Beating the Odds
Theme of the Week: Go Ahead, Push Your Values
Monday, January 19, 2009
 1 of 1
Key Bible Verse: Don't be intimidated by your enemies. … We are in this fight together (Philippians 1:28, 30). Bonus Reading: Proverbs 13:11; 1 Timothy 6:10
In 1999 the voters of Ala-bama unexpectedly and resoundingly defeated a referendum that would have created a state lottery. Lotteries have grown enormously popular in our era, when selfish voters demand more services from government but insist on lower taxes, and politicians, more worried about reelection than either morality or common sense, scramble to please them. Lotteries, like taxes, enable states to raise revenue—but in a most regressive manner. The poor spend a significantly higher proportion of their income on lottery tickets than the rich. But the expected return to the bettor is much lower than in the illegal numbers games that lotto-happy politicians pretend to abhor but secretly envy. In short, there are many excellent reasons to oppose lotteries.
But, in the view of critics, the voters of Alabama chose a bad reason: religious conviction. Although preachers thundered against the lottery from the pulpit, Lotto backers did not take this opposition seriously, certain that enough voters had been seduced that anti-lottery sentiment would never prevail. Polls, after all, showed the public voting for the lottery by a margin of 60 to 40. [continued 1/20]
—Stephen Carter in God's Name in Vain
My Response: By Carter's definition, would I be counted a selfish voter?
Adapted from God's Name in Vain Basic Books, 2000) by permission.
Copyright © 2009 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
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