This article first appeared in the Viewpoint column of the CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL, volume 35, number 05 (2012). For further information or to subscribe to the CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL go to: http://www.equip.org

Should Christians vote across the board for one political party? If you have been reading the CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL for a while now, you might assume that my answer would be yes, since we previously published Viewpoint articles that seemed to be arguing for something like that.¹ But the purpose of our Viewpoint department is to help Christians think through difficult issues by allowing advocates of controversial but tenable positions within the body of Christ to make their best case. This means that not everyone at CRI will agree with all Viewpoint articles, and in the case of the recent article by Scott Klusendorf, “The 2012 Elections: Five Questions for Pro-Life Advocates,” I strongly disagreed, even though I believed his position deserved a hearing. In light of my disagreement, it makes sense for me to present the other side of the debate. This should advance the discernment-sharpening purpose of the Viewpoint department all the better.

I should mention that both in Klusendorf’s article and in mine there is some overlap in the use of the words Christian and pro-life. The real concern of the debate is how Christians should vote, but since we have well established in previous articles (many written by Klusendorf himself) that the Christian position on abortion is pro-life, and since the abortion issue is key to this discussion, the terms often, but not always, are used interchangeably. But, of course, the terms are not synonymous.

The fact that this is a feature-length Viewpoint installment and not an editorial also needs to be noted. Although I am the editor-in-chief of the CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL, what I write here is not the official position of the Christian Research Institute. It is my opinion and does not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of Hank Hanegraaff or anyone else associated with CRI.

I stress this particularly because, no matter how discrete I succeed at being, this topic will undoubtedly provoke strong reactions in some readers. I’m not deaf to what many evangelicals are saying concerning our current president and his party, and the tone that often accompanies the words. To some readers I suspect that merely opening for discussion the possibility of a Christian voting otherwise than Republican will seem like heresy.

It may help dampen down passions to note a principle that CRI has always both taught and followed, which is that political differences between Christians should not be considered nearly as important as theological differences (which themselves have varying degrees of importance and are usually not worthy of division). Furthermore, if some theological differences are nearly impossible to resolve from Scripture, how much more so can political differences be, which usually are not addressed in the Bible and need to be argued from principles that may be drawn from Scripture, but are often used to support strikingly different conclusions? All this should leave us with an attitude of humility and charity toward those with whom we politically disagree, but sadly this is often not the case.

We may passionately disagree with one another about global warming or “Obamacare,” but this in no way should hinder our Christian fellowship and unity. This is a truth I can honestly say I have walked as well as talked for more than four decades. I have often disagreed with even my closest brothers and sisters in Christ on political issues, but these differences have never come between us in the least, since we are citizens of a higher Kingdom, where “there is neither Jew nor Gentile, there is neither slave nor free man” (Gal. 3:28), and, we might rightly add today, there is neither Republican nor Democrat (not to mention Independents, for we are all gladly dependent on, and subservient to, the King who unites us all in Himself).

THE RATIONALE BEHIND STRAIGHT-TICKET VOTING

As I understand it, the argument for straight-ticket voting as represented by JOURNAL contributor Scott Klusendorf can be summarized as follows: while there are many issues Christians can and should care about, the right to elective abortion made possible nationally by the 1973 Supreme Court Roe v. Wade ruling is the paramount moral issue of our time, comparable to slavery in pre–Civil War America and the Holocaust inflicted on Jews by Nazi Germany. Just as one would not have voted for candidates on the ticket of a party that endorsed slavery, so one should not vote for candidates whose party endorses elective abortion. Since abortion is the premier moral issue of our time, no matter how many concerns one may have about a pro-life party in other areas, as long as they are the only pro-life party, they should always receive the conscientious Christian’s vote.

This even applies when a congressional candidate for the “pro-abortion party” proclaims himself to be pro-life, while his opponent from the “pro-life party” is pro-choice. Strategically, the argument goes, it is more important to increase the size of the pro-life party in Congress than to add to the number of pro-life senators or congressmen, since the majority party sets the legislative agenda and has the power to move a bill through a committee and up for a vote before the entire chamber.

Straight-ticket voting is therefore, according to this view, the only moral and wise choice for pro-lifers in America today. One can study candidates’ positions and records during the primaries and choose between those seeking nomination by the pro-life party, but once the general election arrives, one should merely look at the candidates’ party affiliation and let that alone determine one’s votes. And, of course, it goes without mention (and indeed is rarely mentioned by authors, who wish to appear nonpartisan, and by pastors, who wish to maintain their church’s tax exemption) but is quite understood that the “pro-choice party” in the United States is the Democratic and the “pro-life party” is the Republican.

This strategy, it should further be noted, goes beyond individual voters. It has recently been adopted by pro-life organizations such as the National Right to Life Committee and the Susan B. Anthony List. For example, in the 2010 elections the latter organization “spent more to defeat pro-life Democrats than to support pro-life candidates,” and, as a result, five pro-life Democrats failed to win re-election to their House seats.² This extreme action was taken because the pro-life Democrats supported Obamacare (which they did only after securing an agreement from President Obama not to use the plan to fund abortions³).

PROBLEMS WITH THE STRAIGHT-TICKET VOTING POSITION

It is important to clarify that my primary objection is not to straight-ticket voting per se, although I do not agree with or practice it myself and will be expressing criticisms of it here. If you choose to vote straight ticket, however, I respect it as a decision you have thoughtfully and prayerfully made. What I strongly object to is any assertion or implication that Christians have a moral duty to vote straight ticket. I take this position because voting is a supremely personal act and should be dictated by the voter’s conscience alone.⁴

Reductio ad Absurdum

When carried to its logical conclusion, the straight-ticket-voting-as-moral-obligation position is shown to be absurd and untenable (this form of argumentation is known formally as reductio ad absurdum—reduction to absurdity). This is because it is simplistic: it does not factor in all of the issues a voter in general and a Christian in particular needs to consider when voting. As a consequence, it violates the integrity of the democratic election process. By taking a one-size-fits-all approach, the position reduces in the general elections what should be a complex, thoughtful, and prayerful process to the mechanical checking off of a single criteria: party affiliation.

The argument assumes that one political party captures biblical values sufficiently to warrant the Christian’s automatic vote. This is probably not the case, and, in any case, cannot be dictated by one Christian to another Christian. Again, in a democracy, voting is supremely a matter of individual conscience. For government by the people truly to work, each citizen needs to embrace her responsibility to be knowledgeable of the candidates and issues and to vote according to her well-formed convictions.

This democratic principle has interesting overlap with the New Testament doctrine of the priesthood of believers on which the Protestant Reformation was founded. Indeed, it could be argued that the reason democracy thrived in Protestant America was because of a well-established understanding and practice of this principle.

The Protestant Reformation was launched because Martin Luther’s conscience was bound to the Word of God and to reason and he therefore would not recant his beliefs even when the Pope commanded him to. In the spirit of Luther, Protestants throughout the ages have accepted their responsibility to study Scripture carefully and prayerfully; to rationally reflect on the truths discovered therein, as well as in the general revelation of nature; and then to reach into their consciences to find the truths that they will live by and, if necessary, die for.

Of particular relevance to this article is how this principle plays out when relevant topics are not discussed or dogmatically settled in Scripture. Since the issues that drive our votes are usually in this category, they are not only analogous to, but in some respects merge into, the “disputable matters” discussed in Romans 14. Note that Paul does not tell the Romans what to believe on these issues (and if anyone could, both from knowledge and authority, it would have been him!). Instead, he instructs that “each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind” (v. 5), and one should not judge the others on the opinions they hold (vv. 4, 10–13a).

