To Vote or Not to Vote?

Actually, that is not the question. Nor is the question the lesser of two evils. Those who know better know very well that another victory for Rockefeller Republicanism is merely the latest drop in the IV of our slow march toward global totalitarianism. It may buy us another half decade of time, but at the cost of a potential wedge into a real, substantive reversal. Much like the nobles in Braveheart, we must choose between one more amicable concession or else a much more threatening, courageous step forward. And so we content ourselves with another lesser evil. We are unaware that the ground behind us is inching ever closer to the cliff. The same thing must be said, incidentally, to all those who talk so romantically about secession from the union. Not yet, my friends. The only way out is forward. Such a step out of the mainstream will not be without its own cost—just as everything else worth doing in life comes at a price.

We are not suggesting that the only option is to vote for Ron Paul, or some third party’s candidate in a few weeks. What we are saying is that, no matter who the Christian votes for, we have to stop treating politics like some disassociated item on an all-you-can-eat buffet table, as if there are no clear, straight inferences from theology that demand right reasoning in the public square. This is just as unbiblical as to inflate the role of politics in the Christian life. Both extremes—political messianism and pietism—are unacceptable, