AGC said:

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We're simply seeing people upset that white evangelicals specifically didn't abandon trump in the face of two incredibly low character individuals, consequently delivering the election to HRC.

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I'm not sure thats it. I can understand voting against Hillary because you think Trump's agenda will be more favorable to your ideas.

I can understand the evangelical base supporting Trump in order to keep HRC out of the White House, I can't understand their continued support. Hell, I'm a better Christian than he is. At least I am capable of talking about Communion without insulting and cheapening something 2 billion people hold sacred. . .

swimmerbabe11 said:

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I read this the other day and couldn't believe I hadn't seen it pointed out elsewhere

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She must not spend much time in the south.

People here in Alabama self identity as one of two denominations:
Christian (really just not-cathloic)
Catholic

Now there might be Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, etc churches but almost no identifies themselves by the denomination of the church they attend. They tend to view the denominations as being separated more by worship style than Doctrine.

More to the point, I'm not sure why that would matter even if she's right. Something like 90-95% of Americans identify themselves as "Middle Class." That doesn't mean analyzing class differences and disparities is meaningless. It's important to break down associations that have predictive value even if the members of those groups are confused about or disagree with the grouping.

I agree her comment just struck me as ridiculous as Ben Shapiro claimng that Republican never tried trickle down economics because the correct name was supply side economics.

RetiredAg said:

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We're simply seeing people upset that white evangelicals specifically didn't abandon trump in the face of two incredibly low character individuals, consequently delivering the election to HRC. It's another attempt at shaming and guilting people into voting differently, rather than attempting to understand why they voted that way. Guilt by association as it were.

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But, as followers of Christ, our job is not to pick the lesser of two evils. Ours is not a "lesser of two evils" faith. Our job is to be a witness to His Kingdom here and now. Our job is to be the hands and feet of Christ now. We damage that witness when we champion those whose worldview is incompatible with His Kingdom. We, the church, doesn't need political power to influence our society. I couldn't care less who won out of Trump or HRC, as they both represent the world's way, not Christ's.

We have no obligation to pick sides between two worldviews that are antichrist. I'd argue we have an obligation to reject both.

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Did Jesus avoid tax collectors or prostitutes or zealots? What would the Pharisees have said about being seen with them. Was that support too? You're too hard on conservatives. Don't you work with the homeless? Would you not help them get jobs if they held anti-Christian world views?

AGC said:

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RetiredAg said:

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We're simply seeing people upset that white evangelicals specifically didn't abandon trump in the face of two incredibly low character individuals, consequently delivering the election to HRC. It's another attempt at shaming and guilting people into voting differently, rather than attempting to understand why they voted that way. Guilt by association as it were.

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But, as followers of Christ, our job is not to pick the lesser of two evils. Ours is not a "lesser of two evils" faith. Our job is to be a witness to His Kingdom here and now. Our job is to be the hands and feet of Christ now. We damage that witness when we champion those whose worldview is incompatible with His Kingdom. We, the church, doesn't need political power to influence our society. I couldn't care less who won out of Trump or HRC, as they both represent the world's way, not Christ's.

We have no obligation to pick sides between two worldviews that are antichrist. I'd argue we have an obligation to reject both.

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Did Jesus avoid tax collectors or prostitutes or zealots? What would the Pharisees have said about being seen with them. Was that support too? You're too hard on conservatives. Don't you work with the homeless? Would you not help them get jobs if they held anti-Christian world views?

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Sorry, but this seems like such an odd comparison. No, Jesus didn't avoid tax collectors, prostitutes or zealots. He also didn't endorse them in their sin, and never took a "lesser of two evils" approach. If Franklin Graham, Robert Jeffress, etc want to hang out and minister to Trump (or HRC), great. That's following the example of Christ. But they champion for him and turn a blind eye to the fact that his, and HRC's, worldview are incompatible w/ the teachings of Christ. Christ worked to draw people to Him and His Kingdom, not rationalized their continue embrace of the world's way.

And this isn't a "conservative" issue for me. I say the same of Christians who hold liberal political views that championed for Hillary. It's about maintaining our witness to the world, and we damage that when we embrace antichrist worldviews. We don't fight evil by electing the "right" people. We fight evil with the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony.

If a homeless non-Christian asked you to be a reference for a job, would you say no because you didn't want to endorse them?

AGC said:

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If a homeless non-Christian asked you to be a reference for a job, would you say no because you didn't want to endorse them?

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This is such a stretch. Would I be willing to damage my witness as a follower of Christ to provide a reference for a homeless friend? Absolutely not. Whether I was willing to be a reference depends on the person and the position.