While one may believe that abortion trumps all other concerns and may freely attempt to convince others that this should be so, he should not expect that all will agree with him, nor judge those who don’t. Christians can, should, and do have deep convictions about a number of issues, including social, economic, and religious concerns. Furthermore, they are right to be concerned about the character, credentials, and competency of candidates, their political philosophy and stand on the issues, and the overall content of their party’s platform. These factors should all be weighed together and contrasted with those pertaining to competing candidates in a thoughtful and prayerful process. While straight-ticket voting may seem a natural choice to activists around a single cause such as outlawing abortion (although I will show below that even that reasoning fails), it doesn’t make sense to the Christian citizen who may indeed care most deeply about that issue but cares very deeply about several other issues as well.

Comparisons of abortion to the Holocaust and slavery are not inappropriate in terms of the moral gravity of these evils, but they fail to strengthen the straight-ticket voting argument because (1) there is no real analogy between abortion and the Holocaust in this respect, since the Holocaust was not a position on a political party’s platform that was up for vote in a representative democracy; and (2) although slavery was in fact not denounced in the Democratic Party’s platforms in the mid nineteenth century,⁵ it could be argued that Americans who found other positions of value in that party and had ideological, cultural, family, or other ties to it had the option ethically not to abandon it but rather to work from within it to change the offending elements in its platform. This does not mean they would have voted for pro-slavery candidates, but they could have chosen to support pro-abolition candidates with their votes.

The view that straight-ticket voting is a moral obligation also fails to weigh properly the following considerations:

1. A pro-life ethic should not only apply to the unborn but also to the born, including people whose lives would be lost in a frivolous war, the catastrophic loss of life that could occur from a policy that results in nuclear war, loss of life due to environmental degradation (not just apocalyptic global warming scenarios but present-day famines in Africa and elsewhere that we have the means to do something about), the lives that are being lost daily in America through the ready availability of assault weapons, and so forth. If a candidate claims to be pro-life but promotes reckless policies on some or all of these issues, that needs to be factored in. Although it has often been overstated and unfairly applied, the criticism that we social conservatives are so obsessed with abortion that we ignore other life-and-death issues (i.e., are not consistently pro-life) is not entirely undeserved, and straight-ticket voting around the abortion issue helps build the case against us.
2. Straight-ticket voting overlooks a candidate’s record on abortion issues. . If the candidate is pro-choice, has he been an activist for that cause or has he demonstrated a commitment to reducing abortions?⁶ Does the pro-life candidate have a record of standing against abortion or has he conveniently been “talking the talk” only since his campaign was launched?
3. Straight-ticket voting allows your party to get away with paying mere lip service to your issues. If your party knows they can count on your vote come November, how do you hold them accountable to deliver on their promises? This is not a merely theoretical concern but one based in observing with great frustration the Republican Party’s apathy specifically on the abortion issue for decades, until George W. Bush moved into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and proved to be an activist pro-life president.⁷ Your party should be on notice that your vote is something that needs to be freshly earned from election to election.
4. It does not adequately factor in pro-life Independents. If a Christian is an Independent, then she can’t vote straight ticket in the proper sense of the term because she has no party. To tell her she should always vote Republican because of a pro-life strategy is not to respect the fact that she arrived at her nonaffiliated status because neither party’s platform matches her biblical convictions satisfactorily. The absurdity of such an argument is evident.
5. It does not adequately factor in pro-life Democrats. Of course, if they followed a straight-ticket philosophy, pro-life Democrats would never cross over and vote for pro-life Republicans. Should we rather say they should always cross over and vote Republican? This is where the absurdity of the argument becomes most evident. It may seem to some evangelicals that all Christians should be Republicans, and perhaps almost all are in their experience; but in the larger world, this is not the case. A very substantial minority of Christians vote Democratic rather than Republican, ⁸ including: (1) many who emphasize social justice issues, such as those influenced by the work of Jim Wallis and Sojourners magazine, Tony Campolo, and Ron Sider; (2) some from the historic peace church traditions (Mennonite, Brethren, and Friends), especially those in the “neo-Anabaptist” movement; (3) most in the black churches; (4) many who adhere to the blend of social conservatism and fiscal progressivism advocated by the Roman Catholic church (including some non-Catholics); (5) many who were Democrats before becoming evangelicals and, despite perhaps changing their stance on some social issues such as abortion, still find themselves Democrats at heart when it comes to basic principles of government; and (6) many young adults who grew up in evangelical churches, are committed Christians, but see the world somewhat differently than their parents do (perhaps some of your own children). If, on the basis of convictions derived from his reading of the Bible, the Christian strongly agrees with the Democratic Party’s positions on a host of issues such as civil rights, health care, the role of government in matters such as regulating corporate practices and protecting the environment, gun control, and providing a social safety net for the poor, and his differences with the Democratic Party, though perhaps strong, are few, then that person more naturally fits in the Democratic Party than the Republican. It trivializes the democratic process to argue that someone whose heart is with the Democratic Party on most issues must always vote Republican, even in cases when the Democratic candidate is pro-life, let alone in cases where the Republican candidate is pro-choice!

At this point it is crucial for me to stress that I am simply trying to make a point. My purpose is not to serve as an apologist for the Democratic Party or for Left Wing causes. I am not trying to persuade you concerning any of the political positions cited above, nor should I need to for you to see the validity of my argument. For example, you do not have to accept pacifism as a biblical view of war (I don’t) to acknowledge that there is precedent within historic Christianity for reading the Bible that way (going back all the way to some of the early church fathers), and, for a Christian pacifist, voting for a president who seems bent on leading us into war would be a violation of conscience that could supersede all others. Therefore, the moral argument that Christians should vote straight-ticket Republican because of the primacy of the abortion issue fails.

It’s Strategic, All Right—but for Whom?

As for the strategic argument for voting straight-ticket Republican, there is obviously one group who would love for pro-life Democrats and Independents to accept it—Republican campaign strategists! Their priority, of course, is winning elections, not abolishing abortion, and some of them in fact are pro-choice. They will court social conservatives if they need their votes, but they will also court social progressives who are attracted to other items in the Republican package.

People vote Republican for a vast array of reasons, including (1) traditional values, (2) belief in America’s “Manifest Destiny” and/or a strong defense (often hoping that Republicans will not cut funding for the military), and (3) opposition to big government and its accompanying higher taxes (often hoping that Republicans will cut funding for everything, except perhaps the military, along with curbing government regulation of corporate practice, finance, trade, property use, gun sales and ownership, and much more). A coalition of these disparate voting blocs has been forged in the hope that their combined votes will seat Republican candidates in both the executive and legislative branches of government who will advance their several agendas.

