Regarding voting, there is an interesting discussion of it here http://www.whiteestate.org/issues/Voting.html. There are a number of Adventists who expressed interesting arguments against voting, some of them similar to yours (Claudia). One fellow said he couldn't vote for a bad man (obviously), but neither could he vote for a good man, because the experience would ruin him.

Ellen White argued against us being like the Quakers who refuse to do anything, especially in regards to temperance issues, arguing that Satan was well pleased who took this view.

The presentation concluded basically that if one felt he should vote, they were free to do so, but they should keep their views to themselves. When issues of temperance were involved, they (Adventist pioneers, including EGW) were very strongly in favor of voting.

Tom and Thomas, well said. But this view is precisely what will shake the unconverted church members within Adventism. No matter how nicely, how lovingly we attempt to encourage them to overcome sin, those who are only half converted will rise up against the message, accusing us of making works more important than faith, denying the grace of God, the love and mercy of God. Did you happen to notice the way Pastor Batchelor is putting it? He is not mincing his words. He is saying that we will not sin if we are abiding in Jesus. Then he has to beg the congregation to say - Amen! Very tense.

A few days ago, on CNN, I heard a reporter saying that the Moral Majority, who voted in great numbers for Bush, are now saying that they have "a president of their own."

I realize the following is a bit long but I tell you you will not regret taking the time reading it. What was hoped for in 1979 by the Moral Majority under Jerry Falwell is happening today before our very eyes! Read on....

In 1979, this is what they said, "If Christians unite, we can do anything. We can pass any law or any amendment. And that's exactly what we intend to do." "We can do anything. We can amend the Constitution. We can elect a President. We can change or make any law in the land. And it behooves us to do it. If we have to live under law-as well we should-we should live under moral and Godly laws."


"On CBS Evening News, August 22, 1979, Robert Grant, Leader of the Christian Voice, a California-based Christian movement, declared, "We get the feeling that American people, Christian people, are just plain sick and tired of the way trends are going. They're sick and tired of immorality in government. They're sick and tired of being betrayed. Thery're sick and tired of having their moral convictions trampled underfoot by political-by professional politicians. And they're just ready to stand up and have their voice heard."

Terms such as "holy war" (Chicago Tribune), "A war of Christianity versus godless humanism" (Washington Star), and "New force in American politics" (New York Times), speak for themselves.

Pat Robertson, founder and host of "The 700 Club," and president of CBN TV Network, challenges Christians to get into the political arena so we can "place this nation under God." For "we have, together with the Protestants and the Catholics, enough votes to run the country. And when the people say, 'We've had enough,' we are going to take over."

Churches that were split asunder now stand at war with an enemy. "The threat to the family has caused leaders of various denominations to put aside their sectarian differences and, for the first time in decades, agree on basic principles worth fighting for."

In a June, 1979, letter to the 700 Club members, Robertson urged, "Unless Christians desire a nation and a world reordered to the humanistic/hedonistic model, it is absolutely vital that we take control of the U.S. Government away from the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations." He also speaks in the same letter of turning to God "to galvanize Christians to political action."

James Robison, chairman of the committee to get prayer back into public schools and perhaps the most fiery evangelist in America today, wrote, "Are you not sickened and disturbed at what is happening in this great country God has given us? I am urging you to join me as a mighty army marching to turn this nation back to Christ." He is taking his program, "Wake up, America. We are All Hostages," all over the country, just as Jerry Falwell, president of the Moral Majority, is airing his program, "America, You're Too Young to Die." These programs stir the people across the land, mobilizing them into an all-out attack against liberal politicians.

Dr. Jerry Falwell, minister of the 17,000 member Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia, and speaker on the "Old-Time Gospel Hour," claimed to have recruited more than 70,000 ministers on the side of moral majority. He also once said he had been responsible for registering some two million voters for the November, 1980, elections.

Dr. Bill Bright, leader of Campus Crusade, sponsored by the Billy Graham Association, warned, "I believe God is giving us a last chance." Pat Robertson cries out, "If Christians unite, we can do anything. We can pass any law or any amendment. And that's exactly what we intend to do." On television Grant said, "We can do anything. We can amend the Constitution. We can elect a President. We can change or make any law in the land. And it behooves us to do it. If we have to live under law-as well we should-we should live under moral and Godly laws."

