WASHINGTON—Joe Biden’s statement during Thursday night’s vice presidential debate that no religious institution is required to refer, pay for or provide contraception under the federal Health and Human Services’ contraception/abortion mandate is “woefully inaccurate,” according to a law firm representing dozens of Christian colleges and organizations that say it violates their First Amendment religious freedoms.

The non-profit Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which represents Houston Baptist University and East Texas Baptist University, among others, in lawsuits contesting the HHS mandate, released a statement on Friday from its executive director, Kristina Arriaga, saying she was “so shocked when [Biden] said this I could barely breathe.”

Responding to debate moderator Martha Raddatz’s question about his Catholic faith and abortion, the vice president stated, “With regard to the assault on the Catholic Church, let me make it absolutely clear: No religious institution—Catholic or otherwise, including Catholic social services, Georgetown hospital, Mercy hospital, any hospital—none has to either refer contraception, none has to pay for contraception, none has to be a vehicle to get contraception in any insurance policy they provide. That is a fact. That is a fact.”

“But the facts are exactly the reverse” of what Biden claimed, said Kyle Duncan, a Becket Fund lawyer. ”Under the mandate, nearly every Catholic hospital, charity, university, and diocese in the United States—along with millions of institutions of other faiths—must refer for, must pay for, and must act as a vehicle for contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs. If they do not, they face millions in fines. That is a fact.”

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops also took issue. “This is not a fact,” the bishops wrote. “The HHS mandate contains a narrow, four-part exemption for certain 'religious employers.' That exemption was made final in February and does not extend to 'Catholic social services, Georgetown hospital, Mercy hospital, any hospital,' or any other religious charity that offers its services to all, regardless of the faith of those served.”

Arriaga wrote in an email to Becket Fund supporters, “Since last year the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty has led the charge against the Administration’s unconstitutional HHS mandate, which forces many religious organizations—many of them Catholic—to violate their deeply held religious beliefs, or pay crippling fines.”

As of Friday, there were 35 separate legal challenges to the mandate representing hospitals, universities, and businesses opposed to it on religious grounds. HBU and ETBU filed their lawsuit on Tuesday (Oct. 9) in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. Ave Maria University in Naples, Florida—a Becket Fund client—has pled in their lawsuit that they could face in excess of $17 million in fines for not complying, plus potential civil liability for not providing such coverage. HBU and ETBU claim they stand to face $10 million annually in fines.

The HHS mandate became effective in August, with non-profit religious organizations given until August 2013 to comply. The federal Affordable Care Act signed by President Obama gave the HHS the ability to issue the mandate.

“As I said, we at the Becket Fund are not in the business of endorsing any political candidate. But, we can certainly point out when a government official uses all the strength of his position to state something that is so woefully inaccurate,” Arriaga said.

Wheaton College, an evangelical school near Chicago, and Belmont Abbey, a Catholic school in North Carolina, are among other schools Becket is representing in the suits.

Abortion rights groups were mostly quiet with regard to Biden’s HHS mandate remarks, instead focusing on the Romney-Ryan ticket’s perceived threats to women’s health care.

Nancy Keegan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said of Ryan’s debate performance, “He refused to say whether American women should be worried about the future of their reproductive freedoms if he and Gov. Romney win the White House. Let me be clear: The Romney-Ryan ticket is extremely dangerous to women’s health and Americans should be very concerned about the future of women’s health and rights if Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan win on November 6.”

Keegan’s has praised the HHS mandate, saying in July that opponents of it wish to “deny any essential health-care service, including contraceptive coverage” and are waging attacks on “women’s health.”

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HOUSTON—Two Texas colleges—Houston Baptist University and East Texas Baptist University—have joined the legal fight against the Obama administration’s abortion/contraceptive mandate, saying they’re standing up for what Baptists long have defended—religious freedom—and underscoring that it is not merely a Roman Catholic issue.

