With Barack Obama’s presidential victory and subsequent inauguration, conservatives have separated into a few distinct groups. One group has completely given up on conservatism. Another has resorted to keeping their criticisms and insights on the new administration to themselves for fear of being attacked by copious amounts of Obama-crazed supporters.

However, it is my belief that the third and final group holds the right attitude toward the new administration. This group represents many average Middle-American citizens who work hard and desperately cling to the values that they hold dear, as well as the principles that they feel will help this country succeed.

While many conservatives fit into the above factions, there are still a few who refuse to respect Obama and the authority he holds, which is understandable. Throughout Bush’s presidency the liberals and even a few conservatives repeatedly disrespected his authority and attacked him personally.

President George W. Bush received ridiculous amounts of disrespect from the news, the music industry and the movie industry. For example, a left-wing radical director made a feature length movie attacking him while he was still in office, which was utterly appalling.

My point is this: as Christians, the Bible calls us to respect authority in Romans 13:1, regardless if we agree with it or not. We must ignore the fact that our recent president and party were continually disrespected and put down and we must rise above the rest of the crowd and show our new leadership respect.

However, simply showing a person and an office respect, and submitting to his authority does not mean that we must agree with his policies and political stances.

It is our right as citizens living in the greatest nation on earth to be able speak out against policies that we feel will harm our country, and I am in no way discouraging that. But, it is important that we as Christians are examples to the rest of the nation, and show respect to the administration regardless of our feelings about it.

For more opinions, read the Jan. 21 article, A day of great change, ‘Socialism’ claims dismiss Republican credibility or Accusations undermine authority.