The Republican Party therefore serves many people who do not base their values in the Bible, and it has come to be associated with many public policy positions that are not demonstrably based in the Bible as well. While many Christians believe that most or all of these Republican policies and platform positions are compatible with the Bible, others do not, some of whom strongly object to certain of these positions based on their own reading of the Bible. Furthermore, as we look to the future, the new (Millennial) generation of voters trends Democratic in their voting patterns and polls more liberal than their seniors on virtually all other social issues, but they generally track with older voters when it comes to abortion. This means many would likely be attracted to a pro-life candidate if he’s Democratic, but not if he’s Republican.⁹

Given these realities, to argue that all pro-lifers should only vote Republican is not only absurd but also short-sighted. The Democratic Party was not always as strongly pro-choice as it was in the final quarter of the twentieth century, and that feature of the party could change again. In fact, it has already been changing over the past decade, as Democratic strategists have seen the need to court pro-life voters. In 2008 they supported many pro-life (often overlapping with fiscally conservative “blue dog”) Democrats’ successful campaigns for Congress. Furthermore, the advocacy group Democrats for Life (DFLA) has thousands of members, with new people joining every day,¹⁰ despite its loss of support from the larger pro-life movement over the Obamacare flap. This year, for the first time in two decades, a pro-life Democrat, DFLA president Janet Robert, was invited to give oral testimony before the Democratic Platform Committee and suggest language for the 2012 party platform. But these gains notwithstanding, the previously mentioned successful campaign of pro-life groups to sabotage pro-life Democrats in the 2010 elections has significantly weakened the pro-life voice in the Democratic Party.

According to a 2011 Gallup poll, 44 percent of Democrats believe abortion should only be legal in a few or no circumstances.¹¹ If pro-life Democrats continue to gain influence and acceptance within their party, we could find a situation where the stranglehold of pro-choice interests over the Democratic Party is broken, so that even when they are the party in power, there would be less support for pushing through pro-choice legislation. When such legislation did come to a vote, there would be more Democrats joining Republicans in voting against it.

To put all the pro-life eggs in the basket of one party, the Republican, does not in the longer view seem very strategic at all. Why tie the pro-life position to other positions that have nothing to do with the right to life and are repugnant to many people who are strongly pro-life? Why create that kind of baggage for the pro-life position?

THE PENDING COLLAPSE OF THE STATUS QUO

As you no doubt remember, the long-time political divide between Left and Right in America became much more pronounced due to the Iraq War. Since the war this breach has not been mended, as the base members in each party keep electing ideological purists to Congress who consider bipartisanship to be a betrayal of principle. The truth is, however, that compromise is essential in a two-party system if anything is to be accomplished. Thus, as I write, the dreaded “fiscal cliff” is looming in which tax increases and deep cuts in spending (including military spending) could send the nation into another recession unless Congress can find some middle ground on taxes and spending by the end of the year, something they were unable to do the two  previous years. Frustrated by years of gridlock and partisan bickering, several leading senators and representatives with reputations for reaching across the aisle have retired or announced plans to retire, while others have been voted out of office as punishment for their bipartisanship, leaving the hope for future progress even dimmer.

A recent NBC–Wall Street Journal poll found that “56% of Americans say they would vote out every single member of the House and Senate if they could. 55% of liberals, 55% of moderates, and 58% of conservatives say they want all members of Congress gone.”¹² There has been so much general dissatisfaction with Washington in recent years that the voting public has been putting a new party in office every election. With such a see-saw of power, how much can the pro-life movement reasonably hope to accomplish if it has no representatives looking out for its interests on the Democratic side? Any progress that is made in one term will likely be reversed in the next. Only when the pro-life cause transcends the political divide will there be a realistic chance of overturning Roe v. Wade.

The party system in America is to a great extent dysfunctional, and no one at present seems to have either the wisdom or the power to get it back on track. There is a reason why the number of registered Independents continues to grow and they now outnumber Republicans and Democrats by 13 percent and 9 percent, respectively.¹³ The wave of the future seems to be voting for candidates who will work for the common good rather than to stay on the right side of powerful people or to get themselves reelected.

The pro-life movement needs to rethink its partisan strategy and get ahead of this curve. I predict it will find key allies in unexpected places.

Elliot Miller is the editor-in-chief of the CHRISTIAN RESEARCH JOURNAL.

Rebuttal Viewpoints from both Scott Klusendorf and Elliot Miller follow the footnotes below.

 NOTES

1. See Scott Klusendorf, “The 2012 Elections: Five Questions for Pro-Life Advocates,” Christian Research Journal 34, 6 (2011): 58–60 (http://www.equip.org/articles/the-2012-elections-five-questions-for-pro-life-advocates/), and Francis J. Beckwith, “Wise as Serpents: Christians, Politics, and Strategic Voting,” Christian Research Journal 27, 3 (2004): 52–53 (http://www.equip.org/articles/wise-as-serpents/). While it’s fair to say that Klusendorf argues for the general virtue and wisdom of straight-ticket voting as long as there is both a “pro-life party” and a “pro-choice party,” Beckwith does not carry it that far. He does suggest that in some cases “strategic voting” would lead the pro-life advocate to vote for a pro-choice candidate representing the “pro-life party” rather than a pro-life candidate on the ticket of the “pro-choice party.”
2. Democrats for Life of America, “The Case for Pro-Life Democrats 2012,” PowerPoint presentation prepared for the Democratic Party Platform Drafting Committee, 23–25.
3. Democrats for Life of America (DFLA) “challenged the assertions made by conservative opponents of the Affordable Care Act that it provided federal funding of abortion. In a recent press release, [DFLA executive director Kristen] Day noted that, in a case brought by [former Congressman Steve] Driehaus against the Susan B. Anthony List, Judge Timothy Black ruled that the ‘express language of the [act] does not provide for taxpayer funding of abortion. That is a fact, and it is clear on its face.’” (Michael Sean Winters, “Group Brings Pro-Life Voice to Democratic Party,” National Catholic Reporter, November 30, 2011, http://ncronline.org/news/politics/group-brings-pro-life-voice-democratic-party.)
4. This is based in an understanding of the integral rights, responsibilities, and role of the citizen in a democracy. For an introduction to this topic, I recommend Charles F. Bahmueller, Michael Johnston, and Charles N. Quigley, Elements of Democracy: The Fundamental Principles, Concepts, Social Foundations, and Processes of Democracy (Calabasas, CA: Center for Civic Education, 2007).
5. The issue was instead deferred to a pending U.S. Supreme Court ruling, with the preservation of the Union given priority over the preservation of slavery.
6. In his article, p. 59, Klusendorf dismisses efforts of pro-life Democrats to work with pro-choice Democrats and pro-life Republicans to reduce abortions, suggesting that they consider this a satisfactory substitute for overturning Roe v. Wade. He is correct that reducing abortion is no substitute for legal reform, but pro-life Democrats never considered it to be so, and it is certainly a step in the right direction. The Pregnant Woman Support Act that they succeeded at making a part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is now being implemented in seventeen states with $250 million in grants to help alleviate the desperate circumstances that lead many pregnant women to think they have no option but abortion. Ultimately, even if Roe v. Wade is overturned, the most we will ever be able to accomplish is to reduce abortions. Outside of the Bible belt, most states will probably keep abortion legal, and wherever it is illegal, we can expect illegal abortions to return with a vengeance. Any insistence on legal reform that leads us to pooh-pooh efforts to save preborn lives within the current legal structure is putting principle ahead of persons and leads us away from a true, practical love of our neighbor.
7. For example, in 2003 President Bush signed into law a ban on partial-birth abortion. In 2007 his two appointees to the Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, helped create a majority that made it possible for the Court to reverse itself on partial-birth abortion and uphold the ban Bush signed.
8. This is true not just of “Christians” but of “observant evangelicals” (i.e., evangelicals who attend more than one religious service a week). In 2008 43 percent of them voted for Obama. See John C. Green, “Much Hope, Modest Change for Democrats,” The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, August 11, 2010, http://www.pewforum.org/Politics-and-Elections/Much-Hope-Modest-Change-for-Democrats-Religion-in-the-2008-Presidential-Election.aspx. See also Marcia Pally, “Evangelicals: Voting Bloc or Mosaic?” Truthout, May 22, 2012, http://truth-out.org/news/item/9187-evangelicals-voting-bloc-or-mosaic#a12.
9. See Lydia Saad, “Americans Still Split along ‘Pro-Choice,’ ‘Pro-Life’ Lines,” Gallup Politics, May 23, 2011, http://www.gallup.com/poll/147734/Americans-Split-Along-Pro-Choice-Pro-Life-Lines.aspx.
10. Telephone interview with DFLA executive director Kristen Day, July 26, 2012.
11. Ibid. Thirty percent indicated “few circumstances” while 14 percent indicated “no circumstances.”
12. Poll Watch, The Week, February 10, 2012, 17.
13. See Jeffrey M. Jones, “Record-High 40% of Americans Identify as Independents in ‘11,” Gallup Politics, January 9, 2012, http://www.gallup.com/poll/151943/record-high-americansidentify-independents.aspx.

