule themselves effectively and frankly, not everybody can be cheif, it's just not realistic. Even Athens, the "Birthplace of Democracy" eventually abadoned and despised the idea. Further, democracy, and the American way of life is based on ideas not necessarily from Christians and the Bible but from "enlightenment" philosophers. In reality, we should realize that America indoctrinates it's people, the people who go to our churches and sit with us everyday, and even we ourselves who live here, we're all indoctrinated into what you might call the Religion of America, that America is good b/c America is based on Freedom of Choice and Personal Responsibility and the Ability of the Individual to Claim his place in society, that American's are basically good and that they're seeking good for those around them. America endorses a religion of non-religion, of pluralist and relativist ideas and then claims tolerance as the cheif virtue by which all men must subscribe. And the worst part is, we buy it, we drug ourselves into believing it, and we ignore and slander anyone who says otherwise and pass them off as loons b/c their joys are in something other than America. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/rantoff.gif" alt="" />

Brother Luke

I'm with you brother Luke!

Let us hope that we can change that "indoctrinated" to being "tempted to be indoctrinated".

What is happening to Americans? What was once a humble and righteous cry of "Give me liberty or give me death" has become "Take our licencious democratic liberty or die".

Americans, at the speed of light, are forgetting that true liberty is the result of a faithful obedience to the Word of God, NOT its cause!

It is my belief that, at this same speed of light, Americans, both Democrats and Republicans are selling their birthright for the pot of porridge of worldly power and material gain, and the Lord will not consider us guiltless for taking His Name in vain.

Homosexuality, abortion, secular humanism, entrenched big government, as evil as they all are, are not at the root of our misery but symtomatic of the underlying cause.

The cause, in fact, being a truly "religious" sell out to our inclusive New Age of unbelief in the Gospel.

To me, the Democrats and Republicans have become fraternal twins and two sides of the very same coin.

Denny

Roms 3:22-24

Your statement makes me think about something Bill Gothard said years ago at one of his seminars that I attended. I'm not sure I remember the exact words but it went something like this, "Moral freedom is not a license to do what we want but the power to do what we ought." This definition of freedom is quite different than one often spoken by secular humanists. Make no mistake Secular Humanism has become THE religion of America today!

Our President used the term "Spreading Freedom" frequently in his innaugeral address. I don't think he nor either party holds the keys for that to happen. Political legislators (Democrats and Republicans) don't hold the keys to moral living. They can and should however make righteous laws and uphold the Constitution. However, only the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ holds the keys to the kingdom of God where true freedom indwells the hearts of believers.


Wes

Brother Wes,

Please forgive me for my mixing of metaphors at the end of my last post.

I will instead present a quadruple metaphoric mess:

The Democrats and Republicans are becoming fraternal twins, two sides of the same worthless coin, two peas in a rotten pod and drinking buddies. <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/cheers2.gif" alt="" />

Denny

Roms 3:22-24

Sorry I haven't interacted with this thread like at all this whole time. I have been in agreement with a lot of what has been said and where I would disagree, someone else has come along and started an opinion that I agreed with so it's not seemed logical for me to post responses that had already been stated.

Here are some observations from my reading of the thread, though, and let me know if I am seeing something wrong:

• Most here seem to be in agreement that being a conservative Christian doesn't require one to be a Republican but that a conservative Christian will most likely vote for a candidate that holds conservative values.
• Political party affiliation has no bearing on one's salvation.
• No one seems to have been fond of Kerry in the last election.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned much (if a all) is the Constitution Party. I have been reading up on them on their site and they seem to be pretty right on. If this is good for a different thread, move it. But is there anything I should know about these guys that may not be on their site that I should be leary of?