The Oct. 9 lawsuit is the 33rd suit against the mandate, which requires employers to provide employee health insurance that covers contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs. The latter drugs often are labeled “morning-after” or “week-after” pills and come under brand names such as Plan B and ella, and can act after fertilization and even after implantation, thereby causing a chemical abortion. Churches are exempt from the mandate, but religious organizations—such as Christian colleges, hospitals and businesses—are not.

The mandate was issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in August 2011 and went into effect in August of this year, although HHS gave nonprofit religious organizations another year—until August 2013—to comply. The new health care law signed by President Obama opened the door for the mandate. The law itself does not require coverage of abortion-inducing drugs, although it did give HHS the authority to determine what is and is not covered under the new law, often dubbed “Obamacare.” The Supreme Court upheld the law earlier this year but did not deal with the issue raised by the mandate lawsuits.

The list of businesses and organizations suing to overturn the mandate has grown in recent weeks, with arts and crafts company Hobby Lobby and Christian publisher Tyndale House joining the ranks.

Another Baptist school, Louisiana College, filed suit in February.

Becket Fund for Religious Liberty is representing Houston Baptist and East Texas Baptist in the suit, filed in a federal court in Texas. The schools say the mandate violates their constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of religion and speech.

“The Universities’ religious beliefs forbid them from participating in, providing access to, paying for, training others to engage in, or otherwise supporting abortion,” the suit says. “… The government’s Mandate unconstitutionally coerces the Universities to violate their deeply-held religious beliefs under threat of heavy fines and penalties.”

Forcing the university to “pay a fine” for the “privilege of practicing one’s religion or controlling one’s own speech is un-American, unprecedented, and flagrantly unconstitutional,” the suit states.

The universities don’t have a problem with covering all contraceptives, only those that can cause chemical abortions, the suit says. The schools “consider the prevention by artificial means of the implantation of a human embryo to be an abortion,” and they affirm “traditional Christian teachings on the sanctity of life,” the suit states.

Houston Baptist President Robert Sloan commented, “While we are always reluctant to enter into lawsuits, the government has given us no choice. Either we violate our conscience or give in to the administration’s heavy-handed attack upon our religious freedom. We will not comply with this unconstitutional mandate, and we plead with our government to respect the liberties given by God and enunciated in the Bill of Rights.”

Samuel Oliver, president of East Texas Baptist University, said Baptists have a history of standing up for religious freedom.

“Baptists have always advocated religious liberty, and religious liberty is what is at stake in this situation,” Oliver said. “As the famous Baptist preacher George W. Truett once remarked, ‘A Baptist would rise at midnight to plead for absolute religious liberty for his Catholic neighbor, and for his Jewish neighbor, and for everybody else.’ We are rising today to ensure that religious liberty, the first freedom guaranteed in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, is protected and preserved.”

The lawsuit says the law and the government have “provided thousands of exemptions” to businesses but that the government refuses to exempt religious organizations from the mandate. For example, businesses with fewer than 50 employees are exempt from the health care law and therefore exempt from the mandate. Businesses also had the option of “grandfathering” in their previous health care plans and thereby avoid many of the new law’s requirements, such as the mandate.

“[T]he government refuses to give the same level of accommodation to groups exercising their fundamental First Amendment freedoms,” the suit states. “… The Mandate can be interpreted as nothing other than a deliberate attack by the government on the religious beliefs of the Universities and millions of other Americans.”

The HHS mandate provides an exemption for churches and church-like bodies provided they are nonprofit and meet all four of the following criteria: 1) “The inculcation of religious values is the purpose of the organization”; 2) “The organization primarily employs persons who share the religious tenets of the organization”; 3) “The organization serves primarily persons who share the religious tenets of the organization”; and 4) The organization is a church, an integrated auxiliary of a church, a convention or association of churches, or is an exclusively religious activity of a religious order, under Internal Revenue Code 6033(a)(1) and (a)(3)(A).”

