[Note: This article was originally posted October 2020.]
My first vote for president was as a college student in 1952, and I haven’t missed since. My birthday is November 4th, and the outcome of the presidential election always added mildly to my joy or left me mildly disappointed depending on my candidate winning or losing. I sensed most Americans felt the same. Nevertheless, we adjusted and got on with life! Yet, in all the elections I have experienced, this 2020 event is extraordinary and unique! In all my years I have never seen our country so radically divided, citizens more hostile or depreciating, ignorant broadly of facts, pushing twisted propaganda and lying accusations, violence ignored in our streets and the threats of cheating and stealing the election!
No! 2020 is vastly different from all my previous elections. Our national political life has always been “hard ball,” but this year we seem to have the most illegal and deceptive pitches possible! In the majority of our minds there are only two obvious outcomes…deliverance or disaster!
We are again at a fresh, impossible impasse between two fixed sources—conservative rightwing politics (originalists) and liberal leftwing politics (progressives)—with both groups having their share of extremists! I’m convinced our only hope is in a return to a third politic (spiritualists)—“vertical politics”— that was in dominant abundance among our people in 1775-1795. This was the philosophy of government displayed in our country’s Founders…let God control our political actions! Overwhelming evidence proves this ideal! This attitude of “verticality” at our beginning as a nation was the mindset of our Founders and made clear in the documents they left behind. Their definition of “vertical politics” concludes the Declaration of Independence, “with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence”![1]
I owe this thought to my friend Mike Huckabee. I was excited by its truth the first time I heard him say it. He declared that what we desperately need to save and balance our government is not liberal politics or conservative politics but vertical politics! This means enough of our citizens need to make a difference by leading out in “God impact” in order to stop or at least slow the rampant moral decline and secular idolatry in America’s “culture war”! Too many of us have deserted the high resolve of our Declaration and the spiritual thinking and intent of the Founders!
Remember their words, “When in the Course of human events…dissolve the political bands …which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them”![2] Too many of our leaders have forgotten Nature’s God! They have turned to the limited laws of nature as well as their own crippled, flawed and self-obsessed natures for our country’s solutions and progress. We are seeing the USA move from spiritual responsibility of each citizen to a philosophy of secular dependence on a self-appointed group of elites envisioning a non-existent Utopia!
Whenever we vote, our basic hope should be with the prayer that the result will give us leaders who will live and practice “vertical politics”! Our first great leader, general, and president, was truly a” vertical politician”! His prayer for our country in the 18th century (1783)—answered by God—is urgently needed again in the 20th (2020)! We must restore what we have lost and regain that “vertical power” that made America the freest, most prosperous, most disciplined and most generous nation in history! May the Creator answer us again! I’m praying my vote will take us in that direction. We vote not for a man, but for a governing policy that is built on “vertical principles”! Let us look again at the heart of the man who was indeed our leading Founder!
George Washington’s Prayer for the United States[3]
“Almighty God; We make our earnest prayer that Thou wilt keep the United States in Thy holy protection; that Thou wilt incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government; and entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another and for their fellow citizens of the United States at large.
And finally that Thou wilt most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without a humble imitation of whose example in these things we can never hope to be a happy nation. Grant our supplication, we beseech Thee, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
I know all “vertical disciples” will be blessed regardless of this election’s outcome.
[1] Quoted from the National Archives webpage at https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript#:~:text=The%20unanimous%20Declaration%20of%20the,the%20Laws%20of%20Nature%20and, accessed 10-20-20.
[2] Ibid.
[3] “At the close of the Revolutionary War in 1783, George Washington wrote to the thirteen governors to disband the army and send his troops home. He included a prayer that God would “dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy” and love one another. This foundational prayer by our nation’s first leader for his soldiers and his people is worth remembering as we honor their costly sacrifices for the independence of our country.” From http://www.selfgovernment.us/news/george-washingtons-earnest-prayer-for-america-at-the-close-of-the-revolution, accessed 9-29-20.
