Christianity and Obama

I’ve heard from several place both before and after the election the phrase “There is no way a Christian could possibly vote for Obama.” The reasoning behind this is that Obama supports abortion and gay rights.

This was an issue I struggled with in this election. As a follower of Christ, I am told that every life is sacred to Him and that gay relationships are an abomination in His sight. Therefore I am supposed to refrain from both of them. That isn’t a problem for me.

Here’s a problem for me though: I’ve known and loved both gay people and people who have had abortions. Therefore they are more than just a statistic or group to me… they are representative of real people in my life.

Ultimately my stand on this issue boiled down to this: If we make abortions and gay relationships against the law, then what we’ve done is give the government the say so in both our healthcare choices and in our choice of who to pursue a relationship with. It is a very slippery slope.

If we give the authority to the government to decide what one group of individuals can and can’t do, homosexuals for instance, then where does it stop? If they can dictate how gays and women can live their life, then why stop there? Why couldn’t they then dictate to Christians how to live THEIR lives?

Think about it, fellow Christians. Do you really want to give our government that kind of authority? Are you naive enough to believe that a secular government would stop with gays and not extend that level of control to all walks of life?

Just because the law would allow for abortions or gay marriage doesn’t mean you have to participate. You CAN’T force non-Chrisitans to live by Christians standards. We derive our standards, or morals, from Christ. Non-Christians, obviously, don’t recognize Him as an authority. Why then would they submit themselves to His ways?

The answer to combating the sins of abortion and homosexuality is -not- to force Christ’s standards onto the people. The answer is to introduce the people to Christ.

My vote for Obama was a vote against Government making decisions about my life for me. In an indirect way, it was a vote for my religious freedom… my freedom to choose, for -myself-, not to have an abortion or to be in a homosexual relationship.

Government shouldn’t decide how I live my life. Religion shouldn’t decide how the non-religious live thier lives.

We, as Christians, should worry less about changing the law and focus more and changing hearts.

Feel free to disagree with all of us. That’s your right. The Body of Christ is a diverse group, made up of many different parts. So too is America. Try to remember that.

Who Would Ever Want to Be King?

For the last five years i’ve sat at work at 5am on Black Friday and watched sadly as the Wal-Mart parking lot filled up with deal seekers, wishing I could be among their ranks.

Not this year my friends. This year I am the one making the work schedules, and I will be taking that weekend off to seek and hopefully find all those wonderfully cheap electronics that desperate retailers almost give away on Black Friday. I am on a quest… I can almost taste the adventure now. Mwah ha ha.

In case you wondered about the title, I was listening to the wonderful “Viva La Vida” song by Coldplay.

Shout out to (not for long) Big Dan as he recovers from his surgery.

What A Week

It’s been quite a weekend for the Wallins.

Firstly, we moved from our apartment in Muscle Shoals (where I proposed to Cassie in fact… Attached picture is the spot where it happened after the furniture was moved) to a 3-bedroom apartment in Florence. Unfortunately no one was available to help so the bulk of it was moved by us and Cassie’s poor, poor Dad. We started Friday afternoon and didn’t “finish” until like 10pm Sunday night.

On the gadget side, Overstock.com had a price mistake on this great device called a “LocationFree” base station. Basically you hook it up to your Tivo and you can access it and watch your recorded shows from anywhere with Wi-Fi. It was supposed to be $154.50 but they left the zero off so I got two for $15.45 each. Hehehe FedEx delivers today.

Yesterday several executives from my company, Murphy Oil, arrived at my store on their “Customer Service Tour” in a giant tour bus. They stayed for about half an hour handing out beads and free drinks to customers and gave me a signed mug, plaque, and tools pictures and video to be shown at our managers meeting in Orlando in January. I worked from 4am to 5pm straight getting ready for it. Blah.

As soon as I was freed from that I went to vote in my first Presidential election. I didn’t vote in the last two because I never registered and always missed the deadline to.

I had been a rock solid Obama supporter the whole election, which netted me much flak from folks (especially my Fantasy Football league where I’ve been called such things as “Baby Killer” *sigh*). However here at the end I was a little conflicted as to who I was going to cast my vote for.

In a jaded sense I knew it didn’t really matter because McCain was going to carry Alabama no matter what. The night before I read a great essay by Derek Webb that talked about Christians and voting responsibility and how Christians should not feel required to vote, especially if it caused them to violate their conscience by voting “the lesser of two evils”. (EDIT:  LINK HERE )

Because of the Murphy bus I didn’t think I’d have time to vote anyway. I was then informed that polls were open until 7 so I met my wife at Highland Church as soon as I left work and decided to cast my vote. (side note: I think it’s funny that we vote in churches. Seperation of church and state?)

In the end, I did vote Obama. As much as I like some of McCains ideals I ultimately decided that Obama has the best chance of making positive change in our country (especially with the new Democratic monopoly in Washington). I hope he can be flexible with some of his ideas to change some of them that may not work so well if they don’t. I think he will.

I cooked dinner (Shake & Bake!) Ironically linked to that meal, the wife and I then watched “Step Brothers” and a little election coverage before going to bed around 9.

My alarm went off at 3am this morning and I immediatly opened Yahoo! News on my iPhone to see that I’d woken up to a new country that had just elected it’s first (half) African American president. I got up, made some coffee, and watched a little CNN.

It’s a new era America.

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