May I be so bold as to introduce a theological concept into the election campaign? This is A Sign From God. A candidate inviting you to a rally where you may contract a contagious disease after falling over from heatstroke is A Sign From God to vote for the other guy. https://twitter.com/thedailybeast/status/1321928109592088576

A candidate inviting you to a rally where you may contract a contagious disease and then stranding you in freezing weather miles from transportation is A Sign From God to vote for the other guy.

A candidate who tells you a pandemic growing rapidly across the country, every day -- cases, hospitalizations, deaths -- is actually ending is A Sign From God to vote for the other guy. God in His wisdom and somewhat mordant sense of humor is using the candidate for His purpose.

If you see one entire political party trying to make it harder for people to vote and have their votes counted, and another party trying to help people vote and makes sure their votes are counted, this is A Sign From God to support the second party's candidates.

I have seen it argued that various acts of....unrighteousness, let's call them that, are indeed signs from God, because their perpetrator is Queen Esther. Or King Cyrus, or even King David. One of them -- you know, the good people in the Bible, not the ones whose chronic and...

....unrepentant sinfulness repeatedly led Israel, Judah and everyone around them to disgrace and disaster (seriously, read the Old Testament. This happened a lot more often than an Israelite king coveting another man's wife and still ending up square with the Lord).

This argument isn't just incorrect, a misreading of the meaning of Scripture for our time. It's, well, stupid. Adultery, to say nothing of habitual sex predation, is wrong. So is cheating on your taxes (Jesus said "render unto Caesar," not "commit fraud against Caesar").

Also ripping off taxpayers & donors to your campaign. And borrowing money by inflating the value of assets you're using as collateral. Also ordering the abuse of defenseless people. And lying all the time. Neither these, nor any of a somewhat lengthy list of other sins,....

....can be signs from God lighting a true path before us. They are, all of them, Bad Things. We ought to keep them out of our lives; we definitely don't need them in our government and absolutely not in the White House.

God wants His people to choose good, not evil; serious purpose, not frivolous amusement; concern, compassion and general decency, not sneering and contemptuous indifference. Honestly, it shouldn't take all the Signs From God we've gotten just in the last two weeks.

If you're waiting around for A Sign From God more literally Biblical -- say, the angel in white raiment with a countenance like lightning that Matthew describes -- first of all, God is not going to re-up that one for an election campaign. It would be weird.

But secondly, is it too much to ask to use a little imagination? God gave us brains for a reason. We don't have to wear them out to see a candidate actively trying to get his supporters sick and make them suffer as A Sign From God to vote for the other guy. Do we?

Everyone on Twitter must be pretty tired of threads that mention the names of the Presidential candidates over and over. I wanted to do my part to ease their burden. Thank you all for your attention. And for God's sake, vote for the other guy. [end]