Honestly Now...

For those of you who like links, here a few...
- A few neat thoughts on Damaged Goods.
- A lighthearted paraphrase of Leviticus for modern dinner manners (found via Ochuk).
- A nifty way of dealing with the Greek Bible text, or at least the best I've found so far (thanks Dan).

Meanwhile, I've been thinking about my voting preferences and honesty.

Honesty? Well, that was this week's sermon.

Voting preference? I've been pondering variants of this problem...

Candidate A is a typical politician who moderately supports my important views on key issues (e.g. budget policy, abortion, Iraq). Candidate B is a politician who openly disagrees with many of my core issues, but has an unusual reputation for honesty. He outlines significant policy changes he wants to make on these issues, but also promises limit his reforms to these proposals and not pursue more radical changes.

Given the deciding vote, who do I vote for?

It's a challenging question, because of how it distills the challenge of honesty: Do I prefer a leader who says he agrees with me but leads who-knows-where, or one who openly leads toward a known outcome that I disagree with?

Or put another way, how much do I value honesty in leaders who don't agree with me? Am I willing to vote for them? If not, do I those who disagree with me politically to have the character to do so? If neither I nor my opponents will, then we're stuck in the current cycle of distrust and anger. I've effectively said that my positions are more important than trustworthiness, and that until I can assure that my positions will be represented, I won't vote on issues of character.

And if I won't vote on issues of character, why do I expect leaders with character to be elected?