This is a re-post from a few years back. I now plan on writing a part two (and getting back on the blgging train) so here you go:

In this post (and perhaps subsequent posts as this one is getting long already) I will outline some of the reasoning behind why I’m still a Democrat and how I reconcile that with being a Christian. Why do I want to do this? Well it’s my long held belief that some of my brethren on the Right have branded Christianity as the official Republican religion. I won’t go so far as to say that they have highjacked the faith, but they have certainly cast aspersions on anyone that claims to be simultaneously a Christian and a Democrat.

A long, long time ago I found myself a young man sitting in my college dorm. There was a presidential election coming up and I needed to register to vote. I had made it through two years of college blissfully ignorant of anything outside my own sphere of influence (little larger than a hamster ball), but even I knew that I had a responsibility to vote for the leader of our country if for no one else. I knew almost nothing concrete about platforms or even why I needed to register with a certain party. At the time I figured I had two choices and based on my limited knowledge, I chose the Democratic Party. Of course I realize now that my options were somewhat broader, but we’re dealing with me then, not me now.

I did know that my politics, such as they were, lined up with the liberal side of things. I believed very much in the freedom of choice in all things. I was strongly pro-choice on the abortion issue. I believed that the government had the responsibility to take care of those who couldn’t take care of themselves. My mother and I, in addition to other family members, had been the recipient of government help in the past. Affirmative action sounded pretty good to me as did equal rights for women, homosexuals, and every human being that drew breath.

Now at this point in my walk of faith I was little more than a yearling, literally. I had been baptized the year before. I’d always believed in a god of some sort and was raised in a nominally Christian household, but church going and Bible reading had never been a huge part of who I was. If you had asked me then about any of the basic tenets of the faith you would have gotten an opinion to be sure, but it would have been as shaky as any statement I’d make on anything other than literature or role playing games (my whole world at the time). So I do think that my fuzzy faith informed my fuzzy politics or perhaps vice versa; all of this coming out of my somewhat insular and naïve, though good intentioned, worldview.

As I’ve gotten older my political and religious beliefs have developed considerably. I consider myself to be moderate when it comes to both. Some I suppose would say that that means I’m still a bit fuzzy. To them I say, the more extreme your beliefs in either of these fields of human endeavor are the less good you are likely to do for anyone or any group. I think history will back me up on this point. As my views have changed, my faith has always been the basis for how I view the world and interact with it. I think that that’s a natural enough thing for any religious person. I for one don’t trust a politician who says that their faith doesn’t “interfere” with their political calling.

So presently I am still a Democrat and still a Christian. Now here comes the fun part (I know you were waiting). I’ll pick a couple of issues and tell you why I think I’m on solid ground with this choice. You feel free to agree or tell me why I’m a nut case.

Welfare/Social Programs – This has long been a bone of contention between my wife and me. Oh, time for a sidebar. For those of you that don’t know, my wife is a VERY conservative Republican and Christian. This has led to many fights, debates, sleepless nights, accusations, recriminations, and as a result of that a fair amount of makeup whoopee. So that’s all good. I think that the Bible is crystal clear on the need for taking care of those less fortunate than we are. This includes but is not limited to orphans and widows. We are to love our neighbors as ourselves and do unto others as we would have them do unto us. All well and good but why does this mean that we have to do that as a country? Isn’t that a personal thing? Of course it is. I think that it is also a corporate thing. Christianity calls for the Church to help others out, not just the individuals.

Large bodies of folks are almost always able to do more good than individuals (at least financially). The larger than body gets the more likely it is that certain things need to be mandated and codified. In our country, especially the early days, the Church has often done just that and still does to varying degrees. Unfortunately, or perhaps very fortunately, we don’t have a state church to take care of those sorts of things as a centralized function. So it falls to the State itself to perform that function for the people and by the people (that sounds pretty good). If this is, as some claim, a Christian nation then its values and actions should reflect that. Even if it’s only Christian in the sense that the majority of Americans claim to be Christian (which is what I believe that means). So for me the idea of our country having a wide variety of programs supported by our tax dollars to help out those that can’t help themselves is pretty much a no-brainer.

Now I know what some of you are saying. These programs are abused, misused, mismanaged, can be a bottomless money pit, etc. I hear that. That’s no reason not to try. Reform is needed, rejection is not.

Well this has gotten kind of long, so I’ll go ahead and close for now. I’d love to hear from the Republicans in the audience. Tell me where I’m wrong, or where I’m right, but how the Democratic party isn’t the one to help take care of folks.