It doesn’t work that way.

Every day I see our country being torn apart by the divisiveness of the extreme right. Or maybe the entire right… it’s not clear.

Government should be focused on it’s primary mission - providing basic services that are not practical in the free enterprise system. I can buy clothes at the store, but it’s not practical for me to buy police protection or build my own roads, as just two examples.

But a lot of people seem to think their personal beliefs should dictate public policy. In yet another example of that thinking, we have Ted Cruz.

Earlier this year Ted Cruz’s father Rafael spoke at televangelist Kenneth Copeland’s church in Texas. Copeland introduced the Rafael Cruz by asserting that “I believe, with all my heart, that his son is called and anointed to be the next president of the United States.”

Cruz spoke for an hour, urging Christians to vote in order to take control of this nation.

We don’t need Christians to be ‘in control’ of this nation. We don’t need any religion ‘in control’ of this nation. What we need are people willing to work to provide the services citizens need. Many of those clearly have nothing to do with religion. Everything from local services (sewer and water, for example) to federal services (interstate commerce, department of energy) have nothing to do with religion.

In fact, if organized religion did more to help those in need of help, we’d need few dollars spent on government assistance programs. It seems too many of these people that think the problem with America is a lack of Christian control don’t realize the real problem is the lack of Christian charity.