How Would Jesus Vote?

November 12, 2007
In his final book, Kennedy, who died in September of this year, joins his Coral Ridge Ministries colleague Newcombe in proffering this biblical justification of their socially conservative position on issues important to their followers, including abortion, the death penalty, war, education and freedom of religion. Kennedy and Newcombe make provocative claims throughout. Regarding abortion, they cite a study that found that 99% of women who have had abortions now wish abortions were illegal. About allocation of government funds, they argue that money currently spent on school lunch programs would be better spent on national defense against “jihadists.” When discussing health care, they accuse England and the Netherlands, both countries with national health services, of killing babies and the elderly. Such remarks are paired with what Kennedy and Newcombe characterize as a humble search of the Scriptures, and each chapter ends with a summary of how the authors feel Jesus would have American Christians vote. While most of this book is standard conservative Christian fare, Kennedy and Newcombe give it a distinctive Calvinist flavor, focusing particularly on Calvin’s belief that “God has distributed this world’s goods as he has seen fit,” and that not all poor people are deserving of Christian charity.

The late Dr. Kennedy, with frequent collaborator Jerry Newcombe, throws his hat into the ring of political advisors and is his usual nonpartisan self in this abridgment of his book. The listener is urged to arm himself with good Godly counsel and guidance in the voting decision, which Kennedy believes to be a Christian imperative. This abridgement is all meat, and one can only imagine what the full version of the book would hold. John Gauger gives an affected reading. His approach overpowers the text, adding an unwanted layer of bombast to an otherwise comprehensive gloss of the issues that voters, especially Christian voters, should understand. S.M.M. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine