{"id":4754,"date":"2012-11-21T05:56:13","date_gmt":"2012-11-21T05:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/?p=4754"},"modified":"2012-11-21T20:33:57","modified_gmt":"2012-11-21T20:33:57","slug":"the-christian-retreat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/the-christian-retreat\/","title":{"rendered":"The Christian Retreat"},"content":{"rendered":"

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What Obama’s Re-Election Tells us About America (Part 2)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Obama\u2019s re-election shows us that the Christians living in the nation need a kick in the backside. Obama\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

CNN reported<\/a> <\/strong>that “One-in-four Obama voters were religiously unaffiliated, the second-largest \u201creligious\u201d demographic in the president\u2019s coalition\u2026. Minority Christians \u2013 consisting of black, Asian, Hispanic and mixed-race Americans \u2013 made up 31% of Obama\u2019s coalition, the largest religious group.” American Christians elected Obama!<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t engage in cobelligerents<\/a><\/strong> with a Mormon, especially one claiming to be pro-life and against same-sex \u2018marriage.\u2019<\/p>\n

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\u2019s hard to imagine Romney doing any worse than Obama. Sometimes the most responsible thing to do is to choose the lesser of two evils.<\/p>\n

Leading up to the election a number of Christians told me that they believed it would be wrong\u2014if not sinful\u2014to 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2014certainly from the Christian perspective\u2014the 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<\/a><\/strong> in a recent blog post,<\/p>\n

a vote is [not] an endorsement of, or an identification with any particular candidate\u2014it is simply an attempt to secure a relatively better realization of the common good, and to render less likely particularly serious evils.\u00a0 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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\u2019s 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), \u201cI\u2019m not concerned with which candidate is going to best serve our nation, I\u2019m going to vote for the candidate whose policies will benefit me<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

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PRAY<\/strong>: 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.<\/p>\n

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Further Resources<\/strong><\/p>\n