But, you seem to have ignored the bulk of my post. We aren't to pick the lesser of two evils. We are called to choose a 3rd way that is centered on Christ. By casting our lot with those power-seeking politicians who hold worldviews that are antichrist, we damage our witness. We cease speaking with a prophetic voice when we take our 30 pieces of silver and wrap man's agendas with the facade of Christ. To me, our witness would be much more powerful if we rejected the choice of "lesser evil", and instead chose to stand in the gap for those who are marginalized, oppressed, or adversely impacted by the policies of the "victorious" evil. I think this last election cycle caused immeasurable harm to the witness of the American church.

Heck, Robert Jeffress doesn't even deny that he wants the president to look nothing like Jesus. That's what the "lesser of two evils" tribal mindset breeds, and it's a cancer in the church.

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Can an elected official behave honestly and ethically in their public roles regardless of their personal behavior?

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At times.

The evangelical view is that all have acted unethecially and immorally at times. Every candidate that has ever run for political office, like me, has sinned and will continue to fall short on this side of eternity. Since Jesus does not run for office in elections my only choices are to vote for a sinner or not vote at all.

In the same way a parent wants a kid to make wise choices, the Bible is full of instruction on how we make wise choices in Gods eyes. I think voting for the best candidate is one way to exercise wisdom in decision making. God has allowed us to live in a country where we get a voice in who our leader is. Are we squandering an opportunity through inaction?

AGC said:

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If a homeless non-Christian asked you to be a reference for a job, would you say no because you didn't want to endorse them?

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I wanted to add some clarification to my previous answer on this to make sure we're on the same page.

If I knew a homeless friend was using hard drugs and resorting to crime to feed himself and his addiction, I would not be a reference for them. I would absolutely do what I can to help them take that first necessary step towards sobriety though. I get addiction, and I'd be more than willing to get my hands dirty to help them no matter their relationship with Christ.

If I knew a non-Christian homeless friend that had clearly taken steps to escape their situation, and the next logical step was to find some employment, I would absolutely act as a reference, w/ them full knowing I'll be honest in what I say.

But, as has already been pointed out, your analogy is very poor.

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Are we squandering an opportunity through inaction?

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Refusing to vote doesn't mean one is "inactive". It just means that they may be refusing to choose evil, albeit some may consider it a "lesser" version. Of course, both sides now think that their candidate is the "lesser evil", so we end up just retreating back into this tribal mindset where the other side is the enemy because they're the "greater evil", so we are willing to lower our standard more and more in order to be on the winning team.



***Edit: Btw, I'm not saying it's wrong for someone to vote. My position has long been that if one prayerfully addresses the question and feels led to vote, then by all means vote. I just choose not to because that's where I'm at, but just was addressing the perception that not voting equates to inactivity.

Duncan Idaho said:

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swimmerbabe11 said:

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I read this the other day and couldn't believe I hadn't seen it pointed out elsewhere

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She must not spend much time in the south.

People here in Alabama self identity as one of two denominations:
Christian (really just not-cathloic)
Catholic

Now there might be Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, etc churches but almost no identifies themselves by the denomination of the church they attend. They tend to view the denominations as being separated more by worship style than Doctrine.

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I have not had the same experience at all (in Texas).

My experience is:

Catholic
Denomination
Non-denominational
Christian (=non churchgoing)

swimmerbabe11 said:

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Duncan Idaho said:

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swimmerbabe11 said:

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I read this the other day and couldn't believe I hadn't seen it pointed out elsewhere

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She must not spend much time in the south.

People here in Alabama self identity as one of two denominations:
Christian (really just not-cathloic)
Catholic

Now there might be Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, etc churches but almost no identifies themselves by the denomination of the church they attend. They tend to view the denominations as being separated more by worship style than Doctrine.

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I have not had the same experience at all (in Texas).

My experience is:

Catholic
Denomination
Non-denominational
Christian (=non churchgoing)

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Well Texas isn't really the south.

Dr. Watson said:

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More to the point, I'm not sure why that would matter even if she's right. Something like 90-95% of Americans identify themselves as "Middle Class." That doesn't mean analyzing class differences and disparities is meaningless. It's important to break down associations that have predictive value even if the members of those groups are confused about or disagree with the grouping.

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Do you not think it is interesting that so many Americans identify themselves as middle class? Is there information in the discrepancy between perception and reality?

Or how most people probably don't identify themselves as the "evangelical" group that is scapegoated with Trump's election?

My experience is also that most yankees don't differentiate between Texas and the South.

