Here’s an election week story to think about:
It comes from the animated movie, “How to Train Your Dragon” that I saw for the first time this weekend. It’s the story of an imaginary Viking village and its incessant war with the dragons that periodically strafe their homes and fields with their flame-throwing breath, and carry off their livestock. The animosity between man and dragon defines both of their existences. Until the chief’s son discovers something different. He ends up secretly befriending one of the most feared dragons of all and in the process becomes a sort of dragon whisperer – able to understand and subdue them at will. He was led to this when he discovered that the dragons were as afraid of the people as the people were afraid of the dragons.
One day while flying together with his secret dragon friend, the boy discovered the dragon’s lair and the fact that the dragons were all in the employ of a huge monster dragon who forced them out of fear to work for her, like a queen bee sending out her workers to bring back food. They are far more afraid of this underworld monster than they are of people. The story ends with the dragons and people teaming up to fight and kill the monster, and in the final scene, man and beast are living together in harmony, using their ingenuity to help each other instead of fighting,
The whole idea behind a two-party system of government was not so we could spend all our time fighting each other, but so that we could gain the benefit of two different perspectives working together to right the wrongs that are the real enemy of us all.
As Christians, we should avoid the temptation to align ourselves with one party while demonizing the other. Christians need to be models of civility, cooperation and mutual respect. We are not enemies; we are fellow citizens. America shows its greatness when we rise above politics and work together for the common good. Christians may not be able to stop these wars, but at least we can model something different by not participating in them.
John Fischer The Catch 
Great point. I have brought this up on quite a few occasions, and believers, have dismissed me, as being simplistic, or lukewarm..
Therer is also the temptation, to elevate elected officials higher than they should be, ift they profess being a believer, etc.. Moederation in all things is not a “sin”…Ultimately, we will fail each other, so keep our faith in Christ , not the system or the participants
I agree with you, John, and with the above poster, Dick. There are excellent points to be made on both sides and I, too, have been accused of being a fence-sitter. But name-calling and demonizing is wrong, no matter which side is doing it.
Amen, brotha!
I have been going through Romans this year and so much of your thoughts seem to line up from there … this one is chapter 14 applied to political differences. I think the principle fits and once again you point out that “spiritual” truth is meant to change life here and now in what gets mis-labeled as “secular”. Thanks.
Hi John,
I wanted to call your attention to something. For whatever reason, the last line of your Catch from last Thursday or Friday (the one about Halloween) keeps showing up at the end of all your Catches this week. I’m guessing some kind of computer error. At least it is showing up in my version of the Catch I don’t know about anyone else. I always enjoy your insight though. God Bless, brother. Stay in touch.
Trying to figure this out. It’s not on the preview and not on everyone’s version. It’s the ghost of Halloween that won’t go away!
It is on mine too … I have a Mac … maybe that is part of it.
This is so true! Thanks so much for that insight. We have to start working together for the future of our country.
We are “ONE Nation under God”
We have polarization in Canada similar to that in the US, and I keep being reminded that we are to pray for the people in power — not rip them to shreds along party lines. I truly believe that whoever is in office — regardless of party or mindset — is in there because God put him or her there, and God has His reasons for doing it. Perhaps it’s to bring peace to a country; perhaps it’s to bring certain issues that had been roiling beneath the surface to a head and make us contemplate what we’re doing, where we’re going and — most importantly — seek God as to what He’s up to. If the person in office appears evil, we need to remember that we’re not to be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil with good.
I couldn’t agree more. I live in Massachusetts and have just come back from visiting family kin Tallahassee. I fear that we have gone past the point of treating those with whom we disagree with any kind of civility., A sorry state, indeed.
It is not quite true that we have a two-party system and the idea that our system was designed as such is a myth perpetrated by those who have a vested interest in controlling the system. We have by design a multi-party system that has been turned functionally into a two-party system. This has been reinforced by the concept of the “ticket” in which a single vote selects a president and vice-president candidate from a single party when the original design was that no-one ran for vice-president: the elected vice-president was the guy who came in second in the presidential race, and was generally of a different political bent than the elected president.