From Breakpoint: http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/30013

Forgiveness is not a option, unless you are without sin. Since I have committed many, I have to forgive people who have hurt me. The story in this article is inspiring. These women are my heroes. It is sad that our culture has corrupted the concept of a hero. A hero can include:

1. Fake comic characters, like Superman and Batman
2. Professional Athletes, who are basically millionaires playing kids games
3. Actors who have the “right” politics
4. People who stand up against others that they are in conflict with, but only those “others” who have the “wrong” politics
5. People who stop progress, NIMBYs
6. Scientists who come up with theories that bolster an anti Christian world view
7. Musicians who have the “right” politics

Another hero of mine is John McCain, who was a POW in Vietnam. He is currently a Senator. I don’t like his politics, nor some aspects of his private life, but I cannot ignore his heroism in Vietnam.

Corrie Ten Boom is also my hero because she ended up meeting one of the prison guards who held her captive in Nazi Germany. Like these women in Rwanda, she forgave him.

Lastly, CS Lewis is a hero of mine. He was a man of his word, and took care of his friend’s mother until she died. He wrote the most wonderful stories, including The Screwtape Letters, which had a huge impact on my life.

PS – Jesus is much more than a hero to me. He is the one who’s forgiveness I need!

This is a comment I made after reading John StoneStreet’s opinion about the election. John is a man whose opinion I highly respect, although we may differ on this particular issue. See “http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/%2029981#comments”

This thread has answered a question that I have been pondering for a long time. Throughout my Christian life, I have experienced several Church splits. They all are similar in one fashion, people not liking a decision that was made, and stomping out of the Church angry. When you talk to these people later, they justify their walk out by saying, “I cannot be a part of something I think is going in the wrong direction”. Like these walk outs, people are reacting the same way to the Trump candidacy the same way. Trump did something disgusting, and they don’t want their names associated with his candidacy. What is not known is what they will do on Election Day. I suspect most will not vote, and the rest will vote for a third party.

The problem is this notion of not supporting something sinful because it would be supported “in my name”. There are 2 sides of this, the example I brought up about not supporting a gay marriage, and the example of supporting a misogynist like Donald Trump. These 2 cases, while seeming to be the same, are absolutely different. In the first case, the Christian is being asked to support something that is blatantly sinful by people in the world. If the Christian declines, there will be very real ramifications to the person declining. In the second case, the Christian is declining to be involved in something where a sin was involved, and the ramifications are being felt by people other than themselves. What I am saying is that like people stomping out of a church during a split, not voting for Trump is the same, in both cases the ramifications will be felt by others. In every case when I witnessed people stomping out of our church, I felt like I was being left in the lurch, and being insulted for supporting sin because I stayed. I feel the same way about Christians abandoning Trump, because I feel insulted as a person supporting sin, and left in the lurch. If Christians don’t vote, or vote for someone other than Trump, Hillary Clinton will win the election. In the same fashion, when I was left in the lurch in a church after a split, I was also left in a church with financial problems, members leaving, and general malaise. In this election, it will be similar; the country will be left with a government that is opposed to everything we are doing, being labeled as bigots, and being marginalized.

I would ask anyone who feels that they cannot vote for Trump to examine their hearts and ask themselves, am I doing this for selfish reasons? Am I just following the crowd? Am I afraid of what some people would think of me? If you are worried about your name being associated with sin, remember Romans 3:23 that “All have fallen short of the glory of God” and that your name is already associated with sins you have committed yourself. So it is not necessary to protect your name from sin, because you are already a sinner. I would encourage all who read this to vote to support the church, and what is good for it going forward. We may not want to be associated with the disgusting things Donald Trump has done, but in my case, my name isn’t worth protecting. What is worth protecting is the church’s ability to spread the Gospel, help the poor, and teach people the truth.

Another letter to the editor:

As much as I am disgusted by Trump’s “locker room talk”, I still feel that he is still the “lesser of two evils”. Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of choices in this election. Despite 4 candidates, the 2 minor ones are both extremely unqualified and have distinguished themselves as such. The other choice is Hillary, who while being a very polished politician, is also the most corrupt person ever to run for President. During the recent debate, Trump said that if he was elected, that he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary. There is ample evidence that Hillary or the people working for her deleted 30 thousand emails after a congressional subpoena was issued. This alone makes Hillary a much worse choice for President. This is called obstruction of justice, and is very illegal. One can only wonder why Hillary was willing to risk an obstruction charge to erase her emails. This is the evil of obstruction, not knowing what crime is being hidden. People need to ignore the media hype in this election. A lot of media people are very partisan, as the most recent wikileaks dump reveals. Actively helping Hillary defeat Trump is not good journalism. When you read or watch the news, you need to consider that the people presenting the information to you are editing it. You need to make up your own mind about who is the lesser of two evils, and not let a partisan newscaster make it for you.

In pop culture, pushing the envelope is always popular. Doing this enables a mediocre performer to rise above other performers. An example of this is “Lady Ga Ga” whose outrageous costumes and nudity have propelled her to stardom. At face value, Lady Ga Ga is not all that attractive, nor a top-notch singer, but her pushing the envelope has made her famous. The problem is, when do we ever stop pushing the envelope? When do we ever look at what would we have to do to push the envelope, and say “no”? The fact is, we never stop, because there is always another envelope to push, once we get free of the current one. This is how we end up with gay marriage and men in women’s bathrooms. These things, unthinkable years ago, are now being rabidly defended by activists. All this makes me think about the story of Noah.

Noah was asked by God to build an ark, specifically to save mankind from the destruction he was about to pour out on the earth. The reason he was destroying the earth, is because he was tired of the people of earth ignoring him, and doing what ever they wanted. The end result, was “violence”. God saw no way to fix this, and Noah’s preaching was ineffective. This is why, I think, that God decided to fix the problem with a flood that would kill everyone except those that were in Noah’s ark. I know God felt bad afterward, because he promised Noah never to cause another flood like the one that he had just used. I think that God had no choice, because people had pushed the envelope so many times during Noah’s time, that the end result was “violence”. I think that now, 6000 years later, we are headed in the same direction. What is the next step for today’s activists? I think that it is rape.

In time, you will see more and more rapes occurring, and it won’t just be women. The more sex crazed we get, the more people feel left out when they aren’t getting the sex they think they diserve. They will get angry, and rape will be their outlet. From straight men, to pedophiles to homosexual “tops”, they will roam the streets looking for victims. Gangs of these people will form, and no one will be safe on the streets. I think this is what God was calling “violence”. Thankfully, our culture hasn’t gotten here yet, but we are close. In Europe, however, these gangs have formed, and women are not safe in places like Sweden and Germany. Right now, these gangs are limited to heterosexual middle eastern men, but like the land of Canaan, it’s just a matter of time before the gangs expand to include other types of sexual offenders. This is the justification of the destruction of the Amalekites that God called the Israelites to perform. Until the Israelites moved into the land of Cannan, it was not possible to safely move through that area, because if you went into a town, you would probably get gang raped no matter what gender you were. And if you stayed outside, you would get robbed by gangs of thieves. God anointed the Israelites to fix this problem by killing the Amalekites. So the bible warns us of what happens over time if no morality is enforced. You end up with violence, and America is headed in this direction.