Rebuttal to Elliot Miller

Should Christians knowingly support a political party dedicated to the proposition that an entire class of human beings can be set aside to be killed? Elliot Miller’s answer to that question is unsatisfactory.

First, an appeal to individual conscience does not relieve Christians of their duty to apply their biblical worldview in a way that limits the evil of abortion insofar as possible given current political realities. At the legislative level (House and Senate races), that usually means voting for the party that, though imperfect, will best protect unborn humans against one that sanctions killing them wholesale. A Republican majority in both houses gives us the best hope of legally protecting unborn humans because the vast majority of its members will support pro-life legislation—a point Miller does not dispute. Conversely, the overwhelming majority of Senate and House Democrats reject any restrictions on the abortion license (see below) and work tirelessly to expand it. In short, reducing voting to a supremely personal act does not fly when the party you are supporting sanctions the intentional killing of innocent human beings.

Second, Miller presents no formal argument for why pro-life voters should consider other important issues—war, the environment, and foreign aid—as morally equivalent to intentionally killing 1.2 million humans per year. His response is to say that not everyone agrees that abortion is a dominant issue. So? How does the fact that people disagree mean my distinction between contingent evils, like war, and absolute ones, like abortion, is wrong? Suppose a political party is great on health care and the economy, but will fight to keep it legal for men to beat their wives. That alone should disqualify that party from leadership. Moreover, where’s the evidence that biblical truth mandates Democrat policies on foreign aid and gun control? Indeed, a very good case can be made that foreign aid harms many impoverished countries more than it helps and that violent crime continued to drop after the so-called assault weapons ban expired in 2004. Nowhere does Miller argue empirically or biblically that a Christian worldview demands his take on these disputable matters. Meanwhile, the biblical view on intentionally shedding innocent blood is not disputable. It’s strictly forbidden!

Third, Miller is mistaken if he thinks we’re going to change the Democratic Party anytime soon. While he appeals to lay signups at Democrats for Life, the political players in that party continue promoting abortion wholesale. How many lives should we sacrifice waiting for the party to reform itself? Remember: 90 percent of this party’s current House membership voted against a Republican bill protecting unborn females from sex-selection abortion. It’s a party that supports forcing religious groups to fund insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs. It’s a party that says doctors must perform or refer for abortion or go out of business. If Miller is worried about individual conscience, he should look no further than the party determined to destroy it.

True, the Republicans are far from perfect. But as Greg Koukl points out, given a choice between a first-class arsonist and a second-class fireman, you go with the second-class fireman—and demand he get better. —Scott Klusendorf

Elliot Miller replies: I didn’t argue that Christians should support the Democratic Party but only that some may support it selectively.

I did implicitly present a formal argument. To pacifists, war is an absolute (not a contingent) evil, as are nuclear weapons to many additional Christians.

Parties don’t pass legislation, congressmen do. Would you vote for a congressman in an anti-wife-beating party who fights to make wife beating legal? A yes answer would be based on strategy, not principle, and my article shows the weaknesses of this approach.

There is something self-fulfilling about Klusendorf’s prediction that the Democratic Party will not soon change. He cites the 90 percent of House Democrats who voted against the sex selection bill, but fails to mention the pro-life Democrats whose House reelection bids were sabotaged by the pro-life movement in 2010.

Last month the U.S. observed the national holiday commemorating Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, and now Black History Month is upon us. What better time for Christians to contemplate King’s legacy and message, as well as the plight of the black person in this country? We therefore are pleased to feature La Shawn Barber’s informative and balanced cover article on King, his work, and his philosophy. Those of us who lived through the turbulent 1960s can recall that King was not always someone for whom white people would have expected to have a national holiday declared in his honor. Some suspected him of being a communist and even more viewed him as a lawbreaking troublemaker. In the South, even some of those who did not dislike him on racial grounds resented him for upsetting the status quo. One hundred years earlier, white Christians in the North had been at the forefront of the abolitionist movement that ended slavery, but in the 1950s and ’60s white Christians in the South often resisted desegregation and it was more often white secularists from the North, rather than white Christians, who marched with the blacks in their struggle to realize their civil rights. Though there were notable exceptions, on the whole it was not the church’s finest hour. The civil rights movement was identified at the time with the political Left. It was largely Democrats who participated, not Republicans. In today’s terms, it would be considered “politically correct.” Without the benefit of hindsight that we now have, it was easy for Christians to be suspicious of, and to stand aloof from, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the civil rights movement, and the clear majority did. Yet, despite the faults one might find with King’s theology, his personal life, and even his political philosophy, the cause that he was fighting for was manifestly just and the repressive sociopolitical forces he was fighting against were manifestly evil. What he and his movement accomplished greatly benefitted not only American blacks, but other racial minorities, and it helped heal a moral cancer in the country’s soul. By not taking a clear stand on this issue, the white church ceded the moral high ground to the secular Left, and it left a smirch on evangelical Christianity. Despite their taking principled and even courageous stands on many issues before and after the civil rights movement (e.g., abortion), evangelicals’ past failure to offer a prophetic voice against civil rights abuses has continued to be a stumbling block in the way of many people considering the claims of Christ. I know this firsthand because I have tried to share Christ with many such people, and it was an obstacle that I myself had to overcome in order to accept Christ. What lessons can we draw today from this piece of not-too-distant history? One obvious lesson would be: just because the political Right is championing an issue doesn’t guarantee that it is morally right, and just because the political Left is championing an issue doesn’t ensure that it is morally wrong. Our God is transcendent, and it only makes sense that truth is transcendent and cannot be perfectly captured or embodied by any one political party or movement. Although the political Right is more closely associated with traditional values and therefore biblical influences on such issues as sexual morality, the sanctity of life, and the family, the political Left also exhibits direct or indirect biblical influences in its emphasis on social justice issues. Clearly, it seems, a majority of evangelicals identify themselves as Republicans, but there are also many evangelicals who are registered Democrats or Independents. Conversely, while secular humanists seem to have a clear preference for the Democratic Party, the Republican Party and the political Right in general have their own share of irreligious people, not to mention hypocritical professors of religion. In the name of increasing political clout, moral and immoral people on both the Right and the Left have often formed unholy alliances, and righteous causes have been compromised as a result. Conscientious Christians should therefore not enter the ballot box and mindlessly put a check next to every candidate and ballot issue they’ve heard advocated on Fox News, or even those tacitly endorsed in a handout received at church the previous Sunday. We should ask ourselves: are there any issues facing Christians today that future generations might look back on as we now look back at the civil rights issues of the 1950s and ’60s? Are we ceding any moral high ground to the secular Left? How should Christians view torture as an interrogation technique? The Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Wars of choice? It is not my purpose here to advocate for one side of these or other debates, but rather for critical thinking and deep biblical reflection. One of the purposes of the JOURNAL is to promote such critical thinking, and so we have published, and will publish again, debates, Viewpoint opinion pieces, and probing feature articles that will assist you in thinking through contemporary issues. As we consider the lessons evangelicals can learn from the civil rights movement, the need to think critically and biblically and not merely follow the right-leaning pack is surely one of them.