Although the universities only employ Christians, they don’t fit the definition of a church as set forth by the criteria.

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP) — I completely blew one of those “least of these” tests a few weeks ago. 

Craig and I were on our way back to Nashville after a few days in New Orleans. We'd been driving in heavy rain and were pretty tired. As darkness fell, we stopped for the night.

We'd had our last “go for it because you can't get fresh seafood at home” meal for lunch. After several days of gastronomic indulgence, we decided something lighter, and lighter on the wallet, was in order for supper. 

And that's why I found myself checking out the granola bars in Aisle 13. Dazed and confused by the number of choices, I turned to look for Craig … and it happened. 

An older woman brought her cart to an abrupt stop next to me and said, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Oh, no!” I thought. “Pinned against a wall of granola bars by a Jehovah's Witness. If this is a test, Lord, I'm going to fail it!”

She was oblivious to my inner turmoil and began explaining to me that her daughter and grandchildren had moved back home to live with her and her husband. They had five people in their house now, and could I help her buy some food?

I had glanced at the young woman beside her and mentally calculated the price of her elaborately braided hair and dazzling manicure. Before the woman paused for breath, I had decided that my answer would be no.

I wouldn't be writing this if I had politely said no and excused myself. Unfortunately, I proceeded to question the daughter about her choices and criticize her for putting her mother in the position of stopping strangers to ask for money. I eventually slowed down and told the older woman truthfully that I didn't have any cash, and she walked on.

As soon as I had turned back to the granola bars, I was overcome with shame. Craig reappeared, and I asked him to head for the checkout and get some cash back when he paid. I practically ran through the store, looking for the women, but they were not to be found. 

The situation is full of irony — we didn't have any cash because we had given it all away gladly the night before, to a man who ministers to the “least of these” of New Orleans. And we've been the recipients of many acts of generosity from our own parents, especially when our children needed something. 

Today I remember my words in Aisle 13 with regret and pray that the family's needs are being met by another believer or church. And don't worry — the Scriptures about unknowingly entertaining angels and serving “the least of these” often flash through my mind.

I want to be a generous person who is sensitive to the Holy Spirit when I'm faced with an outstretched hand, no matter whose hand it is. So the pride and arrogance that caused me to joyfully help the one who didn't ask and spitefully refuse the one who did confounds me. Yes, there was a test in Aisle 13, just not the one I expected. And obviously I wasn't prepared for either.

Sunday (Oct. 14) is World Hunger Sunday, and many Southern Baptists will hear statistics that will seem incomprehensible and distant. For me, those numbers are represented by one woman who humbled herself to ask for my help. I failed her, but I've learned that hard lesson and I won't fail the next person.

Southern Baptists have the opportunity to help every day by contributing to the World Hunger Fund, where 100 percent will be used to feed the hungry — in Jesus' name. You can read more about it, and donate online, at worldhungerfund.com .

Won't you join me in the pursuit of kindness that will reflect the love of Christ and bring glory to His name?
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Karen Cole is an editor at the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. 

REDWATER—A painted mural on the wall of a rural northeast Texas chapel covers a name, scribbled on sheetrock by a young boy on behalf of his father. Few if any in the small, ever-changing congregation know it’s there. But James Cooley does.

He has since lost track of the boy and his father, but he believes, someday, the man will return to the chapel seeking relief from drug and alcohol addiction just as his son prayed he would when he wrote his name on the wall.

Cooley understands addiction’s draw and its destruction, not only on the addict but anyone foolish (or merciful) enough to care for the person who has lost all concern for himself. Incarcerated three times, married just as many, and in and out of drug rehabilitation facilities, Cooley’s existence centered on drugs. But in one sobering experience, when Cooley realized he was to blame for the unconscionable plight of a little girl, he heard God speak. It was his Damascus Road.

That was 17 years ago. Now Cooley and his long-suffering wife, Donna, encourage those on the path they once traveled as addict and enabler, respectively, to be overcomers in and through Jesus.

