The fifth most popular post last year at The Christian Nerd got a little political. After a contentious campaign and the morning after the election, I was compelled to write something. I wasn’t as concerned with the results as I was how we as Christians viewed our candidate of choice.
Pops: You think you can drive a car and change the world? It doesn’t work like that!
Speed: Maybe not, but it’s the only thing I know how to do and I gotta do something.
I can’t drive the Mach 5, but I’ve got The Christian Nerd and I’ve gotta do something.
I understand people who voted for Hillary Clinton because they couldn’t bring themselves to support Donald Trump. I understand people who voted for Donald Trump because they couldn’t bring themselves to support Hillary Clinton. Our political parties failed us by presenting two candidates, neither of whom could be nominated without major reservations.
Now that Donald Trump has won his supporters get to take their victory lap. I took a victory lap a week ago when the Cubs won the World Series. Winning is great. Winning is fun. To the winners go the spoils. None of those victory laps, though, should be taken on the high horse.
I’ve seen a lot of Christians claiming that Trump was the moral choice for President. Trump said that he was pro-life, which was enough for many Christians to throw their support behind him. One moral proclamation doesn’t make someone moral, though. James 2 in fact says the exact opposite: “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.”
Donald Trump has stumbled in far more than one point of the law. He is greedy. He is sexist. He uses racist language. He uses vulgar language. He’s been married multiple times. He’s a sinner in need of grace just as much as I am, but no one is telling me that I’m the moral choice for anything.
Again, Clinton isn’t any better than Trump. But I haven’t seen as many Christians claiming that she was the moral choice for President.
As Christians we like to sit atop our moral high horse. In the Bible we have a God-given standard to help guide and direct our lives. Jesus has shown us the best way to live and I try my best to follow his example. If we claim, though, that Trump is anything remotely close to moral, then we lose our footing as followers of Jesus. If we align our lives with the morality of Jesus, then we can’t sully his example by attaching it to Trump, or Clinton, in any way.
Neither candidate presented a moral choice. We could have supported the candidates because we liked their policies, believed in their vision for our country or simply opposed their opponent. But we can’t fool ourselves into thinking either was a moral choice. Unfortunately politics don’t attract the most morally upstanding people, which means we shouldn’t compromise our moral standards in support of any politician.
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