Dr. Randall McElwain wrote the following insightful post on his FB page. To everyone who decides that they cannot in good conscience vote for Trump (and I may be one of them) there is something that is CRITICALLY important to remember, especially if you are making this decision on grounds of Christian conscience:
You must not sit at home. You must go and vote!
Every one who makes the conscious choice to cede the Presidential election to the Democrat must still cast their vote for the best available Congressional candidate, to provide a check against the liberal president. And, like it or not, we must go vote for the best state judicial candidates, school board members, city council members, state officeholders, and the like. Your vote has much higher weight there.
This is our Christian duty. We cannot complain about bathroom bills, or homosexual rights, or lack of restriction on abortions, or the sorry state of the public schools, or any of the innumerable other policy conditions in our country if we fail to exercise our right to vote for the people who enact such policies.
No excuses.
Now read Randy's excellent commentary which follows.
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May 4 · Public
In this post, I am breaking two of
my personal commandments:
1) Thou shalt not post on Facebook.
2) Thou shalt CERTAINLY not post
about politics on Facebook.
However… now that it appears certain
that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee for president, I am starting
to hear the theme among many evangelicals: “Christians must not sit out the
election. We have a duty to vote. Trump is better than the Democratic
candidate. So, we must hold our nose and vote for the Republican
candidate."
I beg to disagree. I have voted in
every election since I reached voting age. But with Donald Trump as the Republican
nominee, I am convinced that it is my duty to sit out this presidential
election.
Look at the arguments of those
encouraging us to "hold your nose and vote."
We are told that “we are voting for
a president, not for a pastor.” Donald Trump’s problem is not that he is
unsuited to be my pastor; the problem is that he is unsuited to my president.
The first election that grabbed my
interest in 1980. As the first American president to be divorced and remarried,
and as a Hollywood actor with a rather checkered past, Ronald Reagan was not
suited to be my pastor. However, he had a long record of support for
conservative principles, and I was happy to have him as my president.
To my friends who point to Reagan as
the model for a Trump presidency, let me break the bad news to you: Donald
Trump is no Ronald Reagan. He has no record of supporting conservative
principles. To those who say, “Yes, Donald Trump was liberal in the past, but
he may have changed,” he hasn’t changed. The “past” is as recent as Trump’s
endorsement of Planned Parenthood during this campaign!
We are told that Hilary (or Bernie)
will be worse than Trump. While this may be true, the longterm damage done by a
Trump presidency may well be worse than either of the Democratic candidates.
Consider:
1) For the past several elections,
evangelicals have been taken for granted by the Republican party. “Moderate”
candidates such as Bob Dole, John McCain, and Mitt Romney have assumed that
“Evangelicals have no other option; they can’t vote for the Democrat. So, we
can ignore them and run to the center.”
I held my nose and voted for these.
And the stench keeps getting worse. It is time for evangelicals to show that we
are not puppets of the Republican Party. If we vote for Donald Trump, we can no
longer claim to be guided by moral principles; we are just one more special
interest group. In that case, we deserve to be ignored! When evangelical
“leaders” such as Jerry Falwell, Jr endorse Donald Trump, they give our
opponents good reason to scoff when we claim that evangelicals vote for moral
principles, not a political party. This election is an opportunity for
evangelicals to show that we vote conscience, not party.
2) It maybe better to have a liberal
president who is identified as a Democrat than a liberal president who is
identified as a Republican. If Hilary Clinton wins, she will support disastrous
policies - but at least she will be opposed by Republicans. If Donald Trump
wins, it is very unlikely that Republicans will stand up to him.
Based on his history, it is fair to
assume that Donald Trump will appoint liberal Supreme court justices. Those
appointments will be supported by Democrats and will not be vigorously opposed
by establishment Republicans since he will be “one of ours.” (Republican
senators have no decent record of standing up to Republican presidents who
propose liberal justices - see David Souter, appointed by George H.W. Bush and
Anthony Kennedy, appointed by Ronald Reagan).
We are told that if we lose this
election, evangelicals will lose our influence in American politics. Again, I
beg to disagree. Sometimes you must lose a battle in order to win a war. Donald
Trump will very probably lose this election. He consistently polls below both
Clinton and Sanders. In the general election, his extreme rhetoric, vulgar
language, questionable business deals, and self-indulgent lifestyle will become
huge liabilities. If I were Hilary Clinton, I would be secretly begging for a
Trump nomination; the attack ads write themselves.
So, why should evangelicals share
the blame for his loss? Instead, we should lose strategically. If a big
majority of evangelicals openly boycott the election, it will give a message to
the Republican Party: “If you continue to ignore our concerns, you will never
win another presidential election.” We will suffer a short term loss for a long
term gain.
There is a fairly recent precedent
(from the other side): the 1984 campaign of Jesse Jackson. Jackson ran a
campaign to protest the Democratic party’s tendency to take black voters for granted.
Many commentators blame Walter Mondale’s landslide loss to Ronald Reagan on
Jesse Jackson’s split of the party. However, this loss is credited with laying
the groundwork for Obama’s win in 2008.
If we can use a 2016 loss to lay the
foundation for a genuine conservative win in 2020, it will be a “good
loss."
If Mr. Trump is nominated, I believe
there is a very good argument for evangelicals sitting out the presidential
vote en masse. This should be done not quietly, but publicly and vocally.
Evangelical pastors should encourage their members not to vote in the
presidential election, while encouraging 100% participation in state and
congressional elections. This will do two things:
1) It may help preserve a Republican
Senate to oppose Hilary’s agenda.
2) An unprecedented disparity
between the lack of evangelical participation in the presidential vote and in
congressional/state votes will highlight the impact of evangelicals on an
election. Perhaps we can regain an evangelical voice in the Republican party.
A final thought. God is not a
Republican; God is not a Democrat; God is not even an American. Regardless of
who wins the election, God’s Kingdom will not be defeated. As Chuck Colson
reminded us years ago, “The Kingdom of God does not fly Air Force One."
Is it possible that the church in
America will face difficult times and even suffering? Yes.
Is it possible that evil will
triumph in the short term? Yes.
Is it possible that God’s Kingdom
will be defeated? Absolutely not!
As evangelicals, we may be short-range
pessimists - 2017 may be difficult. However, we must be long-range optimists -
God will triumph!
