I WONDER

This current election cycle seems to be illustrating a truth about a populace with democratically chosen leaders--the people get the leader they deserve. They, the majority, do so because they choose a leader that reflects themselves. Thinking on the Biblical record of the kings of Israel and Judah this week, it occurred to me that the people were evil or good because the king was evil or good. That’s a dictatorship. The people reflect the leader. However, it is different for us Americans in a so called democracy. The leaders are evil or good because the people are evil or good. Yes, even democratically elected leaders can be influential and lead people into more evil or good. But, I am speaking of their being elected. We get an immoral leader because he reflects the people who voted him in. I know that seems awfully simplistic, and there are all these contingencies, exceptions, etc. Yet, it seems so true. We could not have the kind of leaders we have except for there being a whole lot of people like them who wanted them. This leads me to another alarming concern: I may be wrong, but is it possible that people also gravitate to a candidate that reflects their concept of God? With a crowded field of candidates representing so many different views, temperaments, styles, values, etc., do people’s choices, in particular, do Christians’ choices reflect their view of God? People that view God as an indulgent grandfatherly type that leaves it to each to follow his own heart and do his own thing, whatever that may be, favor a libertarian candidate. Those who see God as One who changes His ways and Word according to the changing times and conditions veer toward the progressive contender. Etc., etc. Is it also true of even the candidates’ style, delivery, temperament? Do people gravitate towards candidates with temperaments and demeanors like they suppose God has? Here is a candidate who is narcissistically egotistic, crude, rude, hateful, caustic, with vacillating contradictory beliefs, but “he tells it like it is.” The “tell it like it is” is much more a reference to his style than to the accuracy of his substance, if there be substance. Different folks may like that style for various reasons. But, is not there a segment that thrill at such bombastic bombardment? They love that in your face bravado. They like it for the same reason folks like violent movies with lots of explosions and shooting. It’s sensational. It’s immediate. It’s dramatic. It’s exciting. Lob another grenade. No matter that it runs rough shod over people. No matter if it is narrow and one-sided. No matter if it’s mean and hateful. No matter if it is arrogant and crude. Some have never understood the difference between being an offense and being offensive. I can proclaim and live the uncompromised Truth definitively and unnegotiably, and folks will take offense. But, I don’t have to be offensive, i.e., obnoxious. Some like a candidate like the above, because they like preaching like that. Do they not also see God as being like that? In most cases are they not themselves like that—at least in their hearts and minds? Does our candidate of choice reflect our values? Does our candidate of choice reflect us? Does he/she reflect our concept of God? Huhmmmm. I wonder.

I WONDER

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