In less than two weeks, Americans will know which candidates will direct the course of our state and nation for the next two to four years.  Unfortunately, too many Christians do not understand exactly what is at stake.  With each passing election cycle, we ought to be ever more concerned with the vital issues of essential liberty, morality, and ethics. Right now, due to the steady erosion of long-held liberties, coupled with the rise of bigger, more tyrannical government and a blatant disregard of corruption in leadership in all areas of government, our Christian values and way of life are quickly disintegrating.

This progressive disintegration is exactly what we can expect to happen when Christian citizens choose to ignore their responsibility to actively participate in self-government.  When we refuse to fulfill our obligation, we squander a precious gift given to us by God.  By declining to take part in the political process, we are relinquishing our God-given authority and handing it over to atheists and humanists who will abuse, distort and exploit it for themselves or for godless agendas.

It is unthinkable that Christians would refrain from the political process, knowing full well that the absence of their voice and vote will allow godless ideologies and philosophies to influence and capture the culture!

Romans 13 tells us that “there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.”  Who has been appointed as authorities here in America? The first three words of the U.S. Constitution tell us:  “We the people” are the appointed rulers.  In our republican form of government we delegate our authority to certain offices and branches of government, but we are ultimately responsible for the authority that we delegate.

Therefore, when the Bible we profess to believe in tells us that political power comes exclusively from the very God we worship, it is unconscionable for Christians to excuse themselves from the public arena on the grounds that “Christians shouldn’t be involved in politics.”

I must also point to the fact that a Biblical view of love requires our political engagement.  In Matthew 22:36-40, Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with your entire mind.”  He goes on to tell us that the second great commandment is like it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

If we truly love our neighbors as ourselves, shouldn’t we be more intentional about opposing or supporting certain candidates and their legislative proposals in Springfield and Washington D.C. because we know how it will affect not only our family, but our neighbor and his or her family as well?

If we truly love our neighbors, we should be actively promoting candidates who are pro-life, pro-marriage, and who understand pro-family concerns in regard to bigger government, higher taxes, drug legalization, school indoctrination, gambling expansion, and pornography.

Then there is the issue of stewardship.  As it has been pointed out before, roughly 20-30 million Christians did not vote in the last presidential election in 2012. This is certainly not good stewardship of God’s gift of self-government!

Consider the passage of Scripture in which Jesus praises a servant by saying “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.” (Matthew 25:21)  In light of this Scripture, is it any surprise that Bible-believing Christians are sparsely represented in Springfield and Washington, D.C?  Moreover, if we aren’t faithful in the little things that God has given us to do – such as voting or communicating with our elected representatives – why are we surprised that we aren’t successful when it comes to the bigger things?  (This is why you should voluntarily enlist in IFI’s Gideon’s Army!)

Even if America was a monarchy or a dictatorship, where citizens have very little influence in civil government, Christians would still have a responsibility to be salt and light in the dark and decaying culture. In America, however, we are blessed with the benefit of living in a country not only founded on Christian principles, but also established on the maxim that power is derived from the consent of the governed. “We the people” have both a civic and Christian duty to be engaged in culture and government.

I will admit that the situation we face is difficult – but we are not without hope and we have political tools and spiritual resources at our disposal!

Let me challenge each and every one reading this today:  Take a stand.

Make sure you research the candidates using the IFI Voter Guide and/or the IFA online guide at ILVoterGuide.com.  Then be sure you make the time to vote!

But let that not be the only political engagement you partake in this year.  There are other ways to be involved and to engage the culture.  The reality that the godless Left has been able to effectively influence the culture, where we have not, should spur us to do all that we can to present a Biblical worldview.

Many will try to dissuade us from influencing the culture with our faith and political views – telling us that we should not talk about religion and politics – but that is a ploy to silence us!

How are people to know about Jesus Christ if we refuse to talk about our faith?  Likewise, how are people going to know about the good candidates and policies if we won’t engage in political discourse?

George Washington understood the importance of one’s influence.  This quote expresses his thoughts:

“It should be the highest ambition of every American to extend his views beyond himself, and to bear in mind that his conduct will not only affect himself, his country, and his immediate posterity; but that its influence may be co-extensive with the world, and stamp political happiness or misery on ages yet unborn.”

