Prologue
At Least I Tried
If decent people do not like
the way politicians behave,
they should either get into politics
or refrain from complaining
about anything politicians do.
- Teddy Roosevelt
July 4, 1976 was the 200th anniversary of America's Declaration of Independence. It was a perfect year to run for Congress. September 14, two months and ten days later, was of no historic significance, except to a few dozen candidates hoping to snare a nomination in Colorado's primary elections. I was among them.
I was hoping to become a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. But first I would have to secure the Republican nomination in Colorado's second congressional district1 by defeating Ed Scott, the odds-on favorite.
I busied myself in the office, endured a bit of nervousness, and berated the rainy afternoon, complete with hailstorm, which was sure to cut voter turnout.
Several dozen friends accepted out invitation to share the evening with us, to snack, talk, and above all watch the returns on television. Deep down, I suspect, they somehow knew that they would be needed to play the role of
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comforters, even though our gathering was officially billed as a victory party.
As the ringing phones became more insistent, the moment of truth closed in. Was I ready to make a statement, the Denver Post wanted to know? No, not yet. Denver's NBC-TV anchor was on the line wondering why not. Why not? Well, the absentee ballots hadn't even been counted. Maybe they would counter the early evening's trend and turn the race around.
• • • •
I'm surprised I didn't hear it all the time: "What's a nice pastor like you doing in a place like politics?" To many folks, politics is just one thing: dirty. What self-respecting Christian would let himself get involved in politics -- much less a pastor?
For one, I would. My chief allegiance in life, settled decades before and frequently reaffirmed, is to Jesus Christ. Two millennia ago, had he not made it clear that his method would be to send his followers into the world, as his Father had sent him? God deliberately, and with infinite forethought, sent his Son from the ultimate cleanliness of heaven into a dirty, polluted, and decadent world. Jesus' birth in a stable -- not the beautiful, antiseptic scene pictured on our Christmas cards, but a smelly dirty barn with manure on the floor -- symbolized that.
It seemed to me consistent that God would put his people in the so-called dirty world of politics. Like Jesus, they would enter that world on assignment, to bring truth, justice, righteousness, and even redemption.
And hadn't Jesus himself called Christians "the salt of the earth"?2 He was not simply suggesting that his followers should flavor society. In the pre-refrigeration days of the first century, salt was used as a preservative. To protect a catch of fish or a fresh kill from spoilage, one should salt it well.
But if Christian "salt" is to fulfill its function, it must be shaken out of the "saltshaker" of the church. To preserve
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society from moral and spiritual corruption, that salt must be shaken into every aspect of the culture. Especially important are the decision-making structures at all levels -- local, county, state, and national. Churches which withdraw from the world or monopolize their people's loyalties and thus deprive them of optional time to serve in the world unwittingly foil their Lord's purpose for the church.
Christian laymen are desperately needed in politics. So are Christian women. That's the message of this book. But pastors? Don't they have a lifetime call to the ministry? How dare they turn their backs on God's calling. And yet there I was, campaigning for political office.
In my case, the "what's a nice pastor like you doing in politics?" question seemed especially severe. As far back as the fourth grade, I went on record as headed for the ministry. On the first day of class, when all the kids revealed their life's ambitions, the boys favored such glamorous futures as baseball players, firemen, or cowboys. Not me. Years later, my fourth grade teacher questioned my dad about whether young Bobby had gone into the ministry. Never, before or since, had she heard an eight year old predict with such certainty that he could someday be a minister.
In high school I even took four years of Latin, believing that such a foundation would make Greek come easier in college. It did. That in turn made it possible to take Hebrew my first year in seminary. All along, I knew exactly where I was headed.
That's why resigning the pastorate of my suburban Denver church in early 1975 -- to run for Congress, of all things -- might well have been challenged by somebody with the guts to do it. But nobody did.
My road to the campaign trail began in 1973. A lobbyist friend introduced me to the president of our state Senate, who in turn invited me to serve as Senate chaplain for a week in March and then another in May. One day when a couple of senators and I were playing golf, I suggested a Bible study
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among the legislators. It would be totally off-the-record, and if no one else were available to lead it, they were looking at a volunteer.
