I would like to address the Christian voter that is tempted to sit this one out, the Christian that knows she can't support Kamala Harris, but worries voting for Trump is morally questionable. I would like to offer some considerations that may not have crossed your mind and you may never have heard articulated before. These considerations will challenge the typical political theology taught amongst evangelicals, but they are actually very biblically and historically sound, while many evangelical priors are relatively modern, innovative notions. Please hear me out.
The first thing you need to understand is that politics is war by other means. It is how collectives of people within a nation or state settle their differences with other collectives in the same nation that hold opposing values and objectives without resorting to violence. In a society organized as a monarchy or aristocracy, this agonism would be relatively removed from the average person. And in a relatively homogenous society, the differences between collectives might be minimal or trivial. But you've been cursed to live in a democracy. (Yes, yes, it's technically a republic, but it's almost completely eroded into something the founders never dreamed of.) And not only a democracy, a massively heterogenous one, filled with factions diametrically opposed on the most fundamental ideas about God, humanity, morality, and teleology (our purposes and ends). This means politics now infects every aspect of life. You don't have to like it, but you do have to face it. To withdraw from this is to surrender this nonviolent war to those who seek the destruction of the values, if not the very persons, in your collective. And the likelihood that the hostile, opposing collective will be tempted to make their victory permanent through actual violence will greatly increase.
The second thing you need to understand is that the Christian gospel does not alter this reality. You are still a human, a member of a family, and also a member of a particular nation and cultural group. And just as being a believer does not remove you from your obligations and relations to your kin it does not remove you from your obligations and relations to your community and nation. You don't get to sit politics out. That doesn't mean you are necessarily called to seek office or become a lobbyist, but it does mean you should cast your vote for the options that will do the most good/least harm to your community and nation. The Scripture strongly condemns those who are without natural affection, that is, those that forsake their families and peoples. It also condemns those that refuse to oppose evil or render good, when circumstances permit. Meaning, unless all your electoral options are equally harmful to your people, you should use your vote for the best option.
There seems to be this notion among evangelicals that you should refuse to vote for anything but (near) perfection. To do otherwise would be to compromise with evil and countenance sin. This may be well meant, but it is foolish. Politicians are not pastors. Just as we do not require absolute moral or ideological purity of a general, we should not require this of those we send to fight the political war on our behalf. We should certainly call for integrity in these areas as much as we can without handing victory to our enemies (more on enemies to come). But in war we accept that there is a hierarchy of goods and that some must be deferred until a more pressing good is achieved.
Also notice that those conservative Christians that often protest most loudly that they will not sully their hands voting for a morally impure man like Donald Trump are very inconsistent. Most of them happily voted for Mitt Romney in 2012. And while Donald Trump is a highly immature and uninformed Christian *at best*, not to mention a serial monogamist and philanderer, family man Mitt Romney is proudly a member of a polytheistic religion. Now set aside your own revulsions and ask which of these sins God finds more reprehensible. Be honest. Don't let late modern, pluralistic American assumptions about the role of religion blind you. Consult your Bible. Note which commandment is the first one.
You may say that perhaps they are equally immoral, but Romney was a more ideologically pure conservative, and that made a vote for him more defensible. I ask you to broaden your horizons beyond neoconservative ideals, which only entered the conservative orbit in the latter half of the last century. Conservatives of yore would have seen far more agreement with their views of foreign policy, economics, and culture matters on the part of Donald Trump than Mitt Romney, even though Trump's basically a nineties Clinton Democrat. Mitt Romney has been extremely lackluster on culture war issues like abortion and sexuality, while Donald Trump delivered the greatest victory on abortion in American history, which the pro life movement has seriously failed to capitalize on.
The fact is there will never be a truly pure candidate. Every vote is a tradeoff, every election is a choice between two sinful and inconsistent choices. It is lamentable that we live in a time where they are so immoral and so bad on so many issues, yet it remains indisputable that one is clearly less so than the other. One seems to make America into a antichristian, globalist technocracy and the other seeks to make it great again.
Moreover, there is this notion that Christians have a duty to stand above politics and be a “moral witness” to society. To advocate for their own interests is viewed as selfish. To seek power is likened to grasping for Sauron’s ring. This is disastrous thinking and historically foreign to most Christian traditions. Assuming they are biblically sound, are not the interests of Christians what is best for all? To say otherwise is moral relativism. If we do not use power, will not the wicked have all the power? How does that benefit our neighbor? What kind of witness is ceding power to those that mock and despise Jesus Christ because we think we are above conflict? No, friend, we must seek to influence how our nation is governed. For the good of our own, yes, but also for the good of all, even if they do not perceive it.
The third thing you need to understand is that we are no longer in the America of happy memory, where most of our differences are slight matters of disagreement over marginal tax rates. The stakes are no longer choosing a candidate that will take America in a more or less prosperous and noble direction. The stakes are choosing a candidate that will liquidate America, selling it to the highest corporate bidders, and replacing the electorate with a new client class of solid left voting foreigners with no claim here apart from whatever benefits they can extract from the treasury, or one that will at least try to put a stop to it. This is existential. It is simply a fact that many of the moral and economic issues you want to be voting on this time around are irrelevant, because if Kamala wins, she'll remake the electorate and the legal system to ensure an actual Christian conservative will never be able to win a national election ever again. There really is only one choice, and sitting this one out because of mean tweets is not it.
It is a supreme irony that God has destined a profane man with so many glaring faults and weaknesses to be the political champion of the hour. This is certainly a judgment upon a feckless and silly American Christianity that has compromised its calling to guide and shape the nation for the glory of Christ and the good of man, even as it pretends its compromise is ‘principled conservatism’ or ‘faithful presence” or ‘moral witness’ or some other catchphrase. It's as if David has refused to fight the Lord's battles and said he was just loving his enemies. The Bible says much about enemies, and while we are to love them, the time still often comes when we must fight them, not because they have personally slighted us, but because they threaten the way of life of our nation. Let us consider the whole counsel of God. It is time to be faithful again, and that means maybe we should actually try to win for once. Maybe we should be political and ensure the right collective holds the power. Maybe we should accept the challenge of battle that requires manfully choosing between imperfect options instead of sitting it out because no primrose path to victory is before us.
It's time to vote for the imperfect man God gave us for this imperfect moment. The man that God preserved from the assassin's bullet. The man that has faced an endless sequence of lawfare, egregious slanders, and losses to his fortune and honor because, for all his glaring faults, he is a patriot that actually loves his country. The man that, while probably not one of us, will not persecute us or our children and who gives our avowed enemies nightmares and panic attacks.
The man that is America's Cyrus, Donald J. Trump.