A highly relevant article:

The painfully obvious reason Christians voted for Trump (that liberals just don't understand) by Jonathon van Maren

On the contrary my analogy elicited the response I wanted. You wrote two responses and several paragraphs to address a one sentence question.

In this forum you seem to keep saying the same thing: no lesser of two evils. Evangelicals voted for him for a host of other reasons but you don't seem to care about that. They can write paragraphs (and I stress they because I didn't vote for him). You have a laser-like focus on white evangelicals, yet the way you talk about us makes me wonder why you don't lament the rest of the evangelical church having already gone down the path.

RetiredAg said:

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Are we squandering an opportunity through inaction?

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Refusing to vote doesn't mean one is "inactive". It just means that they may be refusing to choose evil, albeit some may consider it a "lesser" version. Of course, both sides now think that their candidate is the "lesser evil", so we end up just retreating back into this tribal mindset where the other side is the enemy because they're the "greater evil", so we are willing to lower our standard more and more in order to be on the winning team.



***Edit: Btw, I'm not saying it's wrong for someone to vote. My position has long been that if one prayerfully addresses the question and feels led to vote, then by all means vote. I just choose not to because that's where I'm at, but just was addressing the perception that not voting equates to inactivity.

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Unless it leads to trump?

AGC said:

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On the contrary my analogy elicited the response I wanted. You wrote two responses and several paragraphs to address a one sentence question.

In this forum you seem to keep saying the same thing: no lesser of two evils. Evangelicals voted for him for a host of other reasons but you don't seem to care about that. They can write paragraphs (and I stress they because I didn't vote for him). You have a laser-like focus on white evangelicals, yet the way you talk about us makes me wonder why you don't lament the rest of the evangelical church having already gone down the path.

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The subject of the OP was white evangelicals. Why wouldn't I talk about them in the context of the OP? And yes, I do keep saying "no lesser of two evils" because our faith is not a "lesser of two evils" faith. I've heard far too many Christians proclaim "lesser of two evils" or "we're not voting for a pastor" as a way to justify voting for people with antichrist worldviews.

You used a horrible analogy to try and create some sort of trap. Sorry my answer was longer than you had hoped for, but I was simply making sure my position was clear. I also don't know what your point is about the length of my response compared to the length of your question. There's no correlation between the length of a question and the length of its answer.

AGC said:

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RetiredAg said:

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Are we squandering an opportunity through inaction?

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Refusing to vote doesn't mean one is "inactive". It just means that they may be refusing to choose evil, albeit some may consider it a "lesser" version. Of course, both sides now think that their candidate is the "lesser evil", so we end up just retreating back into this tribal mindset where the other side is the enemy because they're the "greater evil", so we are willing to lower our standard more and more in order to be on the winning team.



***Edit: Btw, I'm not saying it's wrong for someone to vote. My position has long been that if one prayerfully addresses the question and feels led to vote, then by all means vote. I just choose not to because that's where I'm at, but just was addressing the perception that not voting equates to inactivity.

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Unless it leads to trump?

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I think I've been pretty darn consistent in stating that I think both Trump and Hillary hold antichrist worldviews. Stop retreating into this tribal mindset where you see any criticism solely through the lens of your preferred team. And yes, I know you didn't vote for Trump. When I say "preferred team", I'm talking about party in general.

Trap? There was no right answer. You took the time to respond in a well thought out and documented manner. Much like those polled could likely do if given the chance. Much like many of my friends and family can do in a heartbeat regarding their votes for trump. Lesser of two evils is a succinct explanation, shorthand really, or a reason for voting for a government representative - not a church leader. Schmendler thought my other analogy was terrible too, but really without a state religion why would you expect his morality to conform to yours or Christ's? Is he in office to run the economy or socially engineer our society? If the answer is anything but lead spiritually, why so much emphasis on character?

AGC said:

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Trap? There was no right answer. You took the time to respond in a well thought out and documented manner. Much like those polled could likely do if given the chance. Much like many of my friends and family can do in a heartbeat regarding their votes for trump. Lesser of two evils is a succinct explanation, shorthand really, or a reason for voting for a government representative - not a church leader. Schmendler thought my other analogy was terrible too, but really without a state religion why would you expect his morality to conform to yours or Christ's? Is he in office to run the economy or socially engineer our society? If the answer is anything but lead spiritually, why so much emphasis on character?

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As followers of Christ, we are always witnesses to Him. We don't get to take that hat off when entering the voting booth. "Lesser of two evils" still results in evil, and as we've seen, damages the witness of the church. I fail to see how "lesser of two evils" is a valid justification to embrace antichrist worldviews. We don't have to choose a lesser evil. We have Christ as our King.

