Wake Up, Look Up

Hello, everybody. Thanks for listening to wake up, look up, a podcast where we're connecting things happening in real time to the gospel of Jesus Christ. This episode is on the 2024 election. It's asking the question, are we blindly supporting party candidates? You have to be living under a rock, maybe quite a few rocks, to not have heard recently that president Trump was convicted of 34 felony accounts.

That seems shocking on the surface, president being convicted of a crime. But of course, predictably, you can see that story 2 different ways along partisan lines. If you're a fan of Trump, you will say that largely what he's been accused of are paperwork errors, things that are only being criminalized for political reasons, and that they won't stand up on appeal. If you're anti Trump, you will say whether those charges stand up or not, they speak to his character. They're yet another example of how he is unfit for office.

But, of course, this it really isn't new. These kinds of stories have been in the news for quite some time. President Biden's son, Hunter, is facing charges right now, and wrapped up in that is the question of whether or not president Biden did anything criminal in connection to his son. In 2016, it was Hillary Clinton and the things she might have had on her servers at home that she shouldn't have had. Criminal behavior among our politicians isn't new.

It isn't new in the history of our country. It isn't new even in our recent modern times. It's just simply become commonplace, which of course leads us to this question, how do you support any of our political candidates? No matter who you choose, there are gonna be elements of their persona, elements of their character, elements of their policy that you are going to struggle with. It's almost like there's a pie chart, and that pie chart is comprised of some percentage of a candidate's character and some percentage of that candidate's policies.

And so you're always having to decide how much are you gonna weight the character side and ignore damaging policies, how much are you gonna weight the policy side and ignore damaging character. So that most of us feel like no matter which direction you go, you're gonna vote while holding your nose. And a lot of us will say every presidential election, how did we get here? Are these really the 2 best people that we could be voting for? How do I support one of these 2?

Let me say a couple of things to that. The first is, these are the candidates we have, hand wringing over might there be better candidates out there is really ultimately pointless. You're gonna vote for 1 of these 2 candidates or you're not gonna vote, which in the end will help one of these 2 candidates. These are the ones we got, and so all of us are gonna have to work through that pie chart of character and policy to decide where we're gonna put the emphasis. All of us are gonna vote holding our nose.

And even if you say, I don't have to hold my nose, well, then maybe you're gonna vote having rationalized even internally the particular things with your candidate that others would rightfully say make them discouraging. These are the candidates we have. This is the vote that we have to take. But the second thing I'll say is this, every time we get here, I'm reminded of Plato, the Greek philosopher and the book he wrote called The Republic. It's a book on Plato's version of the perfect society.

I'll be honest with you, I don't remember most of the book. There is one thing he says in that book that I have always remembered. And he says that in the perfect society, the right leaders step up to lead. Not because they benefit or gain, because usually leadership comes at a cost, but because they know that if they don't step up to lead, the wrong leaders will. In other words, the society will suffer because the good people, the right people, the best people said no.

So every year when we ask, is this really the best we could do in a country of 300 +1000000 people, are these the 2 best people? Plato would say, probably not. The best people said no. These are the people that you got, which of course begs the question, how do we get better people? And here my answer might surprise you.

You might need to consider being involved in the political process. I know it's tempting to say, Jesus wasn't about the politics of this world, and that's true. Jesus came to preach the gospel of the kingdom, but that doesn't mean Jesus' teachings didn't have ripple effects for how we think about society. Jesus didn't talk about an unjust criminal justice system, for example. That doesn't mean he doesn't have a lot to say about it.

Even in the gospel of John, Jesus says there are a lot of things he would like to have taught that the disciples weren't ready for, and he says that when he goes the Holy Spirit will come and he will lead us into these things. I think Jesus has in mind a great deal of things, things like family, things like social life, things like political life. The truth is the gospel has implications for what we think is right and wrong, for what we think is better and best. And I think Christians should understand that part of God's call in our lives is for us to step into leadership. That maybe the right answer for leadership is us, to run for school board, to run for city council, to get involved, so that maybe in 20 years, we have better candidates because the right people, God's people, said yes.

This episode of wake up, look up was produced by Noel Aker and Andy Hoffman. Our topic researchers are Caitlin Hynel and Tyler Ritchie. This episode was directed by Andy Hoffman. Our podcast coordinator is Hallie Andrews. Our production manager is Marcus Cunningham.

Good tech and engineering support from Matthew Adel and Landon Hull, and our copy editor is Matti Goebel. I'm your host, Zach Weierach. Join us on the next episode of Wake Up Look Up.