The date was Nov. 4, 2008. This was the day the American public elected Barack Obama to be their president following eight years of a Republican White House administration. I was 14 at the time and an enthusiastic Obama supporter. I was extremely vocal about my support and lost a lot of “Christian” friends because of my political views. One Christian even went as far as to say that I would go to hell for supporting Obama.
As a Christian, this troubled me. We are called to be the light of the world, therefore we must stop focusing on small issues such as politics that have no significance in our long term relationship with God. Unfortunately, the people in my life at the time were unable to pick up this principle. Their constant pressure to switch beliefs didn’t make me rethink my support in any way. As a matter of fact, I wanted to prove them all wrong, so I simply campaigned harder. I will never forget that November night and the excitement that I felt about the future of our country and the places that I believed Obama would take us as a nation. As the news of the election broke, I received messages from people saying: “Thanks for helping screw over America,” “Your anti-Christ friend won,” and other hurtful comments. For some reason this hatred made me even more satisfied with his victory, because I felt that I had to prove something to them. After Obama’s inauguration, though, it quickly became evident that his policies weren’t working.
As I observed our government and Obama’s methods, I noticed he was unwilling to make bipartisan compromise on many of the issues and he essentially divided America. As I analyzed the economy, I noted that the jobless claims weren’t improving as Obama had promised. This is when I started to think, “Maybe the liberal agenda isn’t best for America.” Given that I wanted to decide for myself, I began to have discussions with people on both sides of the spectrum and hear what they had to say. As I began talking to them, I realized that for our government’s current state, a conservative agenda would be the most beneficial. The views that I had believed would usher us into a new era were causing us to fail and I had been wrong.
When I decided that I would cast my vote for a conservative candidate, I knew that I would receive a lot of messages from people that would slam the Democratic Party and talk about how I’m back on the “Christian path” and to be quite frank, I was not looking forward to their comments. When I received those messages, I was furious. I wanted nothing to do with them and was ashamed to be associated with them in any way. They failed to realize the fact that God created us in his own image, not in their image. Christ gave each of us different ways of thinking and as humans we seem to take those ways of thinking and propel them above everyone else’s opinions. Just because one votes Republican does not mean that they “voted for God.” I would even go as far to say that the party’s platforms don’t necessarily make one more “godly.”
I’ll never forget the annoyance I experienced from Christians when I voted Democrat. If Jesus was on the earth today, I believe that he wouldn’t care about your political beliefs but he’d simply care about you. In the media today, Christians are portrayed in a negative light because of our tendency to make large, unnecessary political statements. Those who aren’t Christians won’t look at that behavior and say, “I want that!” No, they’ll want nothing to do with us. Though I’m no longer a Democrat, I don’t think less of anyone for being one and I certainly don’t question their faith.