Why would I expect his, or Hillary's, morality to conform to Christ's? Because they both claim to be Christians. If they didn't make such claims, then I wouldn't expect it. But they do, so they choose to be held to that standard. As Paul said, we are to judge those within the church, and once people like Trump claim Christ, then they will be held to those standards. If you can't perform your job without abandoning the way of Christ, then you shouldn't be doing that job.

RetiredAg said:

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Speaking of homeless, I do have some great news. A guy my wife and I had developed a close relationship with over the past couple years got a job today at Wal-Mart! He's thrilled. He had been doing some work through a staffing agency over the last 6-9 months, but finally got something permanent.

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You can thank Trump' s economy for that

schmendeler said:

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I think most americans think that if you aren't homeless or a multi-millionaire then you are middle class.

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We all think of ourselves as average. We also tend to cluster around people who are in our own socioeconomic lvel. Therefore, we tend to think of that as the normal, thus middle class.

RetiredAg said:

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Speaking of homeless, I do have some great news. A guy my wife and I had developed a close relationship with over the past couple years got a job today at Wal-Mart! He's thrilled. He had been doing some work through a staffing agency over the last 6-9 months, but finally got something permanent.

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Good on you my friend. I am a little confused by your antichrist remarks as to my knowledge, neither Hillary or Trump have denied Christ as the Son of God.

Solo Tetherball Champ said:

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schmendeler said:

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I think most americans think that if you aren't homeless or a multi-millionaire then you are middle class.

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We all think of ourselves as average. We also tend to cluster around people who are in our own socioeconomic lvel. Therefore, we tend to think of that as the normal, thus middle class.

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Agreed. I imagine most of the posters on here are at minimum on the cusp of "upper" class.

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As followers of Christ, we are always witnesses to Him. We don't get to take that hat off when entering the voting booth. "Lesser of two evils" still results in evil, and as we've seen, damages the witness of the church. I fail to see how "lesser of two evils" is a valid justification to embrace antichrist worldviews. We don't have to choose a lesser evil. We have Christ as our King.

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Retired, I don't find myself disagreeing with you often but I'm not following some of these statements.

1. "Lesser of two evils" still results in evil.

• Not voting still results in evil. However by not voting the opportunity to restrain evil is forfeited.

2. "damages the witness of the church"

• Not if we make our case. Example: DT and HC both have made decisions that I disagree with which causes me to have a difficult time trusting either. However when I consider things like abortion, taxes, wars, honesty, same sex marriage, which of those values does God value most. I'm convinced that human life is more important than taxes. Given the option between two imperfect candidates I'm going to vote for the one that is most in line with what I think God values most. In my opinion Jesus would be the only perfect candidate because He is perfect in power yet humble, a Mighty King yet He serves, Holy, righteous, and just yet gracious and merciful. In this election, Jesus is not on the ballot and I have a free choice to try and make a difference.

3. The antichrist world view: steal, kill, destroy, lie, cheat, deceive, blind people from placing their faith in Jesus.

• I believe there's one party that wants to silence Christian teaching, praying, etc more than the other.
• I believe there's one party that more in favor than killing the innocent than the other.
• Voting doesn't guarantee that all will be perfect but it gives us a chance to make a difference for the good.

4. If all Christians didn't vote, what view would be guaranteed to flourish?

Pay special attention to the word "Restrain" below. There's a difference between supporting evil and restraining the inevitable evil.

3 Let no one in any way deceive you, for it will not comeunless the apostasy comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, 4 who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God. 5 Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things? 6 And you know what restrains him now, so that in his time he will be revealed. 7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. 8 Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; 9 that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, 10 and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. 2 Thessalonians 2:3

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Well IMO this discussion isn't going anywhere productive so let me try and tweak it. Is there a positive, normative scriptural basis for why evangelicals *should* place greater importance on the personal ethical and moral behavior of people they vote for than secular society does? Or is the bible simply silent on this issue and Christians are at liberty to sort it out fpr themselves individually?

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Does the Bible say anything about driving a car? Yes and no.

Since cars were not invented one will not find an instruction manuel from GMC about driving an automobile, however we do have instructions on governing authorities which we can apply to how we drive a car.

Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority?

Likewise I do not believe we have instructions about how to vote in a democractic republic. However we can glean God's values and priorities throughout the scriptures. What mattered more to God religious practices or character? What do you think would matter more to God, tax policy or abortion?

For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it;

You are not pleased with burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit;
A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.