Early that December, Sen. Hugh Fowler invited me to lunch. Unknown to me, he was chairman of the Senate committee which hired the staff. His committee, he said, hoped that I would be willing to become the regular Senate chaplain for 1974. For years they had operated with a visiting-fireman approach, with dozens of ministers, priests, or rabbis visiting the Senate for a day or two or as much as a week. How much better it would be if their chaplain could be there every day, developing friendships and helping meet the needs of the senators and their staffs!
"I would love to," I replied, "provided that I wouldn't be limited to the formal duty of opening the sessions with prayer, as important as that would be."
"That's exactly why we're asking you," he shot back. "When we were playing golf, I became aware how really interested you were in us senators." When Hugh finally introduced me to the staff, he told them, "He's your pastor, whenever you need him." My tenure as chaplain would continue though the 1975 session. Those were great, thoroughly enjoyable days.
There's a political maxim that goes, "If you like baloney and love the law, you should never go see either one made." I found it unreliable. Day by day I watched the law being made, from a seat on the leather bench surrounding the beautiful, almost elegant Senate chamber, with its clear-windowed view to the Rocky Mountains just a few miles west. I was impressed, fascinated. How in this world could law-making be done better than by representative government?
I realized I could fit into this kind of scene -- and wanted to. But because my interests were in national rather than state issues, Congress, not the legislature, would be my goal.
I took the leap in January 1975, resigning my five-year pastorate to run for Congress. The last week in February I
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flew to Washington to reconnoiter. Frankly, I did not even realize I should have gone to the Republican national Committee to inform them of my interest in running. However, one contact led to another, and I secured appointments with Congressman John Conlan of Arizona, Clarence Brown of Ohio, Guy VanderJagt of Michigan, John Buchanan of Alabama, and others.3 But the most memorable meeting took place with Sen. Mark Hatfield of Oregon.
His personal secretary emerged from the inner office with an apology and the senator's datebook. What a shame. An emergency required him to return to Oregon that night, and the remaining three days of work and appointments had to be compressed into Wednesday. He really wanted to see me, but it might be impossible.
Maybe, however, if I went to the meeting of the Senate Rules Committee, we would at least bump into each other for a minute. It was twenty-five minutes before I could shoehorn myself into the hearing room. The closest Senate election in history had been dumped into the Senate's lap by the state of New Hampshire, whose Governor's Ballot Committee was unwilling or unable to declare a winner. Republican Louis Wyman originally appeared to win by 355 votes, but the Secretary of State's recount produced a reversal, with Democrat John Durkin ahead by ten votes. Taking another look, New Hampshire officials said that Wyman had won after all, by a total of two ballots.
The Constitution had a provision for this kind of situation. The Senate, the final judge of qualifications of its members, would have to decide.
Shortly after I found a seat in the committee room, the committee moved to send its chairman, Sen. Howard Cannon, and its ranking minority member, Senator Hatfield, to the basement vault where approximately thirty-five hundred disputed paper ballots were stored, to bring them into the light of committee scrutiny.
As the television lights snapped off, Mark Hatfield
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moved from the dais, spotted me, and invited me along for the ride.
Crowding the elevator were the two senators, attorneys for both claimants of the seat, about eight or ten capitol police, and I. After successive vault doors were opened, several unremarkable, used cardboard cartons containing the disputed ballots were loaded onto a rolling cart for the trip upward. I glanced at the ballots as they were spread out on the committee's table. It seemed incredible that so many people could not follow simple directions: to vote with an X, not a check or other symbol; to make sure that the arms of the X crossed within the circle, and nowhere else. Their carelessness or orneriness had muddied up the outcome of an election to the United States Senate.
Senator Hatfield interrupted my reverie. Could we go into a quiet anteroom for a few minutes, so that we could at least talk briefly? Knowing that I wanted to discuss the feasibility of running and to pick up some pointers, Mark nevertheless had some things he wanted to mention first.
