Election Day, November 3, 2020

One the the best campaign speeches and promises I've read. And there's only one national candidate who even comes close, and even he falls short. Not in my life time have I known a humble person to run for President.  By Kevin DeYoung*

“What I’d love to hear from a presidential candidate some day:

If you vote for me, I won’t fight for you, I won’t take care of your family, and I won’t get you a job. You can depend on me to be fair and honest, but you should depend on a thousand other people to give your life meaning and joy.

I won’t run the economy or heal the planet. I can’t promise you your problems will go away. In fact, striving for utopia on earth has a really bad track record in history. Politics is about the art of the possible, so I will try to be wise in weighing tradeoffs and listening to the good counsel and insight of others.

Although we can be decent people, all of us can be pretty selfish deep down. That means government works best when it has checks and balances, when no one person or department or institution has too much power. That also means I don’t assume government is the best solution for all our problems. Government can do some really good things, but it can’t fill the void where family and community and church and school and the soccer club are supposed to be.

I’ll work hard to be fiscally responsible and to protect you and your stuff. I will look to Congress to write the laws, not me. I’m committed to being a person of humility and personal discipline, so that when the inevitable crisis comes—the things we don’t know are coming, like war, or recession, or a pandemic—I’ll be ready to lead with courage and common sense.

You should know that I take my faith in Jesus seriously, and it’s because I’m a Christian that I believe in the abiding importance of the First Amendment, not just for Christians but for all Americans.

So vote for me if you want someone who will work hard to serve the country, not to be the center of the country’s attention. I won’t be your parent, your pastor, or your best friend. But I’ll uphold the Constitution, try to set a virtuous example, and pursue liberty and justice for all. So help me God.

And I will abolish Daylight Savings.”

*Kevin DeYoung is an American Reformed Evangelical theologian and author. He is currently the senior pastor at Christ Covenant Church, in Matthews, North Carolina. The church he previously pastored, University Reformed Church, shifted to the Presbyterian Church in America in March 2015 after having been a member of the Reformed Church in America. DeYoung is a member of The Gospel Coalition Council, and he blogs for the ministry.