We cannot extend our views on faith and politics if we remain silent, distracted, and disengaged from the public square.

So, first and foremost, I encourage you to vote! And after you vote, please do not disengage from the political arena until the next election cycle.  Now is the time for Christians to be intentional about engaging the culture!  It is time that we become good stewards of the duty of self-government and it is time we get serious about being Christ’s ambassadors! (2 Corinthians 5:20)

Finally, I want to encourage you to PRAY for our state and nation.  We don’t deserve God’s mercy, but we should still wholeheartedly pray for it!

PRAY that citizens in Illinois and across America will choose to go to the polls to support candidates who will honor biblical truth, uphold life and marriage, and defend religious liberty and our Christian faith.

And after this election cycle, continue to PRAY for all of our government officials as you are led, and as  1 Timothy 2:2 instructs us to do.

Please share this on social media and
with your Christian neighbors & family members!

(Click HERE for the Español version of this article.)

(Click HERE for a Romanian version of this article.)

Our get-out-the-vote campaign is up and running. We are distributing the IFI Voter Guide to hundreds of churches, civic groups and tea party organizations. Will you financially support our endeavor to educate Illinois voters and promote Judeo-Christian values?  Donate today.

P.S. Listen to recent IFA podcast episodes at : illinoisfamilyaction.org/podcast

Citizens in Illinois are now casting ballots to nominate candidates for President of the United States, U.S. Senator and a slew of important government positions – positions that have dramatic influence on the direction of our nation.

Voters will be asked to decide if they want to continue with a big spending, freedom-eroding agenda, or if they want leadership that stops the out-of-control spending and promotes our shared values. We cannot take our God-given civic responsibility and blessing of self-government lightly.

As citizens, we have been given the awesome privilege and responsibility to select those who make our laws and govern our nation. I believe the Lord will hold us accountable for how we steward the gift of self-government. Illinois has several competitive races this year.   Christians have a wonderful opportunity to be salt and light for a state and nation in rapid decay.

Consider these facts from our friends at the Family Research Council where one vote made all the difference.

• In 1801, one vote in Congress broke the tie between Thomas Jefferson & Aaron Burr.
• In 1839, one vote made “Landslide” Marcus Morton governor of Massachusetts.
• In 1868, one vote saved President Andrew Johnson from being removed from office.
• In 1876, one vote in the Electoral College gave Rutherford B. Hayes the presidency.
• In 1941, one vote extended the Draft just 4 months before the attack on Pearl Harbor.
• In 2000, our nation had one of the most closely contested presidential elections in American history, and some people are still arguing  about who won!

Your vote really does matter!

To help encourage the Body of Christ, we have created a bulletin insert. Ask your pastor and/or church elders for permission to place these inserts in the bulletin or a strategic spot in your church to help us get this information to the good folks in your church.

Click on the link below to download and print this latest IFI bulletin insert, ready to be copied for your church.

Voting Options – No Excuse!

I hope you and the members of your church find this material helpful. If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please feel free to contact IFI.

P.S. Do you know who’s on your ballot and where they stand on the issues that matter to you? Use the IFI Voter Guide at www.illinoisfamily.org/ifi_news/ifi-voter-guide-special-local-editions-2 and send the link to your friends and family so they can be informed voters too!

Contributions to IFI are tax-deductible & support our educational efforts.

Over the course of the past few months I gathered articles about the question of “judicial supremacy” — are U.S. Supreme Court decisions “the law of the land,” or are they rulings on cases?

Here is that page of excerpts, quotes, and links: Judicial Supremacy: Not in the U.S. Constitution, Not the Intention of the Founding Fathers.

Republicans and conservatives rarely even attempt to disseminate information about the U.S. Constitution to the uninformed and misinformed. Of course, that is a bit much to ask when too many on our side aren’t even clear on what it says.

For many who have attended most law schools in the country, the chances are greater than not that they came away with the idea that, not only is the U.S. Supreme Court the highest court in the land, but it is also the supreme governing body. Why do so many law school graduates think that? Because that is what law schools teach.

