Kengor_Catholic_2012 Election_092412
“Well, it’s in God’s hands.”
I’ve heard that expression a lot lately. I’m hearing it from Christians extremely worried about this presidential election. They pepper me with questions on polls, voter turnout, media bias, independents and moderates, evangelical and Catholic voters. They are deeply concerned. “Well,” they sigh, “I guess it’s in God’s hands.”
But is it? I think it’s in our hands. I think God has left it in our hands. Just as God has given us free will, the power to choose right over wrong, good instead of bad, and even to accept or reject God, so, too, I imagine, God wants to see how we choose in November 2012.
Consider this:
President Ronald Reagan’s favorite Bible verse was 2nd Chronicles 7:14: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
This verse was so significant to Reagan that he literally had his hand on that verse at his inaugural ceremony in January 1981. The Bible he used was his mother’s. Next to the verse, his mother had scribbled: “A wonderful verse for the healing of a nation.”
Reagan committed himself to helping advance a spiritual renewal in an America that had declined so precipitously in the 1960s and 1970s. Reagan believed that America was truly a blessed nation, that God had shed his grace on thee. He feared what might happen to such a nation that turned its back on that generous God. Those Americans had a choice. If they chose wrongly, then they earned whatever lack of graces or protections God might provide.
This November 2012, it will be left to Americans, not to God, to vote for so-called “gay marriage,” for taxpayer funding of abortion and Planned Parenthood and embryo destruction, for violations of their own religious liberty, and much more.
This election isn’t in God’s hands; it’s in our hands.
For Catholic Exchange dot com and Ave Maria Radio, I’m Paul Kengor.
