Scapegoat President Why We Go Nuts Over Presidential Elections

Every four years we get all up in arms over the race for the next President of the United States. We do things we would not normally do and say things we would not normally say hoping that it will help our candidate win. The media outlets begin to cover the race months and months in advance and in the final two months you cannot turn on the TV or radio or go online without hearing about the election. Then when the election is over we go about our business until next time (except for the political junkies among us). Why do we go nuts over presidential elections?

Supporting a candidate for President and then voting for that candidate is a very easy thing to do. It does not require very much of us. Its convenient. We can "stand for" all the right positions vicariously through our candidate. We can morally pose and posture through them. They represent us in theory. The fulfillment of our commitment to our issues comes when we pull the lever/push the button. Then we can go on with not doing crap about what we say we believe.

We are pro-life and we demonstrate this merely by voting for pro-life candidates. We get behind candidates who theoretically stand for what we believe about sexuality but then hardly invest in our marriages. We want our candidates to balance budgets, cut fraud, waste, and abuse, and cut taxes while our personal spending is out of control. We support the "kingdom values" candidate because they care about the least of these on our behalf but we do not give. We do not care (as in action rather than the warm fuzzy feeling) for the poor or the least of these among us.

Every four years we lay our hands on the national scapegoat and send it off on our behalf.

And why not? This is much easier than picking up our cross daily and following Christ. We vote for a President once every four years but we also vote every day with how we treat others, spend our money, and show love and compassion. We go nuts over the presidential election because its much more convenient and much less costly than "voting for" loving the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind and loving our neighbors as ourselves each day (Matt. 22:34-40).

I exhort myself with this along with you. May God help us all.

[HT - To my pastor for sparking my thoughts on this during today's sermon]