Two imperfect candidates running for president was inevitable. We are all sinners after all. We get that comes with politics. But two flawed candidates placing little emphasis on dignity for the unborn, religious freedom, limited executive power, national unity, or founding principles wasn’t supposed to happen. So can I just admit both choices make me depressed?
Not just the candidate choices, but the conflict they’ve created among my Evangelical friends and colleagues is taking its toll.
Anxieties over principles and priorities have created factions among faithful Evangelical brothers and sisters I know personally. Some of my friends are diehard Never Trumpers. Others are Never Hillary supporters. Me? I’m somewhere frustrated in between. I’m not nervous about the outcome of this presidential election so much as drained by faithful Evangelicals’ back-and-forth inner discord and the consequences our conflict could have after the election is over.
We are split. A recent Gallup poll found that 40 percent of Protestants favored Republican nominee Donald Trump and 35 percent held a favorable view of Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton, as reported by the Institute on Religion and Democracy’s Joseph Rossell.
After the election results, will Evangelicals whose candidate lost play the blame game with one another like disgruntled divorced spouses? I deeply hope not.
Maybe we should start thinking about how the aftermath of the election will affect our current divisions. Perhaps discussions can start among Evangelical leaders on how to reunite afterwards.
We all wish there were better options, but that’s not going to happen before November. So instead, as the body of Christ—whether anti-Hillary, anti-Trump, or somewhere stuck in between—we can be thankful that Jesus Christ is sovereign no matter who is President. No matter how fundamentally transformed the United States might become, the Almighty is still on His throne and in the end He wins. If it sounds simple to you, then I’m sorry. But it is a simple truth that forms the basis of our Christian unity now and after the election votes are tallied.
I’m thankful God isn’t depressed by politics, even if I am.
If you feel the election burn-out like I do (and I suspect you do), then you’ll appreciate Dan Doriani’s encouraging thoughts published over at The Gospel Coalition. Doriani offered:
Because the arguments for all three choices—Trump, Clinton, none of the above—all have a certain plausibility, it’s essential for believers to practice the patience Paul advocates in Romans 14. But if we lay aside Consequentialist assumptions, we aren’t forced to vote for the lesser of two evils. Christians may vote for Trump or Clinton or neither. We serve the sovereign Lord of history. We may do what we judge right, and leave the consequences to him.
(Editor’s note: The original version of this blog post was published by Patheos.com. Click here to read it in its original form.)
Comment by Keith Sweat on September 8, 2016 at 9:14 am
We are called to treat each other with perfect charity, and I believe most of us do/will. We cannot be perfect in knowledge (not even the angels possess that) so we will make mistakes regarding the character and motives of others. “Hence also they may judge not according to truth with regard to the characters of men; and that, not only by supposing good men to be better, or wicked men to be worse, than they are, but by believing them to have been or to be good men who were or are very wicked; or perhaps those to have been or to be wicked men, who were or are holy and unreprovable.”
Comment by Wesbury on September 10, 2016 at 7:26 am
So true. Thank you
Comment by Lee Gilbert on October 23, 2016 at 7:32 pm
Regarding our presidential options, the rhetorical even-handedness of “two flawed candidates” is very deceptive.
Only one candidate is for legal abortion, taxpayer funding of abortion, and supports LGBT activism, including same-sex “marriage.” Moreover, her husband would carry into the White House as “first gentleman” guilt for far more serious offenses against women than Trump has even been accused of, accusations that I for one do not credit. Trump’s “locker room talk” is reprehensible surely, but in the moral calculus of this moment weighs nothing. Anyone who has spent any time in a locker room, a caddy yard, or an army barracks would have heard as bad, and I have heard worse.
Weighed against Hilary Clinton’s policy of keeping the entire nation accessory to the mass murder of babies, Donald Trump comes off splendidly, a comparative innocent. Moreover, in the third debate he made a very strong pro-life commitment and expressed the hope that with the Supreme Court justices he would appoint Roe vs Wade could be overturned.
Yes, both are flawed—as are we all — but only one is fatally flawed. Her opponent deserves our full support if for no other reason than that he is her opponent. Not only that, but in my opinion we are completely mad not to get behind him en masse and make him the Christian candidate. How? By praying for his conversion and and working for his massive victory. Looking at it from a purely political standpoint, even without conversion, if he wins because of Christian and Catholic backing will he not be more apt to give us a hearing, to support our issues?