$360 million spent by one incumbent, along with fantastic party support, compared with $2352 by another local comedian--no party support, and he actually won!
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If we're serious about obedient nations, while we may be slow to engage things politically, that arena is crying out for help--if our nations and peoples will actually thrive. And that will not be facile, like "Just get the right Christian into office" sort of thinking. That too has proven wrong-headed and misplaced in recent years.
To disciple whole nations, as people of the Book, we must repent of our political passivity, and realize that any truly discipled nation must have transformative work going on, over long periods of time, in order to be that nation--which is exalted by righteousness (Prov 14:34).
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At the time of the setting up of this page, "politics" is pretty much a dirty word. I do recall reading a book by futurist John Nais-bitt, Megatrends Asia, put out in 1996. At that time, he was speaking of a difficult-to-describe level of defeatism in a great democracy like Japan, in terms of an almost complete cynicism in terms of things like voting for the mayor of Tokyo.
But as at least we who are American understand, nation-discipling is not just another bull-headed and outspoken moral minority who can bully their way back to some idealistic past. We must understand that integrity at the political level will constitute a long, arduous battle, done by individuals far removed from political office, but who understand the underlying values of the rulership of God in all of life.
Certainly this begins in our homes, extends to our neighborhoods, spills over into our lives in communities and cities. For instance, it moves us onto local boards of education, city councils, the PTA, but then integrates us into our larger society's life--decisions that get made in our media, so that, our involvement in politics is but another, natural impulse to love our society in the best possible, and all-encompassing ways.
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But in an atmosphere of both ending our passivity as well as disciplining our activism with Christ-like character, I do sense that we will see bold, new moves being made in the political realms, if we'll see whole nations learning to embrace the values of the kingdom. This will be a set of lessons learned in the hard knocks of realism and, as we've seen in recent history, pretty profound mistakes in the process. But, if the mandate is to teach all nations obedience to Christ, then the call will likely come for radical, political changes in virtually all national contexts.
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