The Election

We're all glad it's over.

That's pretty safe.

No one should be offended by that.

Stop reading if you offend easily.















OK.








I was ten years old when I last felt this optimistic about the world. John F. Kennedy was president and he made me feel that war could end, hunger could end, hatred could end. He led us to believe that if we wanted to we could walk on the moon before the end of the decade. We did, though he never saw it happen. I wonder what would have been possible had he chose war, hunger or hate instead of the moon as a target.

I live in a culture that screams at me that there can never be peace in the middle east. I am drowning in dogma that tells me that the Second Coming of Christ is near and these are the "end" of the last days ergo the turmoil in the middle east (and please read "turmoil" as "children dying from adults playing war") cannot end but "must" escalate until the "end of days".

But there is a fundamental problem with this concept. No one knows the hour when the Savior will come.

We hope that it is soon. Sometimes we hope so violently that people get hurt in the process. This hope has gone on for centuries.


Some notable rapture predictions include the following:
1792 - Shakers calculated this date.[citation needed]
1844 - William Miller predicted Christ would return between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844, then revised his prediction, claiming to have miscalculated Scripture, to October 22, 1844. Miller's theology gave rise to the Advent movement.
1977 - William M. Branham prophesied that the Rapture would take place in 1977.[21]
1981 - Chuck Smith undogmatically predicted that Jesus would likely return by 1981.[citation needed]
1988 - Publication of 88 Reasons why the Rapture is in 1988, by Edgar C. Whisenant.
1989 - Publication of The final shout: Rapture report 1989, by Edgar Whisenant. More predictions by this author appeared for 1992, 1995, and other years.

Posters placed in public locations around the New England area in 19921992 - Korean group "Mission for the Coming Days" predicted October 28, 1992 as the date for the rapture.[22]
1993 - Seven years before the year 2000. The rapture would have to start to allow for seven years of the Tribulation before the Return in 2000. Multiple predictions.
1994 - Pastor John Hinkle of Christ Church in Los Angeles predicted June 9, 1994. Radio evangelist Harold Camping predicted September 27, 1994.[23]
2011 - Harold Camping's revised prediction has May 21, 2011 as the date of the rapture.[24]
2060 - Sir Isaac Newton undogmatically proposed, based upon his calculations using figures from the book of Daniel, that the rapture could happen no earlier than 2060.[25

So what if the "rapture" doesn't come for another 600 years? Would it be OK if we lived in peace for a while until then? I mean to say, what if we devote our energies to providing food for the starving masses, harmony for the conflicted and happiness for the oppressed instead of gnashing our teeth about road side bombs?

So...let's take the next 100 years and learn to get along. Have peace for 400 years. Then let the whole thing collapse into Gog and Magog. My posterity can deal with it. Sorry kids.

How do we start? Taking the Gospel to the world would be a good start. We can do that right now in our own neighborhood. It must not end with the missionaries though, but rather with the temple. Our job is not to just introduce our friends to the Gospel but rather to the Temple.

It will take more than an ecclesiastical effort however. It will also take a political effort.

The United States of America is protected by a balance of power between the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches. Though we vote for the President who promises us to provide more services with lower taxes that is really not the president's job. The president is the Commander in Chief. He is the face of America to the world.

Congress passes the laws to operate our country within it's borders. The Supreme Court protects us from usury actions. The President is the one who protects us from the world. He is the one who can broker peace in the middle east.

Today the world looks at the USA as a bully who is willing to depose a world leader on the weakest of evidence. Not only depose but facilitate his execution. A bad man certainly but no worse than others around the world who don't happen to sit on a giant oil reserve.

We are hated. Yesterday we elected a president with no track record but also a president who is not connected to those past actions. The world is watching to see if we are serious about change. If we are, perhaps change is what we will achieve.

Will President Obama, with his disconnection to the current regime; his ethnicity; have a better chance of building relationships of trust in an untrusting world that John McCain. I hope so. He's the one in the Oval Office.