by Keith Bassham
The world was swirling as the Tribune went to press this month. The Democrats and Republicans had just finished their nominating conventions. The Middle East, always near the flash point, is making far more noise than usual, and some of those citizens of those nations, no longer content to war among themselves, are attacking and killing American diplomatic personnel.
In the meantime, at home the economy is, if anything, worse than it was the last election year; joblessness is at an all time high; prices for energy and food are rising; those items we used to call moral values have taken on the character of specimens in an “Antiques Roadshow,” curiosities at best, but more often the subject of outright attack. Liberty has been redefined in Western culture as the absolute right to do wrong with impunity and complete insulation from complaint or censure.
In this election year, as citizens of a representative form of government (note I do not say a democracy), before we begin to ask who we should vote for, we must ask ourselves, “Who are we?” Only then are we prepared to go to a ballot box to determine who will represent us over the coming months and years.
Having done that, I urge all Christians to vote, and I urge all Christian leaders to echo the charge. Read the “Afterwords” column (page 30) in this Tribune in which one of our Fellowship founders logically and sensibly and biblically lays out the Christian’s responsibility. Duplicate that page and distribute it among your church members. You have my permission to freely do so.
But voting and activity in the temporal realm is not enough. Just as we were finishing the magazine for this month and preparing to go to Canton for the fall Fellowship meeting, an old friend phoned me and told me his church is seriously fasting and praying for our nation until Election Day. Understand me — the United States of America is not a Christian nation, however the United States (and this is so in every country that believers inhabit) contains within its borders a distinctly Christian nation. In that great passage from Peter’s First Epistle in which Christians are taught how to behave themselves in days like ours, we read, “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light; Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy” (1 Peter 2:9, 10).
On that basis, I encourage all our Fellowship people to fast and to pray as intercessors for our nation in the coming weeks. Set aside one day a week, observe daylight fasting, fast multiple days — do it as a church, or as a class, or as a small group, in your neighborhoods, that we may obtain mercy.