Their work is accomplished through the ministry of Damascus Home of Redwater, a 90-day, Christ-centered residential treatment program in Bowie County. The program borrows its name and operational model from a facility in North Carolina where Cooley finally found healing. So grateful was he for his release from drug and alcohol addiction that Cooley knew he had to help others.

In hindsight, it is little wonder that substance abuse defined Cooley’s life. He grew up on a North Carolina tobacco farm and often pondered as a child how his farming family was always the first to have the latest toys and gadgets. Eventually he discovered the family’s more substantive source of income, bootleg whiskey. The business expanded, moving into the more lucrative market of marijuana and illegal narcotics.

Cooley ended up in prison before his 20th birthday.

Then he met Donna. They married in 1972, divorced in 1983. Married again in 1989. Divorced again in 1993. And remarried, for keeps, in 1996. When asked which day they celebrate as their anniversary, Cooley quickly responded, April 19, 1995—the day God saved him. The couple has two adult sons, Jamie and Tracy.

Yet it wasn’t the plight of his own children that ultimately broke his heart and spirit after years of drug abuse and three terms in prison, but that of a stranger’s daughter.

Cooley said he was a functional addict, using alcohol and cocaine while holding down a job when he wasn’t in prison. The couple, both from North Carolina, moved back and forth from Carolina to Texas during the course of their marriages and divorces. Each time Donna took Cooley back, she thought, surely, her life would be better.

But her husband remained a slave to his addictions. In retrospect, Donna said she played the role of enabler. The more she tried to change her husband the worse he seemed to get.

“I was playing God. I was trying to fix him,” she said.

In 1993, at an especially low mark in their second try at marriage, Cooley was not working but he was abusing drugs excessively. Donna had had enough. Exasperated that her husband was not heeding her pleas for change and frustrated with God for not moving in their lives, she filed for divorce. Cooley left the family in Redwater and went back to North Carolina and the family business.

“I wanted to quit. I went in and out of treatment centers like going in and out of Wal-Mart,” Cooley said. “I was a drug dealer and had become my own best customer.”

It was the experience in a crack house with other addicts that did for Cooley what no state-run treatment facility could do. After three days of a drug-induced stupor, Cooley decided to leave and go back to his sister’s house. But as he shuffled through the group of unconscious and semi-conscious addicts, Cooley was startled into lucidity.

“I saw this little girl. She was swinging this [baby] bottle and crying,” he said. The child’s parents, his customers, were unresponsive to her cries.

Cooley knew he had not eaten in three days and presumed the toddler had not either. A search for food in the refrigerator revealed only roaches and clabbered milk. He left the house to get her something to eat.

“On the way to McDonald’s God began to deal with me. ‘Son, you’re a much better man than this,’” he recalled hearing in his head.

Cooley felt sorry for the hungry child and God did not pull any punches in speaking to his heart.

“Yeah, she can’t eat,” God told Cooley. “You took her mom and dad’s money.”

Cooley returned to the crack house with the fast food, gave it to the girl, and left. He drove to his sister’s house and parked in front of the house. In his moments of consciousness he cried out to God.

“I need you to come into my life and change me or take me out,” he prayed. That was April 19, 1995. Cooley went into his sister’s house, showered, packed a small bag and left for a state-run rehabilitation facility. On his way out the door he spotted his mother’s Bible. She had died at 50 years from complications of alcoholism. He grabbed the book and pushed it into his bag and silently prayed God would send him someone who could help him understand it.

At the facility a man gave him a flier for a Christian-based treatment center, something Cooley had never heard of. He slipped the brochure in his Bible and soon forgot it. But later, in prayer, God reminded him of the clinic and told Cooley he would receive relief from his drug addiction there.

After his obligatory time at the state-run facility, Cooley wanted desperately to enroll in the Christian clinic. Calls by his counselor revealed the unit was full and Cooley would have to wait. He believed if he did not get into the clinic his life would be over.