"You're going to be in an entirely new arena, unlike the church," he said. "Because some people think clergymen have their feet planted firmly in the air and aren't real human beings, your advisers will want to establish your image. 'Bob,' one may say, 'we know you wouldn't tell any really raunchy jokes to this men's group today, but how about a couple of slightly off-color stories to let 'em know you're one of the boys?' "
For a moment, this senator who takes his Christian commitment seriously turned the tables on me. He was the pastor and I his parishioner. Drawing himself to attention and pointing his finger, Mark spoke forcefully: "Never do that. Never forget who you are as a man of God. It's not worth losing your character to win an election." He then gave me his formula for life's priorities. My first loyalty must always be to the Lord; my second to my family; and only my third to my constituents.
Who wouldn't be pumped up after a week of such
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meetings? The members of Congress seemed to say I would be an attractive candidate, that I could win, and that they were eager to have me as a colleague in the House of Representatives. I believed them. And I flew back to Colorado elated, convinced I should run.
How does one get started running for Congress? Obviously, I needed to learn how the political process worked. I needed to meet my party's top leaders and cultivate party contacts. I had to develop a broad set of political convictions. And without question I needed to become widely known in my congressional district.
But first I had to settle a preliminary question. Can anybody get elected to Congress without first holding a lower office? A search through that year's Almanac of American Politics showed that about one-third of the members of the House were holding their initial political office. No barrier there.
You can't go far without a campaign manager. Late in '75 we found him, thanks to a mutual friend in the state Senate. Jim Files was a professor at Denver University, but in a position to put a healthy part-time effort into my campaign. He had already successfully managed a Texas congressional campaign for Bob Price. Unfortunately, my name was not as adaptable to a winning slogan as the Texan's "Price is right."
In many states, anybody can get on the ballot by obtaining a petition with a certain number of signatures, but Colorado's nominating system involves a caucus and convention process. Since caucuses meet every other year, I discovered to my chagrin that in my six years of residence I'd passed up all three opportunities to attend a caucus in my precinct.
Several secretly sympathetic party officials brought me up to speed. In my own Jefferson County, they even gave me much-appreciated exposure to party workers by allowing me to train them in special seminars. Over the months, there would be no end of Republican county or state
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central committee meetings and the like.
Several hundred Republican delegates to June's Second Congressional District Assembly would decide who would have a place on the ballot. The majority would be party veterans who managed to get themselves appointed year after year. I spent countless evenings visiting delegates from the prior year's list. I was impressed with the high caliber of many of those people. They were highly motivated and unselfish, committed to better government, not stereotypical political hacks.
By one means or another, I got acquainted with the top leadership. I tackled rumored rivals for the nomination by inviting them to lunch. I spent time developing my political views. With a conservative political philosophy to systematize my positions, I took to research like a duck to water. There were exams along the way. I spent two tough hours with the Paul Revere Committee, an ultra-conservative group which would brook little variation from its hard-line positions. Another night in a candidate forum, one questioner demanded a simple yes or no answer to eight complex questions -- from each of the four candidates. I'll guarantee that he got more than his requested thirty-two one-word responses.
It was a perpetual effort to become known in the community. I had a modest starting point as Senate chaplain and the former pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in suburban Wheat Ridge. Since I was representing the National Association of Evangelicals' relief and development arm, World Relief, on a part-time basis, I spoke in many churches of varied denomination. Of course, I was careful that my message not be political in any way. In that bicentennial year, Rotary, Kiwanis, and Optimist Clubs were more open to a patriotic speech.
Seemingly endless neighborhood coffees were a great way to meet people and enlist support. The press began to seek interviews. Radio spots were simple to make and television commercials were no problem, given that marvelous device called a teleprompter. And parades. I never knew
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there were so many in all the communities in the district.4 We tried not to miss walking in any of them those summer Saturdays, especially when surrounded by our teenage daughter and her friends, wearing our campaign colors and carrying banners. Freshly scrubbed and pretty as could be, they were a great attraction. There was another plus in those parades: the first British double-decker bus imported to Colorado, dedicated to Bob Dugan for Congress, the contribution of a Boulder entrepreneur.
