Former Hawaii Representative and 2020 presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard is leaving the Democratic Party, which she denounced as an “elitist cabal of warmongers.” Her announcement reminds us of Ronald Reagan’s famous statement, “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party. The party left me.”
As the leader of a nonpartisan ministry, my intention today is not to criticize the Democratic Party. To the contrary, politicians leaving the Republican Party would make the same point I wish to emphasize: in the eyes of the world, we are what we do. George Eliot was right: “Just as we define our actions, our actions define us.”
What politicians and political parties do over time defines them far more effectively than platforms adopted at conventions or speeches made at rallies. The same principle applies to the rest of us, as Michael J. Fox noted: “Our challenges don’t define us, our actions do.”
This fact was reinforced for me when I saw the tragic news that American Idol Season 19 runner-up Willie Spence died Tuesday in a car accident at the age of twenty-three. Just hours before the fatal crash, he posted a video of himself singing a worship song.
When I read the story, this question came to mind: Would you do what you are about to do if you knew it would be the last thing you would do?
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