I always wanted to be on my high school football team. However, I never liked the idea of experiencing pain, of getting hurt. I preferred playing on the tennis team. So four times, I had the chance to go out for the football team, but four times I consciously chose not to. But I was thinking. Wouldn’t it be great if one of my high school classmate who DID serve on the football team just GAVE me his football letter jacket? I always wanted a football letter jacket, but that would be much easier.

Many Brits are wanting a do over of their vote to withdraw from the European Union. But in addition to letting off some nationalistic steam, they are now stuck with their decision. No do overs.

Elizabeth Warren greatly wanted to become head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2011, the agency she designed, but her name was withdrawn because of Republican Senate opposition. Had she been confirmed, she would have disappeared into an obscure government agency, perhaps never to be heard from again. Instead, she became a US Senator and is now continually crawling under Donald Trump’s notoriously thin skin. I’m guessing the Republicans would like a do over.

Republicans also passed on a relatively moderate, and relatively old, Supreme Court nominee in Merrick Garland–somebody Republicans were once somewhat enthusiastic about. In Garland’s place, Hillary Clinton will probably nominate a 40-something liberal firebrand to the Supreme Court. Once again, they’ll wish for a do over.

I think of the numerous Republican statesmen I admired in my earlier years: Howard Baker, Mark Hatfield, John Danforth, Bob Dole, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, Jack Kemp, Richard Lugar, Alan Simpson, George HW Bush, Caspar Weinberger, George Schultz, James Baker, Henry Kissinger, Jeane Kirkpatrick, George Romney, James Schlessinger, Elizabeth Dole, William Cohen, Brent Scowcroft.

Remember those folks? Quite a list, huh? Those were persons with class and dignity. Some were people of faith, some not.

I grew up Republican, and proudly wore that label. I even canvassed for Dan Quayle when he first ran for Congress in 1976. But I stopped calling myself a Republican about 15 years ago, when I saw the party veering in directions which, as a Christian, I couldn’t endorse (the embrace of torture was the final straw). And now the Republican Party–the “Christian” party according to so many people–has chosen a man whose character is antithetical to every Christlike characteristic. Is there anything Trump values that Jesus would value?

It’s a different Republican Party. Yet a great many Christians I know (since I’ve spent my life among conservative evangelicals) remain committed to Republican politics, refusing to accept that the party they grew up with no longer exists.

I don’t write this as an endorsement of any Democratic candidate. By no means. But I do wish people of faith would disentangle themselves from allegiance to political parties. None of them represent Christianity. We need to be a separate, called-apart people within a secular society. We are explicitly told to not conform to the patterns of this world, and political parties are one such pattern, in no way created by God.

There has been much hand-wringing among conservatives about Donald Trump possibly getting the nomination. I’m a communications guy, a media watcher, so I probably tend to give media influence too much credit. However, it seems to me that FoxNews and conservative radio (Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and the mini-Limbaugh radio hosts inhabiting nearly every media market) deserve some credit. They didn’t create Donald Trump. But they did create his fan base. And much of Ted Cruz’s fan base, for that matter.

For 20 years, conservative media has been drilling in the same messages:

• Government is bad.
• Politicians can’t be trusted.
• America is going downhill.
• We need to take our country back.

Of the people I know who listen almost entirely to conservative media, most echo these same themes–government is bad, politicians are untrustworthy, America is collapsing, we need to retake our country. Since Donald Trump and Ted Cruz both vigorously proclaim these messages, is it any wonder that so many people are flocking around them?

FoxNews is coming to terms with Trump, but for a while seemed almost in panic mode. But I’d tell them, “Congratulations on your success. This is what you’ve been teaching people to believe for 20 years.”

A couple days ago, I fielded a call from a guy who wanted us, as the headquarters of an evangelical denomination, to mobilize our people to vote. He’d been calling the offices of various evangelical denominations. He had just talked to people at the Southern Baptist Convention headquarters. It was our turn.

Such calls often get shunted to me, the lowly Communications Director. He talked for ten minutes before I even had a chance to respond. He didn’t want us to tell people how to vote, but that was kind of disingenuous, because the issues he cited were Republican issues (and he did mention Trump and Cruz). And of course, as people say with EVERY election, the upcoming election will be “the most pivotal election in American history.”

He apparently assumed that all evangelicals of the United Brethren stripe would, obviously and inevitably, vote Republican. That’s how I read him, anyway. We just needed to encourage them to go vote, and Good would prevail.

The guy was actually very nice, articulate, and good-intentioned. He just carried some assumptions that, in my view, were incorrect.

I didn’t engage him in discussion, though there was plenty of fodder for doing so.

I didn’t tell him that some of our churches consist of evangelicals who are African-American, or Hispanic, or immigrants—folks who might have a different perspective on things.

I didn’t tell him that, though the majority of our people will most likely vote Republican, thousands of UBs will vote for Democrats because these UBs are passionate about issues which find support primarily among Democrats—issues involving the poor, the use of military force, the death penalty, social justice, refugees, immigrants, healthcare, alternative energy, income disparity, racial and gender discrimination, earthcare, and others.

I DID tell him that we, as a denominational headquarters, don’t get involved in the political arena. That we leave political action to the discretion of our pastors and laypersons at the local level. Besides, we’ve got a tax-exemption to protect.

He wanted to leave his phone number, so I could pass it along to others who might want to talk to him. I told him there would be no passing along of phone numbers, but that I appreciated that he was passionate about issues and was taking action.