It was 1992. Even though I had a decade of ministry behind me, they were in small churches, and I did not regard myself as any great “veteran” of the vocation. I was part of an inter-church team, working on a project with some other ministers of my ilk; similar background, similar church of origin, similar training. By all appearances, we were four peas in a pod. It was an election year, so politics was one of the obvious topics to distract the minds of four young preachers away from what they were supposed to be focusing on. For me, it was a pretty easy choice that year. The topic of abortion made it easy, and I shared as much.
That was the first time I heard a fellow-believer utter these words: “I like to think I’m not a single-issue voter.” I was actually a bit taken back. I would not consider myself a single-issue voter either, but I also thought that it should be fairly obvious that not all issues are equal. So, I sparred with him a bit. We got back to work. His words continued to perplex me. They never became one bit more palatable over time. But, they seemed to be such an aberration to how any thinking Christian should articulate himself or herself that I did not walk away vexed. I was a little worried about this individual, but I was not particularly worried about the state of the church as a whole.
Now, we are approaching the election of 2020. I DO find myself vexed. I DO find myself quite worried about the church and the worldliness of thought that has been embraced by professed Christians; many sheep, but also not a few of the shepherds and pastors (so-called) of the flock of God. The script has so-flipped in the last 28 years that even many writers and leaders among “evangelicals” (a word that has lost any consensus of meaning) are actually producing arguments as to why Christians are safe to wink at this issue. Long-passed are the straw-men arguments of “rape and incest” or “life of the mother” as the reason abortions should be legal. Long-gone as well are the empty mantras such as “rare but legal.” In fact, some in the visible church have become so darkened in their understanding that they now claim abortion is a Christian cause.
What I have to say here is not written to the pro-choice crowd. It will only infuriate them ... so be it. It is written to those who profess to follow Christ. My prayer is for changed hearts, but it may very well cost me some friends and relatives. It may make it difficult for old acquaintances to look at me in the same way. I have counted that cost, and with a degree of fear and trembling, I accept it. Today, the words coming from professed believers: “I’m not a single-issue voter,” no longer sound just like a strange and disturbing oddity. They now sound like the deceived and calloused boasts of darkened minds making a pretense of enlightenment.
Let me reiterate what I believed in 1992: “All issues are not equal.” Now, let me elaborate upon what I meant then: “All issues are not equal … they are not even political. Some, like abortion, are moral. They are theological. They are spiritual. They are only societal in that they expose the utter depravity of a collective of people.
The final catalyst that provoked me into putting these thoughts onto paper was an article from someone who claimed to be an “ardent pro-lifer” who was trying to encourage Christians to not be afraid to cast their vote for the candidate supported by the ardently pro-abortion party. It was a rather thinly-veiled diatribe against the other candidate in view of his past sins and current style. In defense of the man she was endorsing, she called him a man who has “struggled” with his faith. Others would conclude that he is merely one more politician who has compromised his faith for expediency.
The writer completely lost credibility with me when she began a series of challenges prefaced with the words: “I cannot take you seriously when …” Each challenge was essentially “I cannot take you seriously when you claim this virtue is important to you but you ignore some lack of virtue in the sitting president.” These lacks of virtue were typically sins of the heart, which God indeed takes seriously … just as he takes seriously my sins of the heart, your sins of the heart, and even the sins of the heart of the sanctimonious author of the article. My immediate reaction to her, and I very much stand by it, would be to answer, “I cannot take you seriously when you claim to be an “ardent pro-lifer” even as you attempt to persuade your readers into voting for a candidate representing a political party that has based its platform on the sins of Romans 1.
According to Paul, societies on the precipice of being turned-over by God to the consequences of their sinfulness also endorse deviant sexual practices, undermine parental and other kinds of authority, as well as engage in ruthless and violent behavior. Additionally, they are described as “unloving” or “heartless” (Romans 1:31). Of course, those are the renderings of translations that came into existence for the so-called “sake of clarity.” Unfortunately, “simplicity” does not always equate to “clarity.” The word Paul uses is astorgous. Essentially, that is a negative prefix followed by storge. You may recall that Greek has several words that are translated into English as “love.” Storge refers to the natural familial affection of parent to child and child to parent. Older versions are more precise when they render the term “without natural affection.” The infanticide we know as abortion is graphically captured by the term astorgous.
