The Christian Retreat

What Obama’s Re-Election Tells us About America (Part 2)

Obama’s re-election shows us that the Christians living in the nation need a kick in the backside. Obama’s victory was made possible by the thousands of Christians who supported him, as well as by those who did not support him yet decided not to vote for Romney.

CNN reported that “One-in-four Obama voters were religiously unaffiliated, the second-largest “religious” demographic in the president’s coalition…. Minority Christians – consisting of black, Asian, Hispanic and mixed-race Americans – made up 31% of Obama’s coalition, the largest religious group.” American Christians elected Obama!

Obviously Obama did not have the support of very many conservative Christians, yet many of these refused to vote. Obama won by a slim enough margin in the swing states that some experts believe the results would have been different had enough evangelicals and conservative Christians voted for Romney.

Leading up to the election, most of the Christians I spoke with told me that they could not bring themselves to vote for Romney even if it meant Obama got another four years. One of the common justifications evangelical Christians gave for not voting for Romney is because they were concerned about his Mormonism. While it is certainly true that we should be concerned about any false religion, it is unclear why so many Christians felt they couldn’t engage in cobelligerents with a Mormon, especially one claiming to be pro-life and against same-sex ‘marriage.’

Certainly Romney was not the ideal candidate from a Christian perspective, especially since he was so quick to merely echo whatever he thought people wanted to hear. Yet precisely because Romney did have a conservative base to please, it is possible that the electorate could have kept him accountable to some of his campaign promises. Wishful thinking? Perhaps. However, with three Supreme Court nominations coming up in the next four years, it’s hard to imagine Romney doing any worse than Obama. Sometimes the most responsible thing to do is to choose the lesser of two evils.

Leading up to the election a number of Christians told me that they believed it would be wrong—if not sinful—to choose the lesser of two evils. When pressed, those who put forward this concern were never able to explain why choosing the lesser of two evils is wrong from a Biblical point of view. And when you stop to think about it, unless Jesus Himself were running for office, any vote is going to be a vote for the lesser of two evils, at least on some level.

The concern that Christians should not vote for the lesser of two evils fails to appreciate why we actually vote in the first place. From almost any ethical perspective—certainly from the Christian perspective—the decision who to vote for ought to be based on what benefits the common good, and not on there being a candidate we feel happy to get behind (which, if we’re honest, will rarely be the case). As my friend Brad Littlejohn explained it in a recent blog post,

a vote is [not] an endorsement of, or an identification with any particular candidate—it is simply an attempt to secure a relatively better realization of the common good, and to render less likely particularly serious evils.  That being the case, one may vote for a candidate whom one expects to make a number of evil decisions, without being personally culpable for those decisions, if one believes that on the whole, justice will be better served by that candidate.

Unfortunately, the concept of needing to serve the common good plays far too small a role within the political discourse of the conservative Christian community of America. The Christian right in America is becoming increasingly individualistic, myopic and self-serving. In reaction to the incipient socialism of the political left, America’s conservative community is fast becoming characterized by individualistic opportunists who associate any appeal to the common good with utilitarianism or collectivism. I first started realizing this was a problem when a conservative businessman said to me (in another election), “I’m not concerned with which candidate is going to best serve our nation, I’m going to vote for the candidate whose policies will benefit me.”

PRAY: that the Christians in America would move from a posture of retreat and compromise to become a light to the nation. Ask that during the years of Obama’s second term, the Lord would raise Christians up to witness to the truth and bring America to her knees in repentance.

Further Resources

• America’s Changing Spiritual Environment: What Obama’s Re-Election Tells us About America (Part 1)
• Image over Reality: What Obama’s Re-Election Tells us About America (Part 3)
• Changing Ideas of Liberty: What Obama’s Re-Election Tells us About America (Part 4)
• A Stronger President: What Obama’s Re-Election Tells us About America (Part 5)

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