Something of Which to be Proud?

Guest posted by tim, The Godless Heathen

Responding to this piece, “Jesus does not endorse your candidate” by Donald Sensing, a very thought provoking comment by ‘ahem’ over at American Digest -

“The function of the two-party system in our republic—where numerous unique interests compete, yet strive to coexist in peace—is to muster consensus along the broadest possible lines. Those lines in the United States are Left and Right: destruction or conservation, secularism or faith, death or life, dependency or responsibility, pessimism or optimism, relativism or objective truth, anarchy or the rule of law, state control or personal freedom.

Sure, you can form your own political party with the 5 other guys in the world who think precisely as you do, but your effect on the culture is bound to be nil, or close to it; to affect society, you must team up with people of dissimilar interests, and a two-party system is the most efficient way of doing this.

Christians like Sensing don’t seem to realize that the Perfect is not just an enemy of the Good, but its deadliest enemy, and that petulantly withholding their votes until Perfection or Apocalypse comes not only hurts their fellow Christians, but also hurts every other innocent person in the world who relies upon the prevalence of Christian ideals to make their lives bearable. Think, for a moment, of the tens of thousands of Yazidis, secular Iranians, Iraqis and Syrians, and Middle Eastern Christians who would still be alive today if the Left had not prevailed in our last presidential election. They prevailed because Christians like Sensing refused to participate over some self-righteous and, frankly, selfish reservation about a candidate.

In this instance, Donald Trump, however absurd it may seem to us, is currently bearing the standard for American Christians. Voting for him is voting against all the injustice and misery that will be caused if the Left prevails—all the evil, all the chaos, all the innocent blood that is bound to be shed.

I would remind Reverend Sensing and other Christians—who really ought to know better—that the Jews of Christ’s time had such a fixation on the Messiah appearing in the form of a strong military commander that when he ultimately appeared in the form of a carpenter, they were unable to recognize him. Some—hell, all—of the greatest figures in the Bible are deeply flawed: murderers, adulterers, liars, etc.

For:

“…my power is made perfect in weakness…”

and

“…the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom…”

Withholding your vote is not a sign of virtue; in fact, it may be the exact opposite. Selfish pride is the worst of all sins.

Voting for the side that best represents Christian interests, however imperfectly, allows the Christian point of view to stay in the game. Abandon the field, and we lose all possibility of influence on the greater society.

I am an Eastern Orthodox Christian who is sick to death at the cowardice and sanctimony of American Christians and their self-absorbed rationalizations for not participating in the current political battles shaping our society. Because they insist on operating at such an ‘exalted’ ethical level, America now has atheists, statists and terrorists running the show.

Do you really believe that’s something of which to be proud?”