God gave us ~20+ political principles about what kind of people and policies to follow in politics. Basically, they started with refusing to support greed, pride, injustice and ignorance of God’s law because these kind of leaders will have no qualms about exploiting and betraying their own people or they will be easy for elite powerful elites to manipulate like Darius was by corrupt elites in making laws that put Daniel in the lion’s den (Deut. 17:17-21, Matt. 6:24, 1 Tim. 6:10). Righteousness/justice/love are what really makes nations great and so those traits must be primary in deciding who to support (Prov. 14:34, 29:7, 31:8-9, Matt. 22:37-40, Luke 4:18-19, Neh. 5:1-13, etc.). Other principles are listed here:
http://blog.truth-is-life.org/rights/thrive/
Political parties have some influence on a society, but FAR bigger is the daily and weekly choices of Christians and moral people and science is showing this. And if we follow God’s wisdom and godliness, we can save lives on earth and for eternity (1 Tim. 4:8). A little evidence of this is below.
God told us through Paul to stay away from people who live for greed, pride and self. Shouldn’t this influence our politics?
“…that in the last days there will be very difficult times. For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God. They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly.Stay away from people like that!” 2 Timothy 3:1-5
Much evidence from Bible principles and science shows that greed is the root of every major evil as God said (1 Tim. 6:10), cause trauma, abuse and injustice to many innocent people. Paul says it will be esp. egregious in the last days. So since this is the foundational evil that causes all others, it should be one of the very top priorities in choosing who to support or avoid in politics and other areas of life.
The Republican party started with some wonderful and admirable principles, such as the abolition of slavery. Unfortunately, in the early 1900s, corporations influenced it to pioneer government by greed and welfare for the rich in the trillions of dollars (with trickle down economics, myriads of loopholes for the rich, enormous subsidies for Wall Street but not Main street and more), their policies, esp. under Trump are the primary cause of ~7 kinds of death (abortion-~40+ million, bad health-41+ million, poverty, pollution-13-18+ million, suicides-~1 million, war, COVID-19–~200k in America), as well as much higher levels of sexual slavery, racism (220+ dead every day in America from this), poisoning the environment, giving control of government to Catholics, constant massive wars, siding with corporations against families and many other evils. Some evidence for this is here:
http://blog.truth-is-life.org/politics/oligarchy-solutions
Democrats started as a party for freedom* and have done some good things (as have Republicans) in certain places, but they not been a serious solution to many of these problems because they are not that far behind republicans in following government by greed. Since the 1990s, they have been involved in abortion (But it happens less under democrats for important reasons), Biden has helped corporations force families into debt, has promoted wars for empire, mass incarceration, etc. You could consider them the lesser of two evils and then put a lot of pressure on them after the election to do good as Dr. Cornel West/Dr. Chomsky and others have said.
Third parties like the American Solidarity Party may be the best choice this election, esp. if you’re not in a swing state. Third parties have had major influence on policy changes in the past pioneering the right to vote, esp. for women, the 8 hour work day, safety laws in work places, paid vacations and various other things to improve life for workers and families.
But most important, Christians and moral people should unify to oppose ALL evils and injustices that people from ALL backgrounds see. If we do this, day to day and week to week in their churches and communities has far more of an effect in reducing evils and injustices that both the right and left are concerned about than anything else, far more than putting a piece of paper in a box every 4 years.
See evidence for why republicans cause the highest levels of abortion here:
http://blog.truth-is-life.org/politics/abortion (short version)
http://blog.truth-is-life.org/politics/abortion2 (15 reasons from the Bible and science why republicans the top cause of abortion.)
Far more important than who becomes president in 2020 is what Christians and moral people do day to day and week to week in their churches and communities. The early church beat the Roman empire beast and those who love and follow God, esp. Bible economics can beat the beast powers of the republican and democratic parties if they carefully follow truth. It’s been done many times in history before by Christians who were detached from government.
In fact as research by Dr. Robert Woodberry shows, that is the most powerful source of freedom in all history, more than all others COMBINED.A layman’s summary of Dr. Woodberry’s research is here:
https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/january-february/world-missionaries-made.html
http://intersectproject.org/faith-and-economics/robert-woodberry-world-missionaries-made/
https://tifwe.org/robert-woodberry-and-the-benefits-of-protestant-missions/
https://www.disciplenations.org/media/CT-Article-On-Missionaries-And-Global-Democracy.pdf
A longer academic version is here:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/missionary-roots-of-liberal-democracy/3D96CF5CB2F7FEB19B1835393D084B9A
https://www.academia.edu/2128659/The_Missionary_Roots_of_Liberal_Democracy
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235503063_The_Missionary_Roots_of_Liberal_Democracy
One of the biggest ways the early church beat Rome was by rejecting the current economic system of their time.Our daily buying choices to rebel against greed based corporations are FARRR more powerful to do good than putting a piece of paper in a ballot once every 4 years and arguing in between that.Corporate propaganda convinces many people to waste money on useless things instead of spending it on evangelism and families.