When his sister picked him up she told Cooley they would be going to the Christian treatment center—an emergency bed had been opened just for him.

There, he learned to live drug free—fully dependent on Christ. Damascus House taught him how to live in a way that life, family, and friends had not.

His life renewed, Cooley wanted nothing more than to reunite with his wife and sons. But Donna was hesitant. For years she had prayed for this very moment and yet she was afraid to take him back. She finally acquiesced and Cooley returned to Redwater.

Back in Texas, Cooley attended First Baptist Church of Redwater with Donna, where he discovered that he had been the focus of prayers over many years. And the church that had prayed him through the turmoil would share in the vision God had placed on his heart—to open a treatment center and transitional living home in Bowie County. He would call it Damascus Home.

Cory Calicutt, associate pastor of FBC Redwater, was new to the church when the Cooleys began seeking counsel for the direction of their ministry.

“I didn’t know the Jimmie Cooley with race-track arms, who was in and out of prison and a dead-beat dad. I didn’t know his story,” Calicutt said.

He knew Cooley as a man passionate about the needs of addicts, though. The new ministry’s home was a reclaimed drug house relocated to the Cooley’s five-acre lot. Then, a 10-acre dilapidated facility with a main house and cabins in Maud, Texas was donated to the ministry. After an unsuccessful first run by another organization, Cooley was asked to direct the program that came to be called Straight Street. It was the realization of the vision God gave him following his stay at Damascus House in North Carolina.

Not long after, the couple was able to expand the ministry to women when an empty nursing home near Atlanta, Texas became available. All of the buildings are owned debt-free. As money and volunteers were available, the complexes were turned into livable homes for clients seeking admission into the 90-day program.

At the center in Maud, Cooley wanted to turn an empty building into a chapel. All he needed, as with the other projects, was people and money. God supplied both in a way that continues to touch his heart.

During the course of the remodeling effort, work came to a halt for lack of funds. At FBC Redwater, Cooley put out the plea for funds. He needed 40 panels of sheet rock at $10 each. Surely, he thought, there were 40 people in his congregation with $10 in their pockets.

A boy approached Cooley with a sock in his hand and asked the man if he could borrow 80 cents. Why, Cooley asked?

The boy had cleaned out his piggy bank and offered Cooley all he had, $9.20. With 80 cents more, the boy explained, he could pay for a panel of sheet rock so that his father, an addict, could go to the new chapel at Damascus Home.

Offerings from the church were more than enough to finish the chapel. Before one wall of the room was painted with a recreation of Thomas Blackshear’s popular painting “Forgiven,” Cooley had the boy write his dad’s name there and pray that he would someday be among the men who daily worshiped Jesus and thanked him for their healing.

He has since lost track of the boy and his dad. But he prays and believes that God will bring that dad back to Damascus Home of Redwater in answer to that little boy’s prayer.

Since 1995, God has worked through the Cooleys to bring hope to what Cooley says is an “unreached” people group in far northeast Texas. The couple serves as Mission Service Corps volunteers with the North American Mission Board, bringing tough love and the dogged determination of Christian conviction to men and women lost in the haze of drug and alcohol addiction.

But they have not done it alone. The support and love that FBC Redwater once gave a mom, her two boys and her wayward husband now is transferred to the men and women who have become a part of their church family.

“As I began to bring these men to church they fell in love with them,” said Cooley of the members of FBC Redwater. “God has used this ministry to change our church.”

DALLAS—Criswell College trustees approved on Oct. 4 a bold vision to expand beyond the school’s core Bible curriculum to “train biblical leaders in strategic disciplines” of business, law, communication and education, and continued working on the potential of a residential campus to accommodate expected growth and to better meet the needs of the 325-member student body.

“We feel confident this is the right direction for God to use our school to do something dramatic for the kingdom,” explained Tom Hatley of Rogers, Ark., who chaired the long-range study over the past year. “It’s time for the sacred to reintegrate the secular.”