But our basic strategy was to take our campaign to the homes of the people -- by walking. There's no way to calculate the thousands of homes I personally reached as a candidate, most often with my wife walking the opposite side of the street. When folks were not home, we left a brochure with a short handwritten note. The campaign ran through the hottest months of the year, yielding an unexpected bonus -- we walked ourselves into excellent physical shape.
A serious run for Congress is no lark. It takes extraordinary commitment. For me, the price tallied up to twenty months of my life and about $50,000, come of it in unreimbursed travel and meal expenses, but most of it in income forgone. At today's salaries, the bill might have been triple. A check of income tax returns shows an adjusted gross income for our family of $5,108 in 1975 and $8,513 in 1976. Our modest income was generated only by Lynne's part-time retail sales work and my per diem arrangement with World Relief. Lynne and our children paid a good part of the price of my running.
In fact, one's immediate family are the backers any political candidate needs most. Lynne was totally supportive. When it was over, our son, Bob III, observed that the campaign had strengthened us, bringing our family together in a wonderful way. What can you say about a son who would press into his Dad's had a political contribution of $350? As his grandfather says, there are times when you feel like you're swallowing golf balls. And what can you say to a daughter like Cheri, who put off going to college because
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she wanted to help her Dad's campaign?
I was the first to announce, doing so in a press conference at the state capitol on January 5, 1976. That day I learned some useful lessons about the media. One television reporter arrived early and found it entertaining to try to unnerve me. "Why," he demanded, "are you using this large committee room instead of the official press room across the hall?" I explained that we needed the larger room because a hundred of my friends would be coming to witness the announcement. "A press conference is for the press," he bullied, "not for the public. Besides, the lighting's better in that room, and I'm going to have to change my film if you insist we meet in here." As other press arrived, I heard him grumbling, "You'd think he was announcing for President of the United States."
I saw the fruit of his irritation that night on the 10 o'clock news. As the anchorman gave a brief report of my announcement, a picture of me appeared in the upper left corner of the screen. Of thousands of frames of film, Channel 7 chose one where I was moistening my lips. I looked like a freak with three lips. But the race was on.
Caucus attendance the first Monday in May broke records that year. The Ford-Reagan contest for the presidential nomination was in full swing, and the crowded caucuses insured that a handful of insiders could not routinely renominate incumbents. Among other things, the caucuses insured that a handful of insiders could not routinely renominate incumbents. Among other things, the caucuses -- open to party members living within the precinct -- would elect delegates to the congressional district assembly. More than half of the fifty-one who turned out in my precinct favored my candidacy, so I had my first happy taste of political victory.
The rules at the June assembly were simple. To secure a place on the ballot, a candidate must receive at least 20 percent of the delegate votes. The one with the highest percentage would have the ballot's top line for the September 14 primary. Two contestants for the nomination had dropped out before the assembly, leaving just two of us, and the politically experienced Scott took the top
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line with 65 percent. He seemed crestfallen at failing to keep me off the ballot.
The press tried to balance its coverage of the candidates, essentially giving us three days in the sun: our individual announcements, caucus night, and the nominating assembly. For weeks at a time I wondered if they had forgotten the campaign, though we occasionally got a column inch or two on page thirty-seven of the daily papers.
Toward the end, I thought we had a significant advantage. Our campaign ran a series of thirty second TV commercials on "Good Morning America" and the "Today" show. After Labor Day, we aired four newspaper-advertised, five-minute TV spots in the evening. Ed Scott never used television. Apparently he didn't need to.
• • • •
There would be no turnaround that election night. The early trends became a consistent pattern. Admitting within the room what all our friends now realized, I fielded the media calls and made concession statements. If the television crews wanted to catch me later that night, they would find me at Ed Scott's victory party.
It isn't easy to put a smile on your face, walk into your opponent's celebration, and acknowledge that he has defeated you. Our children didn't have much heart for it, but they came anyway. Cheri remembers how the TV cameras wouldn't leave her face while tears etched a path across her cheeks. Ed was the epitome of graciousness, and he positively beamed when I asked for an Ed Scott button and pinned it to my suit. I promised that we would wholeheartedly back him, and asked my workers to do the same.
