How Christians Should Win

Yesterday I wrote on the demographic shift that has made many conservative Christian tenets—once adhered to nationally—minority positions today. Many Christians have not even admitted that this shift has occurred, let alone figured out how to deal with it.
I am going to address these comments primarily to conservative Christians—although others are certainly welcome to follow along. How should a Christian who finds his stands on abortion, homosexuality, etc., react when they no longer can command a majority of the votes?
One suggestion might be that we withdraw our unwinnable positions from the political arena. As a kid I heard a doggerel that went, “Old farmer Jones, sittin’ on a fence, tryin’ to make a dollar out of 65 cents … .” You can’t make one hundred votes out of sixty-five, either. That’s one of the nasty things about democracy.
And then, do what? Do what Christians have historically done to change societies around them. One, stop shouting political slogans and pray. Many Christians pay lip service to the power of prayer, but when it comes to political issues, they seem to believe only in the power of the ballot. So, pray.
Next, show love and compassion. For fagots and baby killers? Christ said he came to minister to precisely those kinds of people. “I come to judge no man.” (There will be a judgment, but that’s in a different time and place, and it’s none of our business.) We must stop judging and start caring.
Christ said that people would and should recognize Christians through the love they show. Angry demonstrations against abortion clinics and gay pride rallies, to name two, show very little love. The image left with non-Christians is of a hostile and potentially violent group.
Well, how would Christ handle abortion clinics and gay pride parades? Same way he handled gladiatorial combat, I suspect. There was a theatre for them just outside of Jerusalem. Did you ever hear a word about that holocaust from him—even though he must have walked past it many times?
No, he waited until love and prayer changed society. (It didn’t come with Constantine’s conversion, either. After that, Christians simply threw pagans to the lions for a few centuries.) The same way early Christians handled slavery. In silence. Praying and loving. Changing society as a whole first.
It wasn’t until the early 1700s that a sect of Christianity known as Quakers formed anti-slavery societies in America. For millennia before Christ and millennia after, slavery went right on—and Christians who could not make a dollar out 65 cents kept silence and prayed.
In Christ’s day, there were no abortions. There was infanticide. When faced with an unwelcome child, you put it out in the cold and let it freeze or let the dogs eat it. Just as much carnage as caused by abortion clinics. Do you hear a word about that from the early church? (They didn’t have the votes.) No. Just centuries of changing society through love and prayer.
In 1964 it was finally codified that women were the equal of men. That certainly wasn’t true in Christ’s day. Nor is it true in the non-Christian world today. So how did it come about? Quietly changing society with no angry demonstrations or condemnation. Until they finally had the votes.
If you believe in prayer, try it. Stop shouting and carrying on. Calm your E-mails and preachments down. If your prayers and kindness change society enough, you will someday have the votes. You just don’t have them now.
Does this mean don’t vote? Of course not. Pick candidates and nominees that are as close to your positions as you can find. Vote for them. Don’t ask them to be perfect or to adhere totally to your position on anything—they have to get elected, after all. Be realistic about the “sixty-five cents” you have got. Don’t try to make it something more.
Let’s be known for our love—not our spleen.