—Elliot Miller

Imagine it is Election Day 2004. You know for whom you will cast your vote for the office of President of the United States. You are not sure, however, about who will get your vote for other offices up for election, such as those in the U.S. Senate, House of Representatives, state senate, state assembly, and city council. You consider yourself to be a social conservative, and so you conclude that your best strategy is to vote for every socially conservative candidate regardless of his or her party affiliation. This is the strategy some well-meaning Christian personalities offer on their radio programs and in their literature. It would be a mistake, however, to follow this strategy.

Caesar’s Coin. In order to explain what you probably think is a completely outrageous suggestion, we have to take an excursion into the Bible as well as the nature of the American government. The New Testament speaks very little about government and the Christian’s responsibility as a citizen; nevertheless, there is one particular passage that is cited most often in this regard. Jesus, in a familiar scene, is confronted with an apparent dilemma by the disciples of the Pharisees:

“Tell us, then, what is your opinion: Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?” Knowing their malice, Jesus said, “Why are you testing me, you hypocrites? Show me the coin that pays the census tax.” Then they handed him the Roman coin. He said to them, “Whose image is this and whose inscription?” They replied, “Caesar’s.” At that he said to them, “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” (Matt. 22:11–13 nab)

The dominant understanding of this passage is that Jesus was instructing His audience that the church and government have jurisdiction over different spheres of authority. I believe this understanding is largely correct; however, those who present it often miss the subtle and political implications of what Jesus said. He asked whose image was on the coin. The answer was, of course, Caesar’s. There is, however, an unsaid question that begs to be answered: What or who has the image of God on it?¹ If the coin was under the authority of Caesar because it bore his image, then we are under the authority of God because we bear His image. Good governments, nevertheless, ought to be concerned with the well-being of their citizens, and these citizens correctly believe that their well-being is best sustained by a just government. It follows that both government and the church, though having separate jurisdictions, share a common obligation to advance the well-being of those who bear God’s image.

The Nature of American Government and Politics. The United States is a constitutional republic of separated powers. By “constitutional republic” I mean that the United States is a nation whose government is based on an authoritative document, the Constitution, in which the government’s powers and the rights of its people are enumerated. By “separation of powers” I mean that each government of the United States, whether federal, state or local, and each branch of those governments, whether executive, legislative, or judicial, has its own scope of authority and powers unique to itself. This places limits on governments and reduces the likelihood of tyranny and despotism.

From the very beginning and through most of its history, two parties have dominated American electoral politics. Today, the two parties are Republican and Democrat, each holding to contrary points of view on a variety of issues that are important to Christians such as the moral status of the unborn, gay rights, public education, constitutional interpretation, judicial appointments, and the relationship between religion and government. There are, of course, members in each party who do not act in agreement with their party’s platform (i.e., stated views), largely because of the demographics and cultural history of the part of the country in which they were elected. One finds, for example, the phenomena of the “liberal Republican” in the Northeast (e.g., Rudolph Giuliani) and the “conservative Democrat” in the South (e.g., Zell Miller).

In legislative bodies (i.e., those that make laws) the majority party is essentially in control of legislation that is put to a final vote. This is because the majority party controls the leadership of the legislative body, which includes the chairmanships of committees that decide what sort of legislation will be debated and voted on by the entire body. If, for example, the majority party in the U.S. Senate has a platform that affirms abortion rights, then that party’s policy preferences on abortion will be advanced even if a few U.S. Senators who are members of that party are not supporters of abortion rights.

Strategic Voting. The goal of both the church and the state is to advance the public good. That seems simple enough. Some Christians would conclude, therefore, that they should always vote for the candidate, regardless of that candidate’s party affiliation, whose views most closely line up with what advances the public good. This voting strategy, however, ignores the realities of our constitutional republic and its two-party system. Consider the following illustration.

Suppose that Mr. Smith is running against Mr. Jones for the state assembly (a law-making body). Mr.Smith is strongly pro-abortion while Mr. Jones is strongly pro-life. The typical conservative Christian who considers only this factor would say that one ought to vote for Mr. Jones. Imagine, however, that Mr.Smith belongs to the pro-life party, which holds the majority (26) of the 51 seats in the assembly. Mr.Jones, on the other hand, belongs to the pro-abortion party, which holds the minority (25) of the seats in the assembly. If Mr. Smith wins, then the balance of power in the assembly stays with the pro-life party, and it can maintain leadership of the assembly, fill committee chairmanships with members of the pro-life party, and hold hearings and votes on legislation that is important to pro-lifers. On the other hand, suppose that Mr. Jones wins. Even though Mr. Jones is pro-life, the balance of power would shift to the pro-abortion party. The pro-abortion party would now control the assembly leadership and thus the assembly committees that decide what sort of legislation gets out of committee; therefore, if Mr. Jones is elected, it actually harms the pro-life cause. In fact, if you think that pro-life legislation advances the public good (as many Christians do) — that such legislation may help protect the smallest creatures who bear God’s image — then, ironically, voting for Mr. Jones may be inconsistent with the implication of Jesus’ admonition that the church and the state should be concerned with the good of those who bear God’s image.

Consider another example. Suppose the U.S. Supreme Court is only one vote short of overturning Roe v. Wade. You, like many Christians, believe that abortion is an evil that not only wrongs unborn children but also tarnishes the souls of the women who elect to have these abortions. Although you realize that overturning Roe would not outlaw abortion — for it would merely return the matter to the states as it had been until 1973 — you rightly conclude that this change in the law would permit you and your fellow citizens to pass legislation that would at least protect the unborn and their mothers in your state.

Your political party, however, the pro-life party, is in the midst of a primary race for a U.S. Senate seat currently occupied by a pro-abortion senator who is the minority leader of the Senate judiciary committee. This is the committee that holds hearings on the President’s judicial nominations to the federal courts, including the Supreme Court. The primary pits three candidates against each other: Ms.Johnson, a devout pro-life Christian who has made comments in the past that have been interpreted as racist; Mr. Adams, a pro-abortion atheist who is moderate on other issues such as sex education and gay rights; and Mr. Baker, a moderate on abortion (he thinks some legal restrictions are permissible) who is liberal on other issues such as gay rights and school vouchers.

Imagine that you live in a very liberal state, and thus it will be virtually impossible for Ms. Johnson to beat the incumbent senator in the general election. Mr. Adams and Mr. Baker therefore stand a better chance; however, only Mr. Adams has promised to support the judicial nominees of the President, a strong pro-lifer who thinks that Roe was wrongly decided.

Assuming that pro-life laws advance the public good, voting against Ms. Johnson, a pro-lifer, and for Mr.Adams, a pro-abortion supporter, is strategically wise, for it increases the likelihood that the President’s nominees to the federal courts will be approved, and these nominees, which will include future Supreme Court justices, will have an opportunity to rule in ways that advance the public good (or at least put up judicial barriers to harming the public good).