Trustees were reminded of their founder’s identification of two proper functions of an education at a Christian college, hearing an audio recording from 1967 of W.A. Criswell’s appeal “to train and educate first a ministry for Jesus” and “second, that we might train Christian leaders to do God’s work in the earth.”

“For over 40 years, Criswell College has trained biblically passionate men and women to lead in church ministry and denominational service,” stated President Jerry Johnson in a release issued following the meeting. “Next year, we will introduce an expanded curriculum that will bring full circle W.A. Criswell’s dream of equipping leaders of all vocations to carry out their chosen profession or ministry through the Word of God, a Christian worldview and a strong Christian witness.”

The expanded curriculum will be developed by the faculty and approved by the board to enable the school to educate more men and women for “real-world ministry,” Johnson said. “Our vision is to train biblical leaders in strategic disciplines and charge them to impact every area of life with the teachings of Jesus Christ.”

Hatley added, “An expanded curriculum and new residential campus will allow us to fulfill Criswell’s original vision, bringing similar biblical revolution to the workplace and to secular environments.”

Trustee Ed Rawls of Plano described for the full board the initial meeting of the committee tasked with developing a vision for the future. “We needed to make a decision of whether Criswell College would remain a small Bible school, isolated in its influence, or make a jump to the next level of education.”

While surveys of alumni, faculty, students and friends confirmed the school had filled a niche as a theologically conservative training ground for ministers, Hatley said, “Others are doing what we alone once did.” Consequently, he said the group began asking what need was not being met and then rallied around Criswell’s original vision.

Trustee Keet Lewis said the committee imagined “a uniquely biblio-centric college education with intentional focus on the preparation for immediate deployment of graduates in the ‘white unto harvest fields’ as pastors, missionaries, church administrators, church planters and church revitalization coaches, as well as into marketplace ministry as leaders in business, medicine, law, public policy and other disciplines.”

“The Southern Baptists of Texas Convention has invested money, students, time and prayers in Criswell College,” noted trustee Jim Richards, who serves as SBTC executive director. “Now Criswell College must take the steps necessary to serve the SBTC constituency better by having a residential campus and an expanded curriculum,” he said, calling it the best decision for the convention, the college and the kingdom of God.

Offering his full support of the concept, trustee Jack Pogue of Dallas said the board should honor the theology on which the school was founded, but be ready to replace the facility in which it resides.

Trustee Jack Brady of Dallas asked whether approval of the proposal constituted a commitment to move to a new campus. Rawls responded, “If you make that decision you have no choice but to move to an outside location. We do not have enough room, enough expansion space. There is no way to support the university model here.”

Noting that a number of Bible colleges had gone out of business in recent years, trustee Harold Rawlings of Florence, Ky., added, ‘If we continue in the way we’ve been going that will be true of this school. This is a great step forward. It means the saving of Criswell College.”

Brady said he preferred to give more time to pray about the matter, while all of the other trustees there stood in support of a motion to begin the process toward an expanded curriculum and possible relocation.

Prior to deliberation, the board heard from Founder’s Day chapel speaker Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., who said their vision would either expand or limit the future of the college. “You let the size of your God determine the size of your vision,” he said, encouraging them to begin with vision casting, not problem solving.

In other business, the board promoted James W. Bryant to senior distinguished professor of pastoral theology. While serving as minister of evangelism and church organization at First Baptist Church of Dallas, Bryant was tasked by W.A. Criswell to explore the possibility of beginning a Bible institute. In 1971 he became the school’s first academic dean.

He pastored churches in New Mexico, Texas and Arkansas, led Luther Rice Seminary as president and taught religion at the University of Mobile before returning as academic dean at Criswell in 2002. In 2004 he began teaching pastoral theology.

Trustees also instituted a policy for instructional compensation for the president and vice presidents, approved trustees eligible for re-election and agreed to enlist a real estate firm to explore the sale of property in Arlington.

