Why this evangelical is not a Democrat

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence has a reputation as a conservative Christian and a longtime culture warrior. However, there were some messengers at the Southern Baptist Convention who wanted to cancel his appearance as a speaker at the recent convention in Dallas. Some objected because they are wary of the SBC aligning with the GOP. 

Every Christian citizen has a responsibility to participate in the election process. In this column our apologetics specialist, Paul Baxter, former pastor of First Baptist on the Square in LaGrange, explains why he is not a Democrat. He attended the University of Georgia on a debate scholarship where he studied Russian culture and holds a master’s degree in divinity from Yale University as well as doctorate in Christian apologetics from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Here is Dr. Baxter’s response to his brother who does not share his political views:

I have a well-educated and thoughtful brother that can’t quite understand why I do not share more of his political views, especially his antipathy for President Donald Trump. He and many in the mainstream academia, entertainment, and news media are aghast at the support evangelical Christians like myself have given President Trump.

They don’t have the foggiest idea of how we who champion Biblical values could embrace a narcissist whose spirituality and morality are at the very least suspect. Although when “the Donald” began running for the presidency I placed him at the bottom of the long list of Republican candidates, preferring a more humble and gracious candidate whose mouth was not prone “to runneth over;” and there was no doubt that I would not and could not vote for either Hillary Rodham Clinton nor Bernie Sanders.

I must say that I am well pleased with what President Trump has done as president. He has done exceptionally well in keeping his promises. His beneficial actions speak louder than his more-than-occasional shot from the lip verbiage.

Now, why is this once-admirer of Hubert Horatio Humphrey so averse to being a Democrat in 2018? Here are the ABCDE’s of why this Evangelical is not a Democrat.

A - Abortion on demand that includes partial birth abortion. The idea of mothers having their babies (little people who are not just fetuses) killed is heart-wrenching and soul-sickening. How hypocritical of senators to pounce on a nominee because of water boarding while they excuse and rationalize the torturous death of babies in partial birth abortion!

Let me explain why abortion is such an issue for born-again believers in Christ: In its essence sin is willful self-centeredness that puts oneself above another, out of which come a countless list of sinful thoughts and feelings, words and actions. When mothers are encouraged to put themselves ahead of their own unborn babies, our culture takes a leap into a moral abyss.

Just as early Christians sought to rescue discarded babies in a pre-Christian culture, we contemporary Christians seek to save unborn babies from mothers who have in the vast majority of cases succumbed to selfish convenience. Defending Planned Parenthood and its selling of aborted baby body parts is indubitably indefensible.

B – Bankrupting our economy with bloated and burdensome bureaucracy and burgeoning debt, financing idealistic, but naïve government programs that often do irreparable harm to individuals’ character and families’ unity/stability. Buying votes with promises of a socialistic utopia may work politically but does not work economically, and bankrupt cities not to mention a looming catastrophe in California are a testament to irresponsible economic mismanagement. Is it ever justified much less wise to incite class warfare?

While Marxist/socialist economists may form a monopoly in many elite college economics’ departments, those same institutions of higher learning arose in the fertile soil of capitalism, not socialism. Although capitalism needs to be infused with Christian compassion and reasonable regulation, Marxist theories can’t compete!

C – Corruption that has become synonymous with Bill and Hillary Clinton’s Foundation, the uranium scandal, Benghazi, the Clinton and Democratic Party’s funding of the fake Russian dossier authored by Christopher Steele. The crystal clear corrupting bias evident in the FBI and Justice Department leaves us breathtakingly disappointed and disillusioned with few or any Democrat leaders apologetic.

Meanwhile, there is a concerted effort to circumvent immigration laws and in so doing fail to protect our border from terrorists, drug dealers, and criminals. Surely we can open our arms wide to immigrants from all over the world, but do it within the confines of our laws and overall safety!

D – Demagoguery that seeks not only to misrepresent and disparage, but silence one’s opponents. There is something terribly wrong when the Democrat leader of the Senate, Harry Reid, not only deliberately lied about presidential nominee Romney and taxes, but publicly gloated about his “bold face lie.” Not one Democrat, that I heard, chastised him!

It is sad and sorrowful when “liberal” Democrats embrace a one-sided perspective and seek to intimidate and silence “conservative” voices even on college campuses where free speech should dominate. We see the malignant maligning of opponents by noted actors, reporters, broadcasters, writers, and political leaders.

The Washington Press Corps’ annual banquet plunged into the sewer of poisonous hate speech against the White House Press Secretary. Since I have two PK’s (Preacher’s Kids) I took that quite personal! The “not so mainstream” press has lost most of its credibility among us because of its well-publicized demagoguery.

This demagoguery has reached such a level that Bernie Sanders castigates a Christian in Senate hearings simply because the nominee’s alma mater believes that there is a distinct difference between the Judeo-Christian view of God and the Islamic concept. Then, we have Joy Behar who ridicules the vice president of the United States because he talks and listens to God. Were there any Democrats who stood to object to such treatment by Senator Sanders and TV hostess Behar?

E – Education. Having spent 23 years of my life in one school or another, I believe in education, especially education that encourages us to look at both sides of an issue (often there are far more than just two views). My high school and college debate experience taught me the wisdom of Joubert’s observation: “It is better to debate an issue and not resolve it, than resolve an issue without debating it.”

However, today much of our higher education has sunk to the lower depths of narrow-minded intolerance. As William F. Buckley documented in his classic book God and Man at Yale, even a once Judeo-Christian rooted university like Yale had by the late 1940s tilted to an almost overwhelmingly one-sidedness in various departments. So many of our university faculties are committed to secularism, socialism, and personal amorality.

There is an obvious intolerance toward those who hold to a more conservative or less politically correct worldview. Children are being sacrificed on the altar of some communities’ public education that is controlled by union dominated politics. Whereas Democrats support a mother’s right to choose an abortion, they oppose a parent’s right to choose a school for their child by opposing vouchers. School Choice is denounced because it threatens the failing monopoly of public schools that are often the “only choice” for those who cannot afford private schools.