Dear editor,
Tuesday, Nov. 5 is our 2024 general election and in election cycles this one is also popular as the presidential election. On that day I encourage all to be participants in shaping our society. According to the Cultural Research Center of Arizona Christian University, 79% of Americans are considered persons of faith, yet only 51% of those persons plan to vote. This is estimated to be 104 million eligible non-voters.
I offer this thought: Persons of faith are the moral glue of society. Persons of faith believe in objective truths. In a letter to the Massachusetts Militia John Adams stated, “Because We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition, Revenge or Gallantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
Consider our Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”. Persons of Faith will hold to these types of objective truths. The alternative is a mind full of random opinions. Comes time to be before a jury, grand jury, or conduct a redress of grievance before any level of government representative, we need to be of the same mind and thought.
The general election is where we select the representatives matching our thoughts, ideas, and morals. Persons of faith mark your calendar, grab a friend, go and vote.
-John Dickson, Oregon