And speaking of godly law, Dr. Jerry Falwell, in an interview with Eternity Magazine, showed how the Moral Majority got underway-the largest movement of those pressing for change. "George Gallup said his findings indicate that a whopping 84 percent today in America believe the Ten Commandments are valid for today, so we began putting together that Moral Majority."

PLAN OF ATTACK. Their strategy calls for total mobilization of the 108,000 evangelical ministers and the 110,000 evangelical churches to get a 100-voter turnout in every national and local election.

Their strategy involves long-range plans. Churches have become issue-oriented. Morality and saving America stirs the people. James Robison claims that 70 percent of Bible-believing Christians did not vote in the 1976 national election. And the Chicago Tribune speaks of many as 25 million evangelicals not even registered to vote.

Whichever way you look at it, these people have an overriding sense of urgency. They have almost a messianic zeal to save the nation now before it is too late. Jerry Falwell's letter to me, dated August 18, 1980, is signed off, "Working to Save America."

How much time do they think they have? Life Magazine reports, "During dinner with the Governor and first lady of Alabama, Falwell confided, 'America had less than a thousand days as a free nation, unless there is divine intervention.'"

This puts urgency into the campaign to make America Christian--as if it must be completed before Christ comes. I attended the James Robison's Greater Chattanooga Crusade on September 21, 1980. He spoke with a tremendous sense of urgency to a capacity stadium packed with people from more than eighty churches in the area. Robison spoke of the 1980's as a 'decade of danger and doom,' with 1980 as the "year of decision which will determine our destiny--whether we survive as a free country." A time bomb ticks away under America. A sense of "time runningout" drives these leaders, and they have already gained results.

MORAL ACTION COMMITTEES, in local churches throughout the country move in high gear. In Alaska they seized control of the State Convention, where only five of the thirty-eight delegates to the National Republican and Convention were not Moral Majority members of those supporting them. The New York Times reports, "In Gainesville, Florida, forty-two members of the Southside Baptist church won seats on the Alachua County Democratic Central Committee in an election to fill fifty-three vacancies.

They discovered that Gene Keith, pastor of Southside, had enrolled for one week in a school of politics run by the Moral Majority. He then returned to Gainesville and entered the September 9 Democratic primary as a candidate for the State senate and persuaded many members to do the same. Eight of those winning seats were formerly Republicans.

The republican Party realizes the importance of this new Right Wing and has sent a full-time worker to initiate and guide the 108,000 evangelical pastors in their political quest. The movement ousted Senator Mike Gravel, of Alaska. The moral voting record of each Congressman and Senator, put out by Christians Voice, could unseat many more leaders in the days ahead.

The Washington for Jesus rally drew between 200,000 to 600,000 people, depending upon which report one follows. Although the crowd numbered considerably less than the hope-for one million, it nevertheless found representatives from every State and outnumbered the turnout to greet Pope Paul II. America for Jesus rallies are planned in every major city in the States for April, 1981. They believe their mandate from God is to make America a Christian nation.

Before last labor Day the voting record of every incumbent was mailed out to evangelicals, and the Sunday before the election there was a mass "leafleting." The church has become a powerful political precinct. The CBS Evening News, August 22, 1979, stated, "There is a ready-made outlet for the born-again lobby: that nation's dozens of Christian television stations, hundreds of Christian radio stations, thousands of cable stations hungry for program material." A new potent political force, whose day has come, moves out to take a nation.

James Dunn, director of the Christian Life Commission of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, said. "We need to be connected with reality. What is their vision? Someone suggested that what they really want--and you can listen to the preaching of the electronic church and hear that what they really want is a theocracy. They don't want a democracy, and if you listen very carefully to the number of times the first-person-singular pronoun is used, they not only want a theocracy but each one of them wants to be Theo!

I listened to most of the speakers who addressed the National Affairs Briefing in the Reunion Arena, Dallas, August 21,22, 1980. Church leaders of this new political Right Wing spoke, together with some State governors, senators, congressmen, and Presidential Candidate Ronald Reagan. Pat Robertson spoke of God's commission for men to have dominion over the world. Repeatedly speakers referred to Christian influence as "salt" and "light" in this world.