In order to be wise stewards of the gift of self-government in a constitutional republic, we not only have to understand what our theology teaches us about our obligations to the wider community of human persons, but we also have to understand both the nature of our government and its politics. We have to be, in the words of Jesus, “wise as serpents and harmless as doves” (Matt. 10:16 niv).

— Francis J. Beckwith

NOTES

1. This is an insight Luis Lugo offered in his essay “Caesar’s Coin and the Politics of the Kingdom: A Pluralist Perspective,” in Caesar’s Coin Revisited: Christians and the Limits of Government, ed. Michael Cromartie (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 14–15.

We in the United States are in a heated presidential election. When the political temperature rises so does name-calling, character assassination, and confrontation. Even committed Christ-followers, unfortunately, get caught up in the partisan political whirlwind of the moment and join in the fight. We as Christians should seriously engage in the ongoing debate in the political public square, but in doing so we must demonstrate a citizenship seasoned by God’s wisdom and love.

The title of this article is based on Jesus’ question in Mark8:36, “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” (NIV). Over the years, I have watched many Christians zealously become active in partisan politics and actually “lose their souls”; that is, they lose their public, uniquely Christian witness, act contrary to the fruit of the Holy Spirit, and become divisive agents within the church.

Biblical Guidelines. Below are ten biblical guidelines to assist Christians to engage in the upcoming presidential election without “losing their souls.”

1. Don’t equate the biblical kingdom of God with any human political party or nation. We must maintain the distinctiveness between God’s kingdom and the kingdoms of this world. We must never fuse the two (John18:36; Matt.6:33).

2. Don’t elevate a politician to messianic status. People often falsely think a politician can single-handedly produce supernatural social results. We have one Lord, and we must resist any attempt to exalt politicians to unrealistic heights (Matt.7:15; 1Pet.3:15).

3. Don’t just vote, but pray for the leaders of all political parties. Christians can be tempted to bless the politician of their choice, and curse his or her opponent, but remember, we must pray even for our enemies (1Tim.2:1–2; Matt.5:44).

4. Don’t forget that your ultimate security is in the unshakeable kingdom of God. Many Christians often elevate the outcome of presidential elections to an apocalyptic status. If a particular presidential candidate does not win, we begin to think or act as if the world will end. In so doing, however, we express an unbelief in the active sovereignty of God over human affairs (Heb.12:26–29).

5. Don’t bring the polarization of partisan politics into the family of God. Every Christian has freedom of conscience before God, and we must guard against allowing political perspectives to divide the church (Rom.16:17; 1Cor.1:11–12).

6. Don’t demonize anyone. Every person has been created in the image of God, and Christians must not demonize or dehumanize other people, whether we agree with them politically or not (Col.3:8; James4:12).

7. Don’t engage in angry, hostile confrontation. Present your political convictions through civil debate and rational dialogue instead. Confrontational arguments demonstrate an ugly pride that demeans Jesus Christ (James1:19–20; 2Tim.2:14).

8. Don’t become so intertwined with one political party that you forfeit your independence. When you do, you lose your right to be heard and to speak and clarify biblical truth to all politicians and political parties (1Tim.3:15; Rom.3:4).

9. Don’t allow yourself to support attempts to divide races, male and female, rich and poor, or young and old. Partisan politics often divides society into voting blocks, and separates society instead of uniting it. Christians should function as peacemakers and reconcilers in the public square and should resist every temptation to join the game of dividing people for political gain (Matt.5:9; 2Cor.5:18–19).

10. Don’t simply curse the darkness, but constructively engage it. The cultural and missional mandate of kingdom Christians is not to curse the darkness in our world, but to act as illuminating light and preserving salt. We must share the light of God’s truth and work to maintain the common welfare of our nation by overcoming evil through doing good (Matt.5:13–16).

I am aware that the outcome of the 2008 presidential election could have significant, and even negative, consequences for people’s lives, but we don’t need to worry. In the larger scheme of history, no matter who becomes our next president, God is still King, and He is still in control!

— Andrew Jackson

After many months of hints and media speculation, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney announced his candidacy on February 13 for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008.

Having once served as a bishop in the Mormon Church, Romney is trying his best to keep his religious affiliation from becoming a distraction to voters. When asked specifically about issues unique to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), Romney politely tells interviewers simply to “ask the church.”

Romney’s religious moorings came to the forefront when the Boston Globe ran an article (October 19, 2006) that claimed that a political team representing Romney had asked Mormon Church leaders for their help. The newspaper reported that Mormon Church president Gordon B. Hinckley knew about the discussions, which had begun in September 2006, and “expressed no opposition” to them.

Mormon Church officials vehemently denied any involvement with Romney’s campaign, claiming on their Web site, www.lds.org, that the Globe article was inaccurate. The statement read, “In light of articles appearing in the media, we reaffirm the position of neutrality taken by the Church, and affirm the long-standing policy that no member occupying an official position in any organization of the Church is authorized to speak in behalf of the Church concerning the Church’s stand on political issues.”

The Globe reported how two officials at Brigham Young University’s Marriott School of Management had sent an e-mail, dated October 9, 2006, to fifty members of the Brigham Young University (BYU) Management Society and one hundred members of the school’s National Advisory Council, asking them to support Romney’s candidacy. The Mormon Church and BYU—both of which are tax-exempt, non-profit organizations—are prohibited by the IRS from participating in the campaign of any candidate for an elected office. The church and college could endanger their 501c3 tax status for violating this standard.

The idea that Romney would be able to put together a volunteer grassroots campaign utilizing members of his church, which has about six million members in the United States and nearly thirteen million worldwide, is not far-fetched. Probably Romney’s greatest claim to fame came during the three years he served as the president of the Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, held in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Among other achievements, Romney helped raise $100 million in Olympic sponsorships while organizing a team of forty thousand Utah volunteers. He was also able to get academic classes at BYU cancelled during the two weeks of the Olympics so that thousands of students and university employees could volunteer for positions such as drivers, hospitality hosts, and traffic officers.

A Viable Candidacy? A Mormon bid for the United States presidency may be rare, but it is hardly a new concept. Mormon Church founder Joseph Smith, Jr., was a candidate for president when, in 1844, at thirty-eight years old, he met an untimely death at the hands of an angry mob. Today Mormons such as Senate Majority leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) and veteran Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) serve in high positions on Capitol Hill. Nonetheless, if Romney, a moderate Republican who in 2002 became a one-term governor of Massachusetts, has a legitimate chance to win the presidency against GOP front-runners John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, most political observers agree that he will have to avoid being seen as the “Mormon candidate.”

Larry J. Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said, “The problem for Romney is that thirty-five percent or so of the delegates to the Republican National Convention are fundamentalist Christians, and to be blunt about it, most of them see Mormonism as a cult” (November 14, 2006, http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=645918).

Some would say that not voting for a candidate because of his religion is wrong. For instance, Senator Hatch—who made a brief run at the GOP presidential nomination in 2000—told a Salt Lake City television station: “This business of prejudice against Mormons is real. I think some stories are efforts of smear.”

The idea that Romney could be rejected for his religious, not political, views remains a strong possibility. Nobody knows, for example, how American voters would assimilate the fact that Romney’s nineteenth-century family tree includes six polygamous ancestors with forty-one wives, including his great-great-grandfather who had thirteen wives. Many voters may mistakenly believe that a Mormon president would attempt to make polygamy legal. Whatever the reasoning, a recent Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll showed that as much as a third of likely voters would not vote for a Mormon candidate for president.

