What Role Do God and Jesus Play in Political Movements?

Last updated on: October 20, 2024 at 7:06 am by Mark Williams

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What Role Do God and Jesus Play in Political Movements? 2024-10-20T07:06:10-07:00 Mark Williams

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Does The White House have or should have-God? /Mark Williams

Are Polls Drowning Out God’s Voice in a Noisy World?

Growing up, there was one poll. It was the Gallup poll, remember that one? It was everywhere. Everyone quoted the Gallup Poll. It was the gold standard of, well, polls. Even the networks quoted them. There were only three networks back then. I am not counting the one UHF channel 13 in Phoenix or channel 8, a local public channel. Three networks, that was it. I had six channels to choose from on my TV. The question that comes up today is-is God in control? I mean, we have a dumpster fire every day on TV and ya just can’t help but wonder, Dad, uhm, do you have this?

Then, the three networks got involved-CBS, NBC, and ABC. Okay, that was fine. They started running their own polls.

…every person who lives in their great aunt’s basement…

But today, every person who lives in their great aunt’s basement is a Poller. When you read a poll, do you ask where the audience they sampled was from? Nope. Does anyone check-if they do get the polled audience, check and see if they, the sample group, actually existed? Nope. They didn’t have polls back in Jesus’ day. They had a census Luke 2:1. But that was so the ruler at the time could figure out how much money they could squeeze out of their people. Every day, all day, polls from places no one has heard of report something.

So, I will too.

I predict…

I predict we will have a repeat of prior presidential outcomes, only worse or better, depending on your point of view. The one where polls were so far off there was thought by campaign staff to have been tampering, until reports were starting to come in people were lying to the pollers. I don’t think anyone lied to Gallup. Those were the days when women wore dresses with cap sleeves to the supermarket and men wore suits, white short-sleeve shirts and black ties with a fedora hat Photos of business men in the sixties . They even wore that to baseball games. Style and character. No one would lie to Gallup-would they? Or even Neilson-the guy who did (maybe he still does) the Neilson TV ratings.

Now, I am sure, there are people in their pajamas, renting their great aunt Yolanda’s basement, with a computer that could fly the space shuttle, three screens, no lights except for the one on a pull string over the stairwell, and a half-drunk liter of soda on their table, making stuff up.

…people are so tired…

I believe people are so tired of polls, news reports with conflicting findings, and let’s not forget the new power of AI, they are giving up listening. But we also have the bleed over of giving up listening to the only voice that counts, Jesus. The noise of the world gets so intense, so loud, our heads pound with it all.

Here’s the thing about my God, who is probably yours as well. Sometimes, just like now, in this season we are in, He can be really quiet. We can pray and pray and seemingly not hear a word back in response, a thought, nothing coming from Him. Jesus taught in parables. There was an answer to the question that generated His story, but he wanted us to figure it out. He would tell a story, then let it just hang in the air sometimes. The disciples would have to figure out what he said, what he meant, and what the message was. (Matthew 13 NIV

And I think He would smile. They got it.