Upfront October 29, 2012 Issue

A different tack

Jeff Ward-Bailey, Staff Editor

As the United States presidential election gets nearer, lots has been written about the relationship between politics and religion. In a way, this issue of the Sentinel deals with that very subject—but it takes a much different tack than other explorations of religion and politics. You won’t find any policy prescriptions here, nor will our authors argue that one candidate or party is more “Godly” than another. Instead, this issue is devoted to exploring how prayer reveals a spiritual basis for honesty in government, integrity in candidates, and civility in elections and discourse.

Mark Sappenfield writes on page 4 about how we can see more of God’s all-embracing government: “Divine government acknowledges only the power and action of God and His goodness, precluding us from bringing with us any precooked, personal notions about what justice and power are.” In another article, Jack Lindsey, a former US Congressional candidate, adds that because of God’s care for His creation, neither candidates nor voters “can be separated from right reasoning and sound judgment, even if things don’t always turn out according to one’s own expectation” (p. 6).

Other articles in this issue include Nate Frederick’s “Love casts out demons”—a reminder to us that we can observe the Halloween holiday by erasing “demons” like fear, jealousy, or stress from our thinking. You’ll also enjoy reading “Frisbee and a ‘holy day,’ ” by college student Emily Clarke.

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