Here is the reality on the ground in 2020: the American voter has a choice between two candidates who are flawed and sinful, each in their own spectacular ways. Here is the irony: many among a flawed and sinful electorate will make a choice in November based on how the flawed and sinful advocates of each candidate can make the case that “their guy” is the lesser of two evils. If you think that your vote needs to be based on determining which candidate is the lesser of two evils, you might just be too naïve to vote. If that is our idea of self-governance, we would be just as well off with a king.
The right to have a say in determining who will lead us is a rather unique phenomenon in human history. When that process becomes about ANYTHING beyond issues, it becomes as absurd as attempting to return to Junior High School to vote for the “Most Popular Girl and Boy.” Do you really believe that you are adequately insightful so as to determine which candidate is the more righteous of the two? Can you really even know if they are more or less righteous than you? Stick to the issues. And, as I think may have already mentioned, “All issues are not equal.”
I have avoided the use of the proper names of the political parties and their respective candidates. It is not to insult anyone’s intelligence. It is a “style” thing. My agenda is to keep you focused on issues and not personalities. If someone tries to persuade you to vote against your own convictions about abortion based on their own hatred (can we please quit parsing words?) of one of the candidates, do not be gaslighted. Redundancy may be in order here. “All issues are not equal.”
Occasionally, I respond to someone’s Facebook post or a comment within the string, only to later shake my head and wonder, “What was the point?” The spiritual darkness of this age cannot be adequately addressed in a handful of characters. I used the term “infanticide” as a synonym for abortion in one such comment. The response it drew was to scoff at the term “infanticide” and to invoke the mantra of “a woman’s right to choose.” Who declared that term sacred? It is used these days as though it is some sort of a holy doctrine. Even many Christians are afraid to challenge it. It is not blasphemy to question it.
No matter how forceful, heartstring-tugging or manipulative is the rhetoric of pro-abortion advocates, and no matter how convoluted the spin of their arguments, the activity of abortion involves the termination of a human life. No one can sanitize that with rhetoric. In some states, this infanticide is allowed up to the moment of birth; in a couple of states, a little beyond that moment. Infanticide is a perfectly sound synonym for abortion. The satanic ploy of muddling reality with euphemisms and soaring rhetoric is as old as the Fall.
One “Christian” argument for abortion is that Jesus never spoke to the issue. I would ask, “In view of what we know of first-century Judaism and of the place that the Law of Moses held in that society, do you think He really needed to?” A sound biblical argument can be made against abortion, but to Christians who seem to be a little gray on this matter, does not “Thou shall not kill” cover it for you? To my knowledge, Jesus also did not speak to cyber-crime, pedophilia, speeding or crossing against the signal.
Once upon a time, a man named Cyrus became the king of Persia, a nation that had conquered Babylon after that kingdom had carried the Jews into foreign exile. That turned out to be a very good thing for God’s people. Cyrus ended their captivity. Now, this was not happenstance. God decreed it in advance. The Bible makes this clear. Now, was Cyrus a godly king or simply a secular king that God raised up for His Own purpose? The evidence seems to point to the latter. Still, I wonder how many Jews disapproved of being freed by a pagan. I am not suggesting that such clarity will ever be available to us in this current election cycle, before or after November 3rd, only that God raising up Whoever He chooses for His Own purposes is not an unprecedented thing.
If you cannot bring yourself to vote for either candidate, that is up to you. To not vote at all is not a popular option, but it is the voter’s right, and I could conceive of such a scenario for myself. But, so long as the issues (especially, the greatest of issues) are so dramatically contrasted, my choice is an easy one. I don’t have to base my decision on my affection for one man, my disdain for another, or a relative balance of affection and disdain for either.
John MacArthur has gone on record: “There’s no way that a Christian can affirm the slaughter of babies, homosexual activity, homosexual marriage, or any kind of gross immorality” (cited by Michael Gryboski in Christian Post). I have often joked to friends that I can never be as sure of as many things as is Dr. MacArthur. But, I’ll go this far: I will never be able to wrap my head around the idea that a Bible-believer can affirm these things simply because they personally despise any candidate.