Newly elected officers include Lewis as chairman, John Mann of Springtown as vice-chairman and Pogue as secretary.

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As an American Baptist Christian (in that order) I experience the power of corporate bodies at every turn. My work is governed by over 2,300 churches, themselves congregationally governed, that send messengers to approve my budget and appoint my more direct authority structure, a board of trustees. The Grapevine police officer sitting in front of our building with a radar gun and a fast car is there at the behest of the thousands who live in his town. Endless, unavoidable road construction that surrounds every destination is provided by taxes paid by nearly everyone I know. Deliberations, debates, compromises, votes—world without end. Flawed as the process might be, no one has suggested a better idea. Many have tried far worse ideas. I try to be a fan of the best answer available to the various groups I reside within.

Maybe my headline is deceptive; there really isn’t a “but” to this. My enthusiasm for democratic processes does assume a few things about those processes, though.

Democracy depends on a vigorous congregation. In my church or in my nation, our deliberation is only sane if the deliberators are willing to do more than express uninformed opinions. A remarkable amount of source material is available to help those opinions be more informed. That means that you can actually ask or hear or read what a person said apart from the filter of another’s evaluation. You can read the Republican or Democrat platform or hear a presidential speech or ask the chairman of your church personnel committee for yourself so that you know not only the relevant questions but also an authoritative response. Perhaps the second part of that sanity is that those who are constitutionally qualified to vote and adequately informed should actually do so. I’m stunned at the number of my fellow citizen Christians who aren’t even registered to vote—that’s a sin. I’m also a bit disappointed at how few of my fellow church members participate in the significant decisions made in their names at church. Maybe that is a sin also.

Democracy depends on available information. Most conspiracy theories are silly. Sure, people can be evil enough to assassinate a famous person or blow up a skyscraper, but it is not reasonable to assume that thousands or even scores of conspirators will go to their graves without leaking the dirty truth. Come on, for most of us a secret known by two people is not safe. Famous conspiracies about the assassination of President Kennedy or the faking of the moon landing are absurd if only for the number of people required to keep secrets. It is also challenging to keep something under wraps when there are ambitious reporters sorting through your garbage. On the national political scene, we mostly do have access to information that tells the story. A bigger challenge is the volume of sometimes irrelevant information under which the story is buried.

But in our churches and in our denomination, those ambitious ferrets are not so much in evidence. Without making this the point of the column, I emphatically believe religious leaders of good will (employed and appointed) must be more open than is often the case, as their counterparts in the non-religious world are legally forced to be. It is natural to want to maintain the good reputation of an institution or church but that reputation needs to be the truth. No leader or plan is godly enough if its progress depends on no one finding out something that would result in a firing or ending of the project. Have an unassailable reason that you’re willing to explain for keeping secrets about work done in the name of the deliberative body you serve.

For God’s people, democracy depends on a population that walks with God. Have you ever been in a meeting where someone suggested that you take a couple of weeks to pray about something fairly mundane like carpet or yard work? I find that manipulative in many cases. It’s wrong for God’s people to show up at a meeting or voting booth if they have not been in fellowship with God. The result of that fellowship is that we will most often recognize the difference between better and worse solutions to most issues that arise within our body. Democracy for us depends on a relationship that gives us discernment beyond common sense. If we don’t have that resource, we’re just a political body like any other.

Democracy depends on God. That’s true of any variety of government applied to any body. Leaders are not independent of God even when they think they are. No advocacy group can do what prayer can do for a deliberative body. In every election we must ask for guidance and mercy from the only one who has perfect knowledge and power over human events. We should not spend more time watching debates or listening to news shows or reading voters’ guides than we do in prayer. The intervention of God is the only way that our church or nation will do the right things.