Here are some statistics on that from a major missions site:
–Evangelical Christians could provide all of the funds needed to plant a church in each of the 6,900 unreached people groups with only 0.03% of their income.
–“The Church has roughly 3,000 times the financial resources and 9,000 times the manpower needed to finish the Great Commission.”
–Problem: “Americans have recently spent more money buying Halloween costumes for their pets than the amount given to reach the unreached.”
www.thetravelingteam.org/stats/
New research shows that if you choose to buy from poor people and small local businesses, esp. in poor neighborhoods, even 5 percent of the time, it can reduce income inequality by up to 80 percent.
https://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/solidarity/shop-here-not-there-science-says-reducing-inequality-is-almost-that-simple-20171120
The Economics of Happiness is a documentary that illustrates this and other practical solutions at the community level quite well (The first 30 minutes shows the massive corruption of current economics and the last 30 minutes shows how local communities can and are solving these problems and thriving together).
http://blog.truth-is-life.org/docu/econ/economics-of-happiness/
Sadly for most Americans/Christians, buying Halloween costumes for pets and other trivial material things is more important than stopping abortion, than ending homelessness, than justice, than finishing the Great Commission, etc. What would Jesus say..or prophets or apostles?
The Bible says not to put our trust in princes.Trump is a neo-liberal catastrophe and Biden is a neo-liberal disaster (neo-liberal economics is massive defiance of God, and is basically about giving trillions to the already super rich for no work done, and is strictly forbidden by the Bible).
This is the primary cause of every evil on earth that both conservatives and liberals are rightly concerned about. But it is your daily buying choices and use of money, time and resources to follow God or greed based corporations that has one of the biggest impacts in increasing various kinds of injustice or reducing it. To reduce all injustices, we’ll have to work through churches and get them to follow Bible economics if we have any sincerity in reducing abortion, crime, disease, racism, environmental destruction and other evils in society.
EXTRAS TO ADD
While there maybe admirable individuals in various parties, thinking that political parties are going to solve most of our problems is foolish. We need to learn to live as the Christian church did under Rome, the Chinese church did under persecution of its time, etc. Here are some reasons.
1. Researchers show that joining/strongly identifying with a political wrecks people’s ability to do even basic math, as well as figure out truth in other areas.
http://grist.org/politics/science-confirms-politics-wrecks-your-ability-to-do-math/
2. When people reject contrary evidence and disagree about politics, it at least damages trust in the judgement of others and has in many cases fractured relationships, friendships and even families and marriages as these sites show.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/when-politics-destroys-family https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/apr/12/fox-news-brain-meet-the-families-torn-apart-by-toxic-cable-news https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/11/how-politics-in-trumps-america-divides-families/576301/ https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/donald-trump-is-destroying-my-marriage.html
3. Politics often distracts from the best solutions, which are personal daily choices following God’s principles and what we can do for God and others.
4. Politics often wastes huge amounts of time for little or no improvement and damages many relationships. This cripples mission and reduces the time we could be witnessing to others.
5. Politics influences people to refuse to submit to God’s principles. I have seen many on both sides set aside God’s principles for political ideology and refuse to admit harmful principles of their political party. Democrats often won’t admit that Darwinism, abortion and removing God from public education is harmful even though both God and science show it is. Republicans often won’t admit that their economic policies like trickle-down economics are based on greed and giving trillions to the super rich for no work done which Bible principles forbid, war for greed and power, and support for corporations which are often anti-Christian.
6. Many politicians claim that America is the best and freest nation on earth. But many studies and comparisons of nations show this is not true in many areas. Both parties for example are following policies that plunge Americans into debt. Under both democrats and republicans in recent years, the average debt has been over $130,000 per American. https://debt.com/statistics/ The Bible says that debt is slavery (Prov. 22:7). So both parties are in fact supporting what God calls slavery. Debt and money problems are often the #1 problem that breaks up families. And that has many serious consequences for many years. So this is a very big issue.
7. Politics can cause dissension in churches, and distrust of leaders because of their real or imagined political leaning.