Gary North, director of the Institute of Christian Economics, referred to America as a nation "under the Covenant" from which we have been breaking away since the Civil War. And Jerry Falwell said that America is "a nation under God" to bless the world, having a divine mandate just as Israel did. And a part of that mandate is to protect Israel. Falwell asserted, "We established this nation on the Judeo-Christian state."

All through the speeches I noted a heavy reliance on Old Testament passages and a claim that the gospel is not just the New Testament, but the whole Bible, with an oversimplistic comparison between America and Israel. They challenged christians to awake and wrench back their land from liberals and humanists and to make this a Christian country.

But what about the separation of church and state in he First Amendment? What dit they say of this? James Robinson declared, "There is no possible way you can separate God from government and have a successful government. God is the ultimate authority." Governor William Clemons, of Texas, asserted, "We in the United States strongly believe in the separation of church and state, and this is right. But it does not mean that thinking citizens should not participate in the governement process and exercise their greatest freedom of all-the freedom to vote and choose their leaders."

Then-presidential hopeful Reagan considered that "under the pretense of saparation of church and state, religious beliefs cannot be advocated in many of our public institutions, but atheism can." Reagan went on to say, "The First Amendment was written, not to protect the people and their law from religious values, bot to protect those values from government tyranny."

WE MUST NEVER FORGET that the pilgrims fled from church tyranny--not from government tyranny. We must never forget that the National and Reform Association, at Xenia, Ohio, in 1864, supported a religious amendment to the Constitution and backed Senator H.W. Blair in his 1888 National Sunday Bill in Congress, and Americans were persecuted under Sunday blue laws.

I wrote to H.Edward Rowe, executive director of the Religious Round Table, which convened the National Affairs Briefing that met in Dallas. I asked him, "If it is time for the Moral Majority to let their influence be felt in government, could this also include influencing legistation to make Sunday a day of worship in our country?" His reply was: "Yes."

Bill Gothard's seminar for ministers, held in Washington, D.C., last spring (1980) found Gothard giving forceful backing to the idea of urging Sunday sacredness and acceptance of America as a Christian nation. My ministerial friends in attendance told me of the fervent reception the ministers gave to these concepts.

If the Moral Majority fear the demise of our country unless they influence the state, I fear the demise of our religious freedom if they do. I agree with Stan Mooneyham, editor of World Vision, when he said, "I am as scared of an evangelical power bloc as I am of any other. Worldly power in religious hands-Islamic or Christian-has hardened into more than one Inquisition."

Senator John Darnsworth (R.Montana), an ordained Episcopal minister, warned, "The business of trying to approach matters as a concerned Christian in one thing. It is quite another thing to purport to be the arbiter of political postition in the name of Christ. That's a usurpation of Christianity for political purposes."

Geroge Washington understood the genius of America. The separation of church and state constituted the only way of shutting out the possibility of the tyranny of religion from which the persecuted Pilgrims fled, and offered the only way to which all persecuted people could escape--whether running from religious or political tyranny.

Roland Hegstad, editor of Liberty magazine, in his September 19, 1980, letter to me, expressed it well: "There has never been a time when the majority has been moral. There have, unfortunately, been times when the majority thought it had been moral. I say unfortunately because history is a record not of bad people trying to make other people bad, but of good people trying to make other people good. And when the majority perceives itself as moral, and political, and powerful, and 'called,' the minority is in for a bad time. But was it not Jesus Himself who said, "The time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think he doeth God service."

This article was taken from "These Times," magazine, August 1981.

If now is the time for these last scenes of earth history, then everyone should see to his own relationship with God, search Him even more than before, seek His will. If these are the last years of the world as we know it, then now is no time to bee looking over the fence at other people trying to guess their salvation status. If these are the first signs of the last wakeup call, then now is the time to fill up oil, seek the new heart promised by God, seek the Lord and recieving the baptism of the Holy Spirit as the diciples did on that first pentecost when the church was born.

/Thomas

If we do not want Christ to return like a thief in the night, then we need to have our eyes and hearts in watchfulness and readiness.