The next day the unofficial tally showed Scott with 17,029 votes and Dugan with 7,519. While I could euphemistically say that I had come in second while my opponent was next to last, the truth is that in one mid-September day my dream of going to Washington as a member of Congress vaporized.
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Why did I lose the primary? There are several reasons:
• I was hindered by my shortcomings as a candidate. That admission must come first. When Jim Files came on board as campaign manager, one of his first observations was, "We need to teach you how to think politically." How right he was. My opponent once remarked that our campaign color, green, was especially appropriate for me as a candidate.
• I was blind-sided by party regulars. While I apparently was leading for the nomination, party officials were discussing the matter among themselves and seeking another candidate. They settled on Ed Scott, actively recruiting him. It would irritate me to no end to hear Scott again and again tell how he was not seeking this office, but that his "phone began ringing off the hook with people asking me to run." Hyperbole is part of politics, but a number of important party officials did encourage him to enter the race.
• I didn't secure the help of enough Christian friends. One of my big hopes was to bring a host of new players into the political game from the churches. It didn't work out that way. All too often fellow Christians would shake my hand and announce, "Bob, I'm going to do for you the most important thing that one believer can do for another. I'm going to pray for you." Naturally, I wanted their prayers, but I cam to resent their assurances when I learned that they really meant, "Since I'm doing the most momentous thing, don't expect me to do anything else -- not write you a check, not spend volunteer time in your office, not walk the precincts with your literature."
• I was opposed by a better-known candidate. The party went for age and experience when it recruited Ed Scott. He had been a member of the city council and mayor of Englewood, Colorado; had served as an Arapahoe County Commissioner; and had been elected to the state senate. Above all, he had been the familiar "Sheriff Scotty" from a popular Denver children's television show, extremely well known to long-time Colorado residents.
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• I was unable to build an adequate organization. This is the most important factor of all. I was delayed for weeks in filing with the Federal Election Commission. For want of a campaign treasurer, I could not officially file. For want of filing, we could not begin to raise funds. One by one, three Christian friends, each a certified public accountant, took weeks to tell me he couldn't serve. Finally another friend, a non-CPA, accepted the job. Just retired, he and his wife even canceled the second month of a winter vacation in Arizona, unwilling to miss that much of the campaign. What I wouldn't have given for a few dozen more friends like that.
Losing is never fun. But do I regret the time, money, and emotional energy that went into the campaign? Not on your life. Among the millions of Americans who perpetually berate their government, few can say, "At least I tried." I can.
We Americans do not adequately appreciate the political process in our nation. During the campaign, I often recounted a nightmarish 1938 incident from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago, by way of contrast:
A district party conference was under way in Moscow Province. It was presided over by a new secretary of the District Party Committee, replacing one recently arrested. At the conclusion of the conference, a tribute to Comrade Stalin was called for. Of course, everyone stoop up (just as everyone had leaped to his feet during the conference with every mention of his name). The hall echoed with "stormy applause, rising to an ovation." For three minutes, four minutes, five minutes, the "stormy applause, rising to an ovation," continued. But palms were getting sore and raised arms were already aching. And the older people were panting from exhaustion. It was becoming insufferably silly even to those who adored Stalin. However, who would dare to be the first to stop? The secretary of the District Party could have done it. He was standing on the platform, and it was he who had just called for
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the ovation. But he was a newcomer. He had taken the place of a man who'd been arrested. He was afraid! After all, NKVD men were standing in the hall applauding and watching to see who would quit first! And in that obscure, small hall, unknown to the leader, the applause went on -- six, seven, eight minutes! They were done for! Their goose was cooked! They couldn't stop now till they collapsed with heart attacks! At the rear of the hall, which was crowded, they could of course cheat a bit, clap less frequently, less vigorously, not so eagerly -- but up there with the presidium where everyone could see them?
