Governor Jindal’s Evangelical Bonafides
Most of my fellow followers of Christ seem to be ready to support Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas. There are many good reasons to like and admire Governor Huckabee. He is an honest leader who lives his faith in a profound manner. Even some of his tax policies, criticized by some conservatives, seem to be the product of a good heart trying to improve the lot of his people. Huckabee is staunchly socially conservative. He has a pleasant fun personality. His musical talent opens doors for him to relate to others who might be put off by his positions. Even his exercise and weight loss program, where he lost 100 pounds, shows determination and endurance to achieve goals.
I believe that Governor Jindal can be many of those things that evangelicals admire about Huckabee. He has a personal testimony of salvation. Esquire Magazine reports that Jindal was saved as a teen due to the witness of a high school date. He hid his conversion to Christianity from his parents, according to Mike Sager, by studying the Bible in his closet. Jindal is a Roman Catholic who speaks of his faith in terms acceptable to most believers. This quote is telling in an interview with Cal Thomas in World on January 13, 2009:
“I read Rick Warren’s book The Purpose Driven® Life
right after I lost my first election in 2003, and one of the main lessons I got out of that was keeping the eternal perspective. If we truly believe what we read in the Bible and hear in our churches there are a lot of things we worry about in life that aren’t that important from an eternal perspective.”
…”Second, viewing the sanctity of life, I believe the reason people are valuable is that they are created in the image of God and there’s a dignity there. And that leads me to believe people should have access to health care, not because of policy reasons, but because they’re valuable because we are created by God in His image.”
Jindal also brings other strengths to the political table that should make him attractive to Christians. He favors fairness in science teaching to allow non-religious teaching of intelligent design in schools. Jindal also is pro-life and against federal funding of embryonic stem cell research. He also has standard conservative positions on issues near and dear to believers.
Furthermore, Jindal’s immigrant roots and tremendous accomplishments should encourage others to achieve their dreams. Whether Gov. Jindal ever serves in the White House or not, he will put a new face on conservative politics. Evangelicals should support him in his efforts to reform Louisiana and pray for Governor Jindal regularly.
June 12th, 2009 at 11:44 am
If Jindal would change Louisiana for the better, He would be a better choice for President. I am really disappointed in his performance so far. I voted for him thinking there would be a big change in our state, but it turned out to be the same old thing.
June 12th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
I respectfully disagree with you when I read that ethics reforms are moving Louisiana to the top of the class, that there is more business friendly environment causing Fortune 500 companies (one Albemarle Company came from Richmond to Baton Rouge) to move to Louisiana and also tax reform. Hurricane Gustav appears to have been a success for the new way of disaster preparedness.
However, I do not live in Louisiana so I respect the views of one who does and who cares enough to read and comment on this blog.
Please, tell me what issues you think is just more of the same. It is admittedly harder to implement even revolutionary change on a day to day basis.