With Christ In the Voting Booth

David J. Shedlock

• Publisher: Calvary Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781879737983
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

WITH CHRIST IN THE VOTING BOOTH is not a dated Voter's guide that promotes certain candidates and after the election becomes as useful as day-old toast. Instead, Shedlock has written a book that addresses issues that crop up in every election. What if the candidate isn't fully pro-life? What if he or she wants to raise my taxes? What about third parties, or sitting it out altogether?"—Governor Mike Huckabee Knowing who to vote for doesn't always come easy for the Christian. No unambiguous voice from heaven whispers: "This is my candidate, vote for him." Even though almost every candidate in America makes a Christian profession, most of us know some Christians we wouldn't trust with a loaded BB gun, let alone access to the launch button of the world's largest cache of nuclear weapons. Thankfully, God has given us His Word, "The Ultimate Voter's Guide." Using the Bible, With Christ in the Voting Booth provides us tools to resist Government Too Small and Government Too Big, While embracing Government Just Right, not based upon false promises and "Christian" utopian fantasies, but rather the most important political success story of all: The Voter (and Governor) Who Pleases God.

Chapter One

Our President: Elected or Selected?

Q

One Little Word Shall Fell Him

It was 1971. Over 150,000 hamstrung American soldiers continued to

battle bravely against the Communists of North Vietnam and the Viet

Cong, while many of their comrades returned home and faced humilia-

tion from some of their own countrymen. Instead of getting a pat on the

back and a warm handshake, they got the cold shoulder and spit in the

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With Christ in the Voting Booth

eye. Deserving merry welcome-home celebrations, they found themselves

denounced at the airport as traitors and baby-killers.

In the spring of that year, God would use the keen ears of a lonely cap-

tive in the Hanoi Hilton17 and the mumblemouth of a future Senator from

Boston as agents to carry out His plan to keep a Republican President in

the White House.18

The dispassionate voice blaring through the PA system at the Viet-

namese concentration camp seemed unreal to Prisoner-of-War, Navy Com-

mander Paul Galanti. What he heard was purported to be a former Navy

Lieutenant, who had returned home from Vietnam and was now speaking

to Congress.19 Galanti had spent about 5 years as a POW and wished he

too could go and build a happy and peaceful home with the woman who

had become his wife shortly before he was taken captive by the North

Vietnamese. Now he was forced to listen to this prevaricator on a loud-

speaker telling made-up stories about American troops, suggesting they

had routinely done awful and unthinkable things, from bombing villages

of innocent civilians to shooting at them like sport. He was portraying his

compadres as vicious and sadistic. In short, the man’s testimony was being

broadcast into Galanti’s ears to demoralize him and his fellow POWs by

getting them to believe they were serving an evil regime or to confess to

war crimes they did not commit.

The gist of what Galanti heard that day would stay in the forefront of

his thinking, even after his joyous return home upon his release in 1973.

But one seemingly insignificant detail from that speech would be buried in

his memory, only to return on the day of God’s choosing thirty years later.

In 2003, Galanti was invited to a meeting of veterans to discuss the

possible candidacy of Senator John Kerry, a Democrat from Massachu-

setts, who was seeking to oust President George W. Bush. Someone at the

meeting offered to play a few audio clips from Kerry’s past anti-war days,

including Kerry’s Winter Soldier testimony before Congress. Galanti had

understood there were many hearings, many testimonies and many false

claims being made against American soldiers while he was a POW, so he

took no special note of Kerry’s involvement. There was no reason for him

17 This was the name given in irony to a prison camp holding captured U.S. mili-

tary personnel, which was nothing like a luxury hotel. Our enemies had frequently

used torture and inhumane treatment to brutalize Paul Galanti, John McCain and

many, many others captured during the war.

18 Nixon would be reelected the next year, but that is not who I am referring to.

19 http://weblog.theviewfromthecore.com/2004_03/ind_003274.html

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With Christ in the Voting Booth

to think this was the anti-war speaker he heard back when he was a pris-

oner, until the following clip was played:

They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off

ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human

genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies,

randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in a fashion reminiscent

of Genghis Khan…. (emphasis mine)20

Kerry had mispronounced the name of that barbarian as “jen-jus”

Khan rather than “geng-us”. When Galanti heard this tape played, the

memories of his mental torture flooded back. He immediately knew this

was the man whose voice was used to torment him and his fellow soldiers.