The director of the local paper factory, an independent and strong-minded man, stood with the presidium. Aware of all the falsity and all the impossibility of the situation, he still kept on applauding! Nine minutes! Ten! In anguish he watched the secretary of the District Party Committee, but the latter dared not stop. Insanity! To the last man! With make-believe enthusiasm on their faces, looking at each other with faint hope, the district leaders were just going to go on and on applauding till they fell where they stood, till they were carried out of the hall on stretchers! And even then those who were left would no falter . . . Then, after eleven minutes, the director of the paper factory assumed a businesslike expression and sat down in his seat. And, oh, a miracle took place! Where had the universal, uninhibited, indescribable enthusiasm gone? To a man, everyone else stopped dead and sat down. They had been saved! The squirrel had been smart enough to jump off his revolving wheel.
That, however, was how they discovered who the independent people were. And that was how they went about eliminating them. That same night the factory director was arrested. They easily pasted ten years on him on the pretext of something quite different. But after he had signed Form 206, the final document of the interrogation, his interrogator
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reminded him: "Don't ever be the first to stop applauding!"5
Incredible. Why, we Americans could sit in the front row under the unflinching gaze of Secret Service agents while our president addressed us, keeping silent and refusing to applaud, arms folded sternly across our chests. We could wrote letters critical of the president to the editor of a national news magazine and have them published with our names and home towns identified, yet fear no reprisal. We are free even to organize opposition to a sitting president, actively working to replace him with someone more to our liking.
The more I experience total political freedom as a citizen of the United States, the more I agree with Winston Churchill's incisive comment; "Democracy is the worst form of government -- except for all the others that have been tried."
It's true I failed in my bid for a congressional seat, but God turned my political failure into success. To our great surprise, a little over two years later my wife and I would move to the nation's capital. While I would not have a congressional office on Capitol Hill, I would move into an office just three blocks from the White House -- assigned to raise the profile and increase the effectiveness of the Office of Public Affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals.6
In my early weeks in Washington, two Congressmen in separate conversations told me I would have more influence on the nation through NAE than if I had won a seat in the House. I thought they were trying to console me by saying something kind, but today i agree with their judgment.
The NAE was not well known outside religious circles in the '60s and '70s. Judging by the media, you might have thought the fabric of America's religious life was woven of just three strands: Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant. More often than not, the National Council of Churches was assumed to be the sole voice of protestantism.
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Evangelicals were frustrated at being misrepresented, or not represented at all.
Today there's a world of difference. The White House, Congress, and even the Supreme Court realize there are four major strands in our religious fabric: Catholic, Jewish, ecumenical Protestant, and evangelical Protestant.7 Government and the media know that NAE is the institutional gathering place for evangelicals from fifty thousand churches in over seventy denominations, and that NAE has become the major alternative to the National Council of Churches in American church life.
Over the years, God has helped us put together a competent team of professionals in Washington.8 Together we function much like the office of a senator, although our constituency is spread over all fifty states. If senators respond to the needs of their people, so do we. If senators report to the people of their state, so do we. If senators represent their people's interest before the federal government, so do we.
Working with NAE over the past decade has convinced me more than ever of the crucial role evangelicals must play in politics. To show how strongly I feel about that, let me relate the gist of a chapel message I preached in three different Christian colleges.
Speaking about how Christians can know the will of God for their lives, I laid heavy emphasis on human responsibility. Too many Christians sit back and wait for an undefined, mystical "call" from God. Receiving to unmistakable "call," they feel free to follow their own trail to wealth or success. I suggested that students ought to make up their minds once and for all that their life's work would meet at least one of three criteria.9
• It should be a serving vocation. That word characterized Jesus, who "did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life . . ."10 Match that up with Peter's reminder that "Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps," and you have something resembling a mandate.11
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• It should be an influential vocation. How perverse to twist the Bible into insisting that followers of Jesus should aspire only to humble positions in life. God equips some for leadership, and failure to develop his gifts would be tantamount to rejecting his provision. Jesus tells us not to put our light under a bushel basket, but rather to "let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven."12
• It should be a Christian vocation. It ought to go without saying that only Christians should fill such callings, but it must be said. False teachers in the church are judged harshly.
If it would be admirable to choose a vocation that meets one of these criteria, how much better a job that meets two? And yet how much better three than two? Any student there could have named a vocation meeting all three standards: the ministry.
But I wasn't finished. Could they think of another, very different vocation that met all three criteria?
