We believe
that poverty - caring for the poor and vulnerable - is a religious
issue. Do the candidates' budget and
tax policies reward the rich or show compassion for poor families? Do their
foreign policies include fair trade and debt cancellation for the poorest
countries? (Matthew
25:35-40, Isaiah
10:1-2)
The US is not a theocracy and
it's government is a secular government. I wonder if these "poorest countries"
would be so poor if they employed honest business practices. The reason many
of them can't lure business there is because they can't assure honest
practices and personal safety.
We believe
that the environment - caring for God's earth - is a religious
issue. Do the candidates' policies
protect the creation or serve corporate interests that damage it? (Genesis
2:15, Psalm
24:1)
God is well able to take care of
His own Creation. Did he give Israel (the apple of His eye) a mandate to
take care of His business? No!! Neither did he instruct the Church of
the Lord Jesus Christ this way, so who is the authority making it the
responsibility of the USA?
We believe
that war - and our call to be peacemakers - is a religious
issue. Do the candidates' policies
pursue "wars of choice" or respect international law and cooperation in
responding to real global threats? (Matthew
5:9)
Peace through strength is also
PEACE and this is why God advocates spanking to keep the peace in homes with
unruly children. God has instructed Israel to go to war at different
times. Peace at any price is not His way and the Sermon on the Mount is
not "instruction to Nations" We are instructed to pray for our leaders and
trust God to work in and through them.
We believe
that truth-telling is a religious issue. Do the candidates
tell the truth in justifying war and in other foreign and domestic policies?
(John
8:32)
The writers of this article
should start with themselves. There was just one perfect man known as
The Truth...
We believe
that human rights - respecting the image of God in every person - is a
religious issue. How do the candidates propose
to change the attitudes and policies that led to the abuse and torture of
Iraqi prisoners? (Genesis
1:27)
Next thing they will be seeing
"the image of God" in the Al Queda terrorists. This is foolish
talk.
We believe
that our response to terrorism is a religious issue. Do
the candidates adopt the dangerous language of righteous empire in the war on
terrorism and confuse the roles of God, church, and nation? Do the candidates
see evil only in our enemies but never in our own policies? (Matthew
6:33, Proverbs
8:12-13 )
Glad for these people to have
their beliefs but they should inflict them on the rest of us, or try to
justify them by
quoting scripture out of
context.
We believe
that a consistent ethic of human life is a religious
issue. Do the candidates' positions on
abortion, capital punishment, euthanasia, weapons of mass destruction,
HIV/AIDS-and other pandemics-and genocide around the world obey the biblical
injunction to choose life? (Deuteronomy
30:19)
Choosing life is an individual
responsibility and I don't believe the authors of this list understand what
this means. It's conditional - the diseases of Egypt are witheld to those who
keep God's statutes and laws. This is what it means to "Choose
Life"