He had never heard anyone else pronounce that name in that way. Galanti

immediately volunteered to do anything he could to oppose Kerry’s can-

didacy. Knowing nothing else about him, it was enough. This wasn’t just

any anti-war protester. This was THE traitor, as Galanti saw it. This was

personal.

After this meeting, Paul Galanti and others formed a 527 organization

called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. They would eventually run millions

of dollars’ worth of television and radio ads, including one ad which fea-

tured Galanti. These helped ignite opposition to Kerry and kept him on

the defensive the rest of his campaign. It blunted the effect of a decorated

veteran’s opposition to the Iraq War which might have been a winning

issue for him otherwise (just as the American people were starting to grow

weary of the war). Instead, questions about Kerry’s anti-war protests and

the legitimacy of his medals were the issues that dominated the campaign.

I am not arguing for the truth or falsity of the ad campaigns,21 rather, I am

pointing out how one mispronounced word may have cost Kerry the elec-

tion. Certainly the Swift Boat campaign made a profound impact:

The single most effective ad campaign of the election cycle has

thus far cost only about $500,000: the campaign launched at the

beginning of this month by the new anti-Kerry group, Swiftboat

Veterans for Truth.

20 http://www.vvaw.org/commentary/?id=399

21 http://www.factcheck.org/swift_boat_veterans_anti-kerry_ad_he_betrayed.

html

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With Christ in the Voting Booth

Within less than a week, polls found that half of all registered

voters had heard about the Swiftboat vets’ advertisements. Close

to half, 44%, of all independent voters surveyed say they find the

ads “credible.” In the two weeks since the ads first aired, Kerry’s

support among veterans has collapsed by some 19 points: Presi-

dent Bush has now gained a 55-37 lead in this group.

According to some reports, the Swiftboat vets’ site is now drawing

more traffic than the official Kerry-Edwards Web site, and the

little group’s servers have been overwhelmed.

Why has this one group drawn so much notice—especially as

compared to groups like MoveOn.org, which have outspent them

by 20 or more to one?

In their devastating second ad, “Sellout”22, they first air tape of a

young John Kerry alleging that U.S. forces in Vietnam committed

atrocities “reminiscent of Ghengis [sic] Khan.” They intersperse

his voice with clips of men like Paul Galanti, an officer who spent

seven years in a POW camp. Galanti says: “John Kerry gave the

enemy for free what I and many of my comrades in the prison

camps of North Vietnam took torture to avoid saying.”23

Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts wanted to be president of the

United States. God opposed it, so it didn’t happen. I’ve got a long list of

people God didn’t want to be president. Let’s start with Mike Huckabee. I

don’t know why God didn’t want one of His own preachers to be president

in 2008; I certainly did. The Lord raised up Barack Obama to be president

instead.

It was not because I had a vision from God or a visit from angels that I

can say that God selected Obama, I got it from the Bible. No, I didn’t crack

the code (there is no code). I don’t have a special set of magical reading

glasses, nor did I twist some difficult-to-understand prophecy to fit my

own preconceived notions. I did what any political prognosticator could

do: I read and applied a simple passage of Scripture. Here it is:

“He removeth kings, and setteth up kings” (Dan. 2:21).

22 http://www.swiftvets.com/index.php?topic=Ads

23 David Frum, 8/24/2004, National Post: The ad that worked, pg. A16

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With Christ in the Voting Booth

John Calvin’s theology had an enormous influence on Western thought

and the views of some of the founders of our nation. He addressed this pas-

sage in Daniel and spoke specifically of God setting up kings:

We naturally fancy that they acquire their power by their own tal-

ents, or by hereditary right, or by fortuitous accident. Meanwhile,

all thought of God is excluded when the ind...

Table of contents

• Chapter One
• Chapter Nine
• Chapter Fifteen