Mark Traphagen, a friend and brother in Christ, recently addressed Don Miller’s highly political take on George W. Bush. [Full disclosure: I am the technical support behind [donmillerfans.net], and I’ve ended up as the administrator of the DMF.net forum, as Bryan has again become busy with work, life, etc.] I found myself nodding at some of what Miller had to say, especially his indictment of the modern American church—a point which I feel that the commentors on both Don and Mark’s entries have largely ignored, having decided to pick the low-hanging fruit of Don’s political espousings.

I’m frustrated at the responses here that have largely railed against Don’s desire to politically express himself: comemnts such as “Miller should stick to personal reflections about his own life,” “don’t really care to hear your political opinions. just write great books and thats all.thanks,” and “I was more than a little disturbed concerning your political ramblings. Your judgments true or not are divisive at best.Your website space could have been dedicated to something more positive and helpful!” are disheartening, because they ignore this fundamental precept:

Don Miller’s political proclamations have just as much value as our own until we judge them for ourselves. To those who say, “But Don is a best-selling author! He’s using his platform for the wrong reasons!” I respond: He has as much right to his opinion as you do. His celebrity certainly amplifies the signal, but it does nothing to improve the quality of that signal.

I think that Don intended for people to engage him on the point that our President can be viewed as a creation of the modern American evangelical movement, but few seem to be doing that, choosing instead to respond to Don’s politics—whether or not they are in agreement with theirs or not. This is rather simliar to the phenomenon of “megadittos“, which simply goes back to letting other people speak for you. There’s value in that, sure—I believe in representative republics just as much as the next guy.

Our only error in evaluating Miller’s comments is if we add extra value to them because of his stature. Come election day, his vote doesn’t count any more than mine [Electoral College disparities notwithstanding].