Tony Kimball, a Mormon and a retired professor of American government at Bentley College in Waltham, Massachusetts, warns that it would not take much to make voters wary of Romney and wreak havoc with his chances. “This is just what the Southern Baptists and others need to bash the [LDS] church,” he told the Salt Lake Tribune (October 20, 2006). “They are hostile to the church anyway. If they see Mitt’s campaign as a Mormon campaign, that’s going to drive them into a frenzy.”

Conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt is attempting to educate the public about Romney’s candidacy through an upcoming book titled A Mormon in the White House? 10 Things Every Conservative Should Know about Mitt Romney, which will hit bookshelves in March. Hewitt says he is not necessarily endorsing Romney, but he feels that Mormonism is “not particularly well understood by many.”

Courting evangelical Christian support, Romney began setting up personal meetings last fall with small groups of Christian church leaders. Joe Mack, the public policy director for the South Carolina Baptist Convention, was impressed after attending one such meeting. “Obviously as Baptists, theologically we have some differences, but on social, moral issues…it seemed like we had some common ground,” Mack told the Boston Globe (November 2, 2006).

Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell agrees that Romney’s conservative values are more important than his personal religious beliefs. “If he’s pro-life, pro-family, I don’t think he’ll have any problem getting the support of evangelical Christians,” he said (Jackson [Mississippi] Clarion-Ledger, July 28, 2006). Adds Southern Baptist leader Richard Land (Los Angeles Times, October 10, 2006), “We are not electing a theologian-in-chief. We are electing a commander-in-chief.” However, as his political positions of the past are given more scrutiny, some Republicans are wondering if Romney is really as conservative as they would hope.

It doesn’t appear that Romney’s Mormonism is causing many evangelical Christian leaders to oppose his candidacy. In fact, one group of Christians has even jumped on his bandwagon by hosting an Internet site (www.evangelicalsformitt.org). Perhaps University of Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith summarized the precarious position of many when he said (Los Angeles Times, October 15, 2006), “Some evangelicals may think that Mormons are going to hell, but at the same time, they might think that it wouldn’t be too bad to have one in elected office.”

— Bill McKeever and Eric Johnson

The campaign for the 2008 U. S. presidency is underway, with perhaps the most intriguing collection of candidates that both major parties have had to offer in quite some time. Among the candidates vying for the Republican nomination is Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts (2003–2007), and a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the LDS Church).

As has been aptly documented, Mormon foundational beliefs are contrary to those held by the three branches of Christianity—Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant. Mormon theology denies the great creeds of Christendom and includes in its canon extrabiblical texts such as the Book of Mormon. It offers a doctrine of God that is completely at odds with the understanding that the Christian Church has held for nearly two millennia. The LDS Church claims to be the restoration of original Christianity that had vanished until the arrival in nineteenth-century America of the Mormon prophet Joseph Smith, Jr.

Some of the most well-known Christians in America, including Chuck Colson and Hugh Hewitt,¹ have said that there is no reason, at least in principle, why a Christian cannot vote for a Mormon candidate such as Governor Romney. I will set aside my defense of this position for the moment to address two mistakes that can be made in the event that Governor Romney becomes the Republican nominee for President.

The Candidate’s Snare: The Kennedy Mistake. In 1960, Senator John F. Kennedy, a Roman Catholic, was the Democrat Party’s candidate for the U. S. Presidency. He would soon become the first Catholic president in a country whose citizenry had been predominantly Protestant, and anti-Catholic, since its infancy. Many Protestant Christians were concerned that Kennedy’s commitment to the teaching of his church’s magisterium on a variety of social, moral, and political issues would serve as his guide for U. S. domestic and foreign policy. To assuage Protestant fears, Senator Kennedy stated that nothing of his Catholic faith would play any role in his judgments as occupant of the White House:

I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for President who happens also to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my church on public matters—and the church does not speak for me. Whatever issue may come before me as President—on birth control, divorce, censorship, gambling or any other subject—I will make my decision in accordance with these views [i.e., on religious liberty and church-state separation], in accordance with what my conscience tells me to be the national interest, and without regard to outside religious pressures or dictates. And no power or threat of punishment could cause me to decide otherwise^.2

Senator Kennedy’s historic speech that day, from the vantage point of the early twenty-first century, reads like complete acquiescence to American mainline Protestant notions of privatized faith and to its stereotypical, outdated, and uncharitable ideas about the teachings of the Catholic Church. Senator Kennedy could have argued that his Catholicism informed him of certain theological and moral doctrines that would make him a thoughtful and principled president. He could have consulted and mined from the works of Catholic scholars such as philosopher Jacques Maritain or theologian John Courtney Murray, both of whom were able defenders of liberal democracy and the natural law that grounds it. Most historians, however, “agree that Murray disapproved of the strident separationism that Kennedy championed.”³ Senator Kennedy’s speech was a terrible concession because it played to his audience’s anti-Catholic prejudices while saying that his religious beliefs are so trivial that he would govern exactly the same if they were absent.

To pacify Christians, Governor Romney may be tempted to emulate Senator Kennedy and claim that his theology and church do not influence or shape his politics. There are at least two reasons why this would be a mistake.

First, it would signal to traditional Christians that Governor Romney does not believe that theology could count as knowledge. This is, however, precisely the view of the secularist who believes that religion, like matters of taste, should remain private. If a citizen has good reason, however, to believe that his tradition offers real insights into the nature of humanity and the common good—insights that could be defended on grounds that even a secularist may find persuasive—why should he remain mute simply because the secularist stipulates a definition of religion that requires his silence? If Governor Romney commits the Kennedy mistake, it would give tacit permission to secularists to call into question the political legitimacy of the governor’s natural allies, conservative Catholics and evangelicals.

Second, claiming that his beliefs do not influence his politics could cost Romney the support of those whose very different beliefs influence their politics in the same direction. That LDS theology is, I believe, fundamentally non-Christian does not mean that it does not include beliefs that many secularists and traditional Christians would find defensible or even consistent with their own views. If that is the case, as I believe it is, then Governor Romney may be able to argue that because of his theological beliefs, rather than contrary to them, he is deeply committed to principles of justice and democracy. For instance, in the Doctrine and Covenants (132: 1, 3, 5), part of the LDS canon of scripture, Joseph Smith, Jr., states:

We believe that governments were instituted of God for the benefit of man….We believe that all governments necessarily require civil officers and magistrates to enforce the laws; and that such as will administer the law in equity and justice should be sought for and upheld….We believe that all men are bound to sustain and uphold their respective governments while protected in their inherent and inalienable rights by the laws of such governments… and that all governments have a right to enact such laws as their own judgments have best calculated to secure the public interest.

The Christian’s Snare: The Confessional Mistake. This mistake occurs when a Christian citizen believes that the planks of his creed or theological confession are the best standard by which to judge the suitability of a candidate who is running for public office. Suppose, for example, a Presbyterian elder votes for one of Governor Romney’s primary opponents solely on the basis of the governor’s rejection of the Nicene Creed and the Westminster Confession. An elder who did this would not truly understand that the purpose of creeds and confessions is to provide a summary of beliefs that one must embrace in order to be considered an orthodox member of a particular church body, not to measure the qualifications of a political candidate in a liberal democracy. Christendom’s most important creeds and confessions not only pre-date the existence of liberal democracies, their subject matter bears no relation to assessing those attributes that we consider essential to the leadership of a political regime.

