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I want to be careful, I really hesitated before posting this, because I don’t want to put stumbling blocks in front of people. I don’t want to turn people of the Gospel because of my political opinion. At the same time, I want to explore the issues surrounding what impacts the way we vote as Christians. And I may be wrong.
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I’ve been watching a little bit of television over the past few weeks. I found Insight during the last few weeks to be fascinating. Insight is a forum program, and last week they were talking to young –first time voters. The program didn’t get close to covering all the detail. But the gist of the young people’s comments was that neither party communicates with young people, and seeks to label issues as youth issues. You could see a breakdown in communication all night. As the two politicians spoke, faces went blank, eyes rolled, and the message was not received, and the following week the lesson was people feel taken for granted as two years of inaction is followed by a flurry of promises and further inaction. The economic issues, of security and the like, get a run ahead of values. The general mood is that happiness is defined in terms of dollars and cents, or a good career [Clive Hamilton is one of many researchers who has been talking about the relationship between money and happiness].
One of the things that has been running around my head particularly over the last week or so, since I went to the CASE Election Forum, was how Christians thought in general about voting, who they should vote for, and what impacts their question. During the CASE seminar four people outlined the reasons the voted in a particular manner [the parties were Liberal, Labour, Christian Democrats and the Greens]. We spoke about issues of conservative family values we spoke about issues of truth in Government, the Iraq War, Refugees-asylum seekers, and other issues of Social Inequality. And it seems to me, that Christian’s by-enlarge will use the former to make their decision. Yes it is true to say that conservative family values is not the sum total of Christian belief, it seems to largely be the determining one.
After watching the Cutting Edge documentary on the faith of George W. Bush, I was left with little doubt that Bush has a strong Evangelical faith. One of the striking claims was that Bush, in the 2000 election, won 84 per cent of the Evangelical vote. From the US polls, and casual conversations I’ve had with a few American friends, it seems that this will be repeated. I find this staggering, I just keep saying where are the Christians who oppose Bush, who has misled the nation, dragging them off to a war, for which there was no plan. It seems that Iraq is less stable than before Bush went in, and we’ve created a fertile soil for growing more terrorists, and that is without mentioning any domestic issues. Bush will have their vote; seemingly on issues of conservative values – stem cell research, pro-life, pro-traditional marriage, and faith-based action.
Speaking personally, I have been thinking through the issues of who to vote for in the upcoming election. I was not happy when I saw the Labour Party nominate Peter Garrett as the candidate for the seat in which I live. I believe that candidates should be pre-selected by the membership of the party, not imposed by the party leadership.
Though, as the campaign has continued, while I have seen and heard very little of Garrett [to my disappointment], I have been growing in my respect for Latham, and how he has run the campaign. Yes I think there is a lot about Latham that is not desirable. But I am not willing to let this government, that has created a strong economy at a social cost; this government that has been loose with the truth in relation to Children Overboard and the war in Iraq; this government that has sullied Australia’s reputation in the Global community by wilfully ignoring international treaties to which we are signatories, off the hook.
I have to admit that the two biggest messages that have got through over the course of the campaign. (1) Interest rates will go up under Latham (or its the Economy stupid, and (2) you can’t trust an inexperienced politician to run the country. And I think both of these are wrong. Sometimes I think we devalue freshness. By enlarge we are a cautious bunch. In my judgement with our caution we are doing damage, and this damage is more extensive than the damage of electing a Latham government. And perhaps not surprisingly no public economist is on the record saying interest rates will be higher under Latham.
I’m interested to hear from readers why you are intending to vote in that manner you will. I am desperately keen and interested to hear from American Christians how they will vote in the US Election. I should note that I am more interested in how you decide to vote, than whom you vote for.
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A run through today's editorials - the SMH comes down asserting its independence, acknowledging of course, "the policy may not hold forever. A truly awful government of any colour, for example, would bring reappraisal"., while The Age, The Courier Mail and The Australian suggest on the balance we should return the Coalition. While The Sun Herald last Sunday suggested Latham needs another three years as Opposition leader.
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