by Anonymous Logician, Copyright May 19, 2006, all rights reserved. 860 views
Except for Anabaptists who've sworn off (or, I don't know, affirmed off) all involvement in civil government, Christians have long debated how to biblically cast their votes. What is the Christian's duty with regard to political elections?
Two hard-line responses have emerged from this controversy. The first sizes up the candidates and says that we should basically pick the lesser of two evils, lest the Other Guy get into office through our negligence, and a Worse Thing come upon us. The other view says that to vote for said lesser of two evils is still a vote for evil, and that we should choose only biblically-qualified candidates, even if they have as much chance of winning as, in one writer's words, Jerry Falwell has of being elected pope by the next college of cardinals.
But neither view has yet won me over, and here's why. Either way, we're voting for some kind of evil. If the third-party advocates can accuse Bush supporters of voting for a bad idea, the Bush supporters can reply that the third-party candidates, by taking conservative votes away to the third party, are making it more likely for someone like Kerry to be elected. Wouldn't that make them partly responsible for what happened?