I live in New Hampshire, where we’re known for three things: beautiful vacation sites, maple syrup and the quadrennial first-in-the-nation presidential primary. If a resident of New Hampshire hasn’t been invited—numerous times—to dinners or cookouts to meet presidential candidates, it means he’s stayed indoors and disabled his telephone.
As a result, we get to know the candidates up close and we discuss our impressions with people at work and at church. The Republican Party has fielded several highly qualified candidates this time, but for me, there’s one that stands out from all the rest, and that’s Ted Cruz.
Among the last words of King David are these: “He who rules over man justly, who rules in the fear of God” (2 Sam. 23:3).
I’m for Cruz, first, is because he is just and fair. He’s a brilliant scholar of the Constitution. Until amended, the Constitution is the law of the land. Without the rule of law, we are at the mercy of the powerful who control others not by our laws but by their whims. The power structures work to keep us down and an out-of-control president far too often bypasses Congress as he pens yet another executive order.
Some have slandered Cruz saying he is hard-hearted toward the poor and the immigrants. What they conveniently refuse to tell us is that the welfare system as it currently exists hurts the poor by keeping them in a vicious cycle of poverty and dependency. A hand-up, not a hand-out, is the compassionate response to poverty.
As a son of an immigrant, Cruz knows first-hand that we are a nation of immigrants. What he demands is immigration that is legal, the letting of people into our country in ways that help both them and our country. Flooding the nation with illegal immigrants is neither just nor fair to us and to them.
Second, I’m for Cruz because he will, as David exhorted, rule in the fear of God. While our country’s Constitution rules out our having an official state-sanctioned denomination, our official documents honor God. Our motto, cited in our National Anthem and found on our money is “In God We Trust.”
While most candidates give lip service to God, Ted Cruz goes out of his way to point people to God. Son of an evangelical pastor, Cruz has regularly asked us to pray for the nation and pray that God’s will be known and obeyed as we make our laws and live our lives. While he knows the importance of the presidency, he tells his audiences that, absent the people and the leaders submitting to God, the presidency can do only so much. Such humility is refreshing.
There is no such thing as a morally neutral position. Even the Supreme Court identified humanism as a religion (the 1961 case of Torcaso v. Watkins). Opposing recent attacks on and legislation against Christian moral teaching, a Cruz presidency will uphold what God says on moral issues.
Finally, I’m for Cruz because he’s polite.
The Bible tells us that of the three things that abide, the greatest is love (1 Cor. 13:13). Lest we confuse biblical love with mere sentiment, Paul tells us what love is: “Love suffers long and is kind; love envies not; love flaunts not itself and is not puffed up, does not behave itself improperly, seeks not its own, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil” (1 Cor. 13:4-5).
While we hear Ted Cruz assert his views and sometimes contrast them with those of other candidates, we never find him to be rude. Compared to one candidate—one, to my amazement, favored by some biblical Christians—we do not hear Ted Cruz call other people “stupid” or “losers.”
Most people outside of Iowa and New Hampshire have not seen the candidates outside of televised debates or packaged television ads. But as a citizen of New Hampshire, I have seen most of them several times in small groups, at house parties or at the local veterans hall. In such settings, I’ve seen the genuine love Ted has for people. He banters with them, he takes to heart their concerns and, even when confronted with a heckler, he never wavers from patience, kindness and care.
America is at a crossroads. It is almost too late to turn our country around. Whom we elect for president this November will make a huge difference for us and our loved ones.
We cannot do better than a strong, brilliant, highly capable man who is also a genuinely decent individual who is just and will rule in the fear of God.
That’s why I’m for Ted Cruz. {eoa}
Mark Pearson pastors Trinity Church in Kingston, New Hampshire, and is chief executive officer of New Creation Healing Center, a Christian facility combining medicine, massage, counseling and prayer ministry, also in Kingston. He is the author of five books and a frequent contributor to Charisma magazine. He can be reached at [email protected].
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