Most Christians already grasp this truth. For instance, I know of many evangelicals who in the 1980 presidential election voted for Ronald W. Reagan over Jimmy Carter, even though Carter was clearly more evangelical than Reagan. What was decisive for Reagan’s supporters was his policies and not his theology. These evangelicals likely would have chosen Carter over Reagan to teach Sunday School, but they preferred Reagan in the oval office because they believed that Reagan’s policies best advanced the common good.

Is there Scriptural warrant for the notion that the common good should be the standard by which Christians assess candidates? I believe the answer is yes. We have to be careful how we use Scripture to address this question, however, since the Bible’s authors did not reside in liberal democracies.

The common good presumably is achieved when a political regime treats justly its citizens and the institutions that help develop and sustain their virtue. If that is true, and the Bible instructs individuals and political regimes not only to do justice but how, it seems that the Bible does provide us principles by which we can evaluate those running for public office. Scripture instructs the individual and the state to do justice in the following ways:

· Love Our Neighbors. Jesus tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves (Luke 10:27), and that strangers too are entitled to be treated as our neighbors (Luke 10:29–37).

· Help the Less Fortunate. The Bible commands us to help the poor, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and comfort the afflicted (Matt. 25:31–46; James 1:26–27). We can accomplish this through our churches or through government programs.

· Be Just. The Old Testament is replete with calls for justice and condemnations of injustice directed to the state (e.g., Isa. 58:6–10; Deut. 24: 19–22; Prov. 31:8–9).

· Follow God’s Plan for Society. The Ten Commandments (Exod. 20:2–17) tell us that there is a rightly ordered social fabric and describes something of God’s plan for it. In political terms this can be translated to the government respecting and privileging religious liberty, the right to life, traditional marriage and parenthood, and integrity.

A candidate who embraces these ideals and treats people justly is a candidate whose behavior Scripture supports, even if he or she is not a Christian, and is therefore a candidate that a Christian can support with a clear conscience. So, is it permissible for a Christian to vote for a Mormon? Absolutely. In fact, in some cases a Christian’s conscience may require him or her to support the Mormon candidate if that candidate is the person most likely to advance the common good.

— Francis J. Beckwith

NOTES

1. See Terry Eastland, “In 2008, Will It Be a Mormon in America?” The Weekly Standard (June 6, 2005): 21; and Hugh Hewitt, A Mormon in the White House? 10 Things Every American Should Know about Mitt Romney (Chicago: Regnery, 2007).

2. John F. Kennedy, “Address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association” (September 12, 1960), available at Quote DB, http://www.quotedb.com/speeches/greater-houston-ministerial-association.

3. Colleen Carroll Campbell, “The Enduring Costs of John F. Kennedy’s Compromise,” The Catholic World Report (February 2007), http://www.colleen-campbell.com/ articles/020107JFK.htm.

3.

How long can a free republic exist in the absence of the worldview that gave birth to it? The recent presidential election and its tangled aftermath were not just about politics. They were about worldviews gone awry.

The United States of America was founded on a set of specific assumptions: “We hold these truths to be self-evident,” wrote Thomas Jefferson in The Declaration of Independence, “that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.” That is to say, no one human being is intrinsically better than anyone else, because everyone is a creature of God. Furthermore, God has given human creatures, made in His image, certain rights, which can never be taken away because they were endowed by a transcendent God.

It is self-evident that God created human beings and that moral truths are transcendent; these assumptions can be taken for granted across the board, even by non-Christians, such as the deist Mr. Jefferson. Moreover, this particular view of the universe is leavened by other notions, such as human sinfulness, the source of James Madison’s carefully designed balance of powers to prevent any part of the government from tyrannizing the rest. Indeed, this view designed the American republic.

Today, however, the notions of a Creator and a transcendent moral law are no longer “self-evident.” In fact, the nation’s cultural elite routinely attack them. In today’s postmodern climate, truth — whether moral, intellectual, or even scientific — is not grounded in a Creator, nor is it objectively determined at all. Rather, truth is something we construct for ourselves. What we think of as true has been determined either by the cultural group in power or by our own personal views. In other words, we are our own creators, and what is true for one person may not be true for someone else, unless we manipulate them or coerce them into seeing the way we do. Objective facts, principles, or laws have nothing to do with it.

As for rights, contemporary culture is very fond of them, but they are endowed not by any God but by the state. Rather than expressing a moral reality above and beyond the individual and the culture, rights are seen as a construction of society, acting through its governing bodies. Indeed, our government has been constructing rights with great abandon — abortion rights, gay rights, animal rights — rights that can be found nowhere in the Constitution, the Bible, human reason, or nature itself. This is no formula for freedom: rights granted by the state can be taken away by the state. Unlike the case in the biblical universe, rights are no longer “inalienable.”

That Americans today have difficulty with the concept of objective truth is evident in the aftermath of the last year’s presidential election. Who won Florida? We had some good statistics, counted and recounted, that offered a close, though definitive answer; yet, for postmodernists, all objective truth is problematic and open to “interpretation.”

Modernists trust science and technology; postmodernists can make a case against a voting machine. The voting results were opened up to the subjectivity of human counters, whose interpretation of the degree to which a chad of paper was punched out would determine the leader of the free world.

As hand-counters held up ballots to the light, the issue went to the courts to sort out how the election should be conducted. Indeed, the law has premodern standards, coming out of a worldview in which truth is objective and knowable. The law recognizes the possibility of perjury, swearing oaths to give truthful testimony, and determining through rigorous procedures the facts of a case.

Unfortunately, postmodernist legal theory teaches that judges can also construct their own interpretations. The Constitution need not be interpreted according to its original meaning or even its original text. It must be interpreted as a dynamic, living document, according to the needs of the time. It is quite legitimate, according to postmodernist lawyers and judges, to read things into the Constitution, such as the right to an abortion, and an interpretive paradigm to justify such a thing can always be devised later.

The Florida Supreme Court seemed to have that kind of legal theory, letting the recounts go on, subject to the individual interpretation of the counters. The U.S. Supreme Court is currently divided between three liberal jurists, who favor the dynamic view of the Constitution, and three “strict constructionists,” who insist that the Constitution does have an objective meaning. Three more justices are swing voters, who sometimes favor one side and sometimes the other.

When the outcome was decided on the basis of an objective application of the law, pundits on the left howled. Because they believe truth is subjective, they could not conceive of any other explanation than that the conservative judges arbitrarily selected the conservative candidate. Because they believe truth is a matter of power, they claimed they were being oppressed, even though they were quite willing to exercise their own power to get what they wanted.

One more implication of postmodernist politics: because truth is personal, the best way to argue with someone you disagree with is not to try to persuade him or her according to the objective canons of reason or evidence. Since these objective criteria do not apply, there being no transcendent Creator, what one has to do is destroy the person who holds those beliefs; thus, the “borking” of judicial candidates such as Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas, the construction of lies (lying being a legitimate technique since truth is whatever we make it), and vicious personal attacks. The result was the use of unfounded ridicule to discredit President Bush and attempts to destroy the reputation of conservative cabinet nominees.

When the dust settled, we seemed to have ended up with a president who does — unlike the last one — believe in absolutes, someone for whom biblical assumptions about transcendent truth are “self-evident.” There is still hope for the Republic, but governing people who do not share his assumptions will be his biggest challenge.

— Gene Edward Veith

Gene Edward Veith is Professor of English at Concordia University-Wisconsin. He is the author of nine books and the culture editor at World Magazine.