20 days down and 20 to go until election “day.” That being said, folks have been mailing in or dropping off absentee ballots for at least a week or so now and early, in-person voting in Georgia began yesterday. Fulton county saw the second highest number of early voters on a single day in the history of early voting – trailing only the final day of early voting in 2016. I have friends who shared on social media wait times of anywhere from less than 20 minutes to over five hours. Shannon and I are planning to vote later in the week. We’re hopeful that the lines will normalize as people realize that they have a couple of weeks to get it done!
I watched a bit of the Senate confirmation hearing for Judge Amy Coney Barrett. My favorite moment of the day was when she was asked to hold up the “notes” that were in front of her. She held up a blank United States Senate notepad. It drew chuckles from some of the limited number of people in the room. She clearly has an impressive command of the law and of her previous decisions. Despite the contentiousness of her nomination (based on the timing and other factors) there seems to be consensus from a reasonably broad political spectrum that she is imminently qualified. Her personal faith has been among the central issues either implicit or explicit is some of the lines of questions (or speeches!).
A sneak peak of some of the topics coming up over the next few weeks:
Deify – Demonize
Dual Citizenship
God’s Economy
Thank you so much to all of you who are following along and for your words of support and encouragement.
For this evening, I invite you to consider the following from the 13th chapter of Paul’s letter to the church in Rome:
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists authority resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval; for it is God’s servant for your good. But if you do what is wrong, you should be afraid, for the authority does not bear the sword in vain! It is the servant of God to execute wrath on the wrongdoer. Therefore one must be subject, not only because of wrath but also because of conscience. For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, busy with this very thing. Pay to all what is due them—taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due.