In a couple of weeks we’ll have a very important general election in America. Most elections are more important than we think but this one is a biggie. In a month or so your church will approve a ministry budget for 2013. Listen to the facts, listen to God, then show up and obey him. If God’s people will do that, it will affect our nation in a way beyond the four-year tenure of any president.

In the shifting tides of our culture, the question of the definition of marriage is front and center. When given the chance to choose, voters have overwhelmingly stated they are in favor of protecting the traditional view of marriage as one-man, one woman. Traditional marriage matters to the general populace. It should matter even more to Christians!

Here’s the rub—politicians, judges, representatives at the 2012 Democratic Convention, and the current president disagree. Strongly. This should make a difference for believers as we cannot underestimate the realities that a particular worldview brings to those who govern and lead our nation.
Let’s look at a few of these intersections and why they matter in our voting choices:

—Marriage has a particular design: One man. One woman. Together for life. It’s not a slogan. It’s the truth of Scripture. While our society may want to change the marriage status to reflect the general category of love—the heart wants what it wants as many claim—Scripture does not agree. Marriage is designed for a man and a woman to covenant together for the purposes of honoring God, enjoying one another, encouraging one another and serving one another. It shapes us and causes us to grow and mature as individuals and becomes the foundation for the family. (Genesis 2:24) God created marriage for our pleasure and for our good. A re-definition of God’s design for marriage rejects what is best for ourselves and our society.

—Marriage is the foundational building block for society: The church has always contended that marriage is the best foundation for society. Marriage builds families. Families form communities. Healthy families and communities create healthy and affluent societies. Marriage provides the essential, fertile context for growing individuals. Sociological studies prove that children in homes with a healthy marriage are more successful and have a greater potential for the future.1 Every vote we cast makes a statement about what we believe will create a better today and tomorrow. Building a better tomorrow through stronger families and stronger marriages will provide the stability needed no matter what economic realities our country faces.

—Marriage has a permanent design: For Christians who uphold the realities of Scripture, this is a non-negotiable. From the creation of humanity in the Garden of Eden, God crafted beautifully and wonderfully. God designed both male and female to glorify him through an intimate “one flesh” bond. Jesus talked about the importance of marriage and the unique bond between husband and wife. In the eyes of Christ, that bond contains such significance, it is never to be severed (Matthew 5:32, 19:3-10; Luke 16:18; Mark 10:2-12).

—Marriage still matters: One of the criticisms against traditional marriage is that the institution as expressed in our society is broken. Should the broken state of marriage negate the God-centered design? No matter how broken the institution of marriage may become in society as a whole, it doesn’t change the reality that God designed it for our good. Our rejection of God’s design erodes the foundation that he created for it. We have deluded ourselves to think pre-marital sex, extra-marital affairs and pornography are somehow “normal.” It isn’t to God. He designed what he knew would be best for us. Marriage is worth fighting for!

—Marriage under attack: Because marriage matters to God, it should matter to us and, consequently, to our candidates. You see, when we vote for a candidate, he or she will become an advocate for the positions he or she espouses. If a candidate denies the biblical foundation for traditional marriage, that same candidate will tend to put pressure on the same institution. Do not expect neutrality. The pressure is high in our day to re-negotiate what marriage means. We are forgetting that the price is too high! Not taking a stand on this issue today may even lead to religious persecution later as we teach the biblical standards on marriage and sexual relationships.

In the end, candidates may not always line up directly with our biblical worldview. It may even feel as if we are left to choose between a “lesser of two evils.” With our God-given freedoms that we enjoy here in America, we are responsible as believers to vote our conscience. Do your research and find the right candidates. Make sure you vote. This election makes a difference!

1. Jeanne M. Hilton, Esther L. Devall, “Comparison of Parenting and Children’s Behavior in Single-Mother, Single-Father, and Intact Families,” Journal of Divorce & Remarriage Vol. 29, Iss. 3-4, 1998

—John Mark Yeats is the pastor of Normandale Baptist Church in Fort Worth and is an adjunct professor of church history at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.