Frankly, the amount of resources (both time and money) that elections mobilize astounds me. Each of the two major parties will spend several hundred million dollars each on this election cycle. But what will we do afterward - win or lose?
Evangelicals (particularly those that are also Republicans) get a bad rap during election season, partly deserved and partly undeserved - and this include the call that we don't do enough for the poor (on the whole they are more generous than their peers, but it can easily be said that we are not generous enough) and oppressed. Do we take as serioulsy as we should the call from Isaiah in verse 17 -
"Learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow."
or the Psalmist in Psalm 146:9 - "The LORD watches over the alien and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked."
So while I sometimes get tired of the constant petition writers/critics (no names, that would be a bit unfair), let me offer up this initial proposition -
That after the election (whoever wins) conservative and politically mobilized evangelicals commit to mobilizing additional resources for the poor and oppressed in new ways with new time and new money (above and beyond what we have been giving) and that this momentum comes from within the movement, not from those that love to criticize it. How much? What is the expected numbers of evangelical voters voting for Bush - 50 million? What type of multiplier is a good goal? Let's start small - 1 for 1 - 1 new dollar and 1 new hour of volunteer work for every vote cast for Bush by a conservative Christian. And not to culture war groups, but only to those that minister to the "fatherless and the widow" both here and abroad. That's my modest proposal.
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