What is sad is that so many conservatives fall for the notion of judicial supremacy. As to why they do, I can only engage in a bit of psychological speculation.

Here are just eight possible reasons why conservatives fall for and then defend the theory of judicial supremacy:

1.) Because they weren’t actually taught the U.S. Constitution — but rather the opinions of U.S. Supreme Court justices. Yes, this is an important distinction if you actually want to understand the U.S. Constitution, and not merely the written opinions about the U.S. Constitution by unelected lawyers.

2.) Because even as they were taught to consider legislative debate and the writings of legislators when it comes to interpreting statutes, they completely ignore the words of the Founding Fathers regarding the design and purpose of the U.S. Supreme Court.

3.) Because they absolutely hate the idea that they were taught wrong. After all, if they were misinformed about this, what else might they have been misinformed about?

4.) Because it flies in the face of the idea that lawyers are an elite class — if those nine lawyers are no longer the oligarchy they were led to believe it is, their sense of elitism is threatened.

5.) Because they can’t conceive of how American government can work if it’s all about checks and balances and divided power — someone has to be in charge, right?

6.) Because they can’t grasp that the power is invested in the People, not in whatever majority happens to sit on the Court at any given time.

7.) Because just like the idea that “any kid can grow up to be president” is lovely, so too is the notion that “any lawyer can some day be appointed to be that fifth and deciding vote on U.S. Supreme Court cases and thus the ruler of the land — superior to the lowly elected U.S. President down Pennsylvania Avenue and those nobodies that populate the U.S. Senate and U.S. House across the street.“One ‘us’ needs to be in charge.”

8.) Because “I went to law school and you didn’t, therefore I know better.”

This last one is actually my favorite of them all, since I enjoyed both a year of “Con Law” in undergrad while studying political science and political philosophy, and one year while in law school. The United States Constitution wasn’t written based upon the opinions of legal minds but rather that of political philosophers, political scientists, and statesmen. Why some think lawyers have special knowledge about the U.S. Constitution is a mystery to me.

Within the past few days I added two articles to that page of links. First, one I’d missed from late June. Second, a new article that posted just three days ago. Here are excerpts from both of them:

The Myth of Judicial Supremacy
By Paul Moreno (June 26, 2015)

Forget Marbury v. Madison. Judicial supremacy is mostly an invention of the Warren Court. The Supreme Court this morning declared that states cannot limit marriage to one man and one woman.

But this is not the last word on the question. Article VI of the Constitution reads: “This Constitution, and the laws of the United States made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties . . . shall be the supreme law of the land . . . ” The idea that Supreme Court interpretations of the Constitution are the supreme law of the land is a very recent contention.

When the Constitution was written and for a long time thereafter, many doubted that the Court had the authority to interpret the Constitution at all — in other words, they believed that the Court had no power of “judicial review.” Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist 78, made the classic argument that, given a written constitution established by the sovereign people, the Court had no choice but to maintain the supremacy of the people’s Constitution when it was alleged to be in conflict with an ordinary law passed by their representatives.

Today’s legend of judicial supremacy begins with Chief Justice John Marshall’s opinion in Marbury v. Madison (1803). In fact, Marbury was quite a modest decision, in which Marshall held that Congress could not extend the jurisdiction of the Court beyond what the Constitution had provided. (And it is unlikely that the act in question did so anyway.) The decision was hardly ever cited for the next century.

Marshall never made any claim of judicial supremacy, nor did the country accept any such principle. Presidents Jefferson and Jackson resisted the idea that the Court had a monopoly on constitutional interpretation.

Moreno goes on to explain that “The myth of judicial supremacy began near the end of the 19th century, when conservatives sought to justify unpopular Court decisions — especially the 1895 decision holding the income tax unconstitutional.”

