I love the season right before presidential elections. I start to get some of the funniest/saddest forwards in my email inbox. The most recent I saw was a comparison shot of McCain and Obama in their “younger years.” McCain is sitting by a fighter jet, looking very patriotic, while Obama is dressed in what looks to be a traditional African man’s dress, with a head wrap that screams “I am a muslim.”
Here’s the thing. You could find pictures of me in my “younger years” with all of the following:
- a mohawk
- an afro
- wearing a tacky suit I bought for $1.50
- wearing a traditional Saudi Arabian headwrap in front of a Saudi flag
- holding the flag of Turkmenistan, Sweden, or Korea
- standing outside a Mosque in Turkey
- standing outside of St. Peter’s basilica in Rome (might have even caught a shot of me kneeling and praying there or at the mosque)
My point being that according to pictures from my past, I am a punk, a hippie, a televangelist, a friend of terrorists, not loyal to my country, a Muslim, and a Roman Catholic. Ripping pictures from their context is helpful for crafting a story according to your agenda, but it is hardly helpful at all in discovering the truth.
I’m not making an endorsement either way in this election, primarily because I think it will not help the cause of Christ on campus to pick a side. Jesus died for Democrats, Republicans, Communists, Socialists, Libertarians and Nazis(among others). But I am calling for all folks, no matter which side of the aisle we lean toward, to argue the issues, not the pictures.