I doubt the students were prepared for my proposal. Nobody ever had suggested from their chapel pulpit that one of life's worthiest callings is to be a public official. a political office-holder. Yet such a vocation fulfills the three biblical criteria. Serving? Yes, if the politician's heart is right. Influential? Indisputably. But Christian? Listen to this:
Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear
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the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience.
This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.13
Three times in these paragraphs, political officials are called "God's servants." In the King James version of 1611, they are referred to as "God's ministers." No wonder theologian John Calvin called politics one of the noblest callings of God.
You may not think of yourself as a potential office holder, but politics is far more than running for office. Frankly, ninety-nine out of one hundred people who read this book probably will never seriously consider running for office. Nor should they. But Christians can play any number of critical roles in the momentous world of politics -- such as putting someone else into office.
Having said that, I must admit that this book is also written for the one in one hundred who definitely should seek political office. Someday, I hope to hear from a member of Congress, a governor, the speaker of a state legislature, or a school board member for whom this book was the starter.
So, I've given myself away. This book has one major goal: to show how you can take an active, God-honoring role in politics.
Is God calling you? It wouldn't surprise me at all.
Table of Contents || Chapter 1
Notes
1. At that time, the second congressional district was comprised of suburban Jefferson and Boulder Counties, along the front range just west of Denver, with a small section of west central Denver itself. [BACK]
2. This simple prediction, assignment, or statement of Jesus is found in the first chapter of his Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:13. [BACK]
3. Guy had just been appointed chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, a position he still holds. John Buchanan was an ordained Baptist minister serving in Congress. It is ironic that in recent years he has headed Norman Lear's People for the American Way -- and been on the opposite side of the culture war. [BACK]
4. Readers will understand how much I learned in politics, when I give this sage counsel: Never, as a candidate, allow yourself to be placed in a parade behind a unit of horses. [BACK]
5. Aleksandr Sozhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago (New York: harper & Row, 1973), 69f. [BACK]
6. The NAE was born in St. Louis in April 1942, before the days of easy air travel and in the early months of World War II. A group of 150 evangelical leaders gathered with a deep concern to protect their right to buy radio time for religious broadcasting. With a positive example of trans-denominational cooperation in the New England Fellowship as their model, they developed a seven-point Statement of Faith as the basis of their national fellowship. It has not been changed since ratification.
These founding fathers had the foresight to open a Washington office in September, 1943. For its first thirty-five years, NAE's public affairs presence in the nation's capital consisted of a small staff of two or three. The strong leadership and untiring efforts of the office's first director, Clyde W. Taylor, were marked by integrity. Thankfully, long before my arrival NAE had established a good name in Washington. Taylor retired in 1973, and associate Floyd Robertson directed the office until my arrival.
In 1967, Dr. Billy A. Melvin came from Nashville, where he was a Free Will Baptist denominational official, to become NAE's executive director. He is an outstanding administrator and one of the leading authorities on denominational church life in the country. He guides the NAE from its headquarters, The Evangelical Center, in Wheaton, Illinois. [BACK]
7. Not to mention many other religions which fit none of the four categories, but are part of the pluralistic fabric of our society. [BACK]
8. Two colleagues have been with us for over a decade -- policy analyst Richard Cizik and counsel Forest Montgomery. Richard has achieved a political science degree, a master's in governmental affairs,
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and full theological training; he also has run for the state legislature in Washington. Forest served twenty-five years in the federal government following graduation from the Georgetown University Law School. For ten years he was chief of the legal opinion section of the Treasury Department, and for his final five years he was counselor to the general secretary at Treasury. He is a member of the bar of the Supreme Court.
Brian O'Connell has been with NAE since 1984, coordinating NAE's highly praised Peace, Freedom, and Security program. Lawyer Curran Tiffany's career was in the Bell System, where for a dozen years he served in its office of governmental affairs. Special representative Timothy Crater served as pastor of churches in Georgia for sixteen years, and then as administrative assistant to a member of Congress. [BACK]
9. It was sociologist David O. Moberg's book Inasmuch: Christian Social Responsibility, which first suggested these standards to me. [BACK]
Table of Contents || Chapter 1