And that “Under Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Court went on to ever bolder exercises of judicial power”:

The first rhetorical expression of judicial supremacy came in Cooper v. Aaron (1958), when a federal district court, following the High Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), had ordered the desegregation of Central High School in Little Rock, Ark. The justices claimed that Marbury v. Madison had “declared the basic principle that the federal judiciary is supreme in its exposition of the law of the Constitution, and that principle has ever since been respected by this court and the country as a permanent and indispensable feature of our constitutional system.” For the first time, the Court now added that “the interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment enunciated by this court in the Brown case is the supreme law of the land.” Civil rights became such a popular cause that the Court has been living off the moral capital of Brown ever since.

Can you imagine how upset lawyers are when they learn about the short term memory problem of their esteemed professors?

I encourage you to read Moreno’s entire article here.

Here an excerpt from our next new link, where the writer touches on the confusion of many that argue against judicial supremacy:

Why Judicial Supremacy Isn’t Compatible with Constitutional Supremacy
By Ramesh Ponnuru (September 10, 2015)

A pro-choice voter in New Hampshire had a question for John Kasich, the Republican governor of Ohio, who was making the rounds as a presidential candidate: Would he “respect” Roe v. Wade even though he is a pro-lifer? Kasich answered, “Obviously, it’s the law of the land now, and we live with the law of the land.”

Whether he knew it or not, Kasich had wandered into a debate over the courts, one in which some of the other presidential candidates are also participants. Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, has denounced “judicial tyranny.” When five justices ruled that the Constitution requires governments to recognize same-sex marriage, he scoffed that the Supreme Court was not “the Supreme Being.”

It’s an often-heated debate. Huckabee’s side says that the courts have established a “judicial supremacy” at odds with the actual constitutional design; the other side says that people like Huckabee are threatening the rule of law. Both sides have some reasonable points, and both could profit from conducting the debate at a lower level of abstraction.

Huckabee’s side of the argument is of course the weaker one in our political culture. Think of how often people say, without realizing they are making a controversial claim, that abortion is “a constitutional right” or that laws against it are “unconstitutional.” The Supreme Court has ruled to that effect; our shorthand treats its rulings as either correct by definition or authoritative in such a strong sense that we should describe them as though they were. “The Constitution is what the judges say it is,” as Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes said before he was on the Court. Even when arguments about judicial supremacy appear to have no practical import, they lie beneath judgments about how we should talk about judicial decisions.

The case against this way of thinking holds that judicial supremacy is incompatible with constitutional supremacy. The courts can get the Constitution wrong; if they could not, there would be no point to justices’ trying to get it right by reasoning about the Constitution. Judicial review, though not explicitly authorized by the Constitution, can be inferred from it: In cases where the courts have to decide whether to apply the Constitution or a statute that conflicts with it, the higher law has to take precedence. The case against judicial supremacy rests on a similar inference: In cases where a judicial interpretation of the Constitution is at odds with the actual document, it is the latter that deserves the allegiance of citizens and officeholders. Kasich is therefore wrong: The Constitution is “the law of the land,” not Roe. (You can look it up in the Constitution’s sixth article.)

Read more: National Review

This article was originally posted at JohnBiver.com

There is an actual scientific national poll that deserves our attention.  In a new poll previewing the 2016 election looking at the issues that voters care most about, the Barna Polling Group asked 1,025 voters about their concerns a few weeks ago.

Three-quarters of voters say that issues are the most important factor in their support for a candidate. Overall, and by a significant margin, the stagnant economy ranks as the top concern among voters with three-out-of-four saying that issue would have “a lot” of influence on their choice of candidate.

Interestingly, there are noteworthy differences in priorities across voter demographics. Evangelical voters, who make up 40% of the Republican voting block, rank religious liberty as their top concern (67%), ranking statistically even with the economy and even a few points higher than abortion, which often ranks at the top of their list.    In other words, protecting religious freedom has now become their priority social issue.

Among other demographics, young voters, often called millennials, rank the environment higher than other groups and foreign policy lower. While the economy ranks high, surprisingly, it is a lower concern among the young than any other group.

Baby Boomers rank foreign policy at 52%, which is higher than any other age group.   The elderly, who typically have the highest turnout in presidential elections, are most interested in the economy (86%), foreign policy (72%), and immigration (69%).  Boomers and the elderly both rank the environment at the bottom of the list of the poll’s issues.