Interesting Election Facts from Barna

Here is the link to The Barna Report (as referenced on The Jesus Creed)

As was true in the past two presidential elections, two-thirds of all evangelicals who were registered to vote (65%) were aligned with the Republican Party. One out of five (21%) was Democrats and just one out of ten (10%) was registered independent of a party. That puts evangelicals at odds with the national voter profile, which shows a plurality of Democrats (42%), one-third Republican (34%) and two out of ten (20%) independent of a party affiliation.

Most remarkably, however, was the overwhelming support registered among evangelicals for Republican candidate John McCain. In total, 88% voted for Sen. McCain, compared to just 11% for Sen. Obama. The 88% is statistically identical to the 85% of evangelicals who backed George W. Bush in 2004. Surveys conducted by Barna throughout the campaign season showed that evangelicals were not enthusiastic about either candidate, but on Election Day evangelicals came through in a big way for the most conservative major candidate on the ballot.

Church Marketing Strategies for Starbucks

This is a weird but funny video about how the church must look to visitors sometimes (found on ThinkChristian).



Thoughts?

Congratulations...

Let me be among the first to congratulate Barack Obama for becoming our new president elect.

Quite a story, isn't it? The first major party minority candidate wins the election. Think about what has happened in the arena of race in the last 100 years?

Quite an historic day. Quite a day indeed.

Donald Miller's Political History

Donald Miller has posted a long but interesting political history of his life. He shares some experiences with working with the Obama campaign this year.

While in Denver I met people from the Obama Campaign. I met Joshua Dubois and Paul Monteiro, Obama’s faith-policy advisors. Paul, like me, had been a Republican until recently. He is a staunch pro-life conservative who got tired of Republicans not making enough strides on the issue and was won over by the dramatic effect economic policy has on unwanted pregnancy and the bottom-up effects of economic stimulation as opposed to the conservative, supply-side policy. And Joshua spoke to me about Senator Obama’s personal faith, his commitment to close his events in prayer, his daily morning devotions and his twenty-year history of talking openly about Jesus. I didn’t need to be won over. I’d started a mentoring foundation in Portland two years before and was attracted to Obama’s message on responsible fatherhood (along with his backing of The Responsible Fatherhood Act.)

Elsewhere he says,

Last year I vowed I wouldn’t make decisions out of fear. And because of that I’ve had one of the greatest years of my life.

If you have a few minutes, give it a read. Donald is a great writer and always makes you think.

A Question...

How much does God care about the election happening in two days?

Does he care enough to spend billions of dollars on advertising?

Does he care enough to spend millions of man (and woman) hours organizing and strategizing?

Does he care enough to see perhaps the fiercest division in four years that Americans experience between one another?

I'm not suggesting God doesn't care (though I could be wrong), but I'm willing to go out on a limb and suggest that we care more that He does.

I'm not suggesting you should not vote (though I'm open to certain situations where people feel that is the right move), but I am suggesting that if you decide to vote, that it is the least amount of involvement possible to be a participating citizen. We treat voting as if it is such a big deal, whereas it seems to me that we vote every day by what we value, what we spend money on, what we give money too, what we say to and about our neighbors. Maybe instead of just voting for the pro-environment candidate, I could challenge you that after you cast your vote on Tuesday, you could spend that evening learning to go green, recycle and pollute less? Maybe instead of just voting for the anti-abortion, I could challenge you after you cast your vote on Tuesday to find a crisis pregnancy center to which you could donate $25 or $50 a month and 5 hours a week of your time.

It seems to me that if everyone who voted (which is typically in the upper 40's of percent) spent significant time and energy living out the values they vote for, we would have a revolution on our hands. Imagine if on Tuesday, half the nation left their respective polling places and vowed to live differently. What might that mean?

It seems to me that God is much more concerned with how we live and who we are becoming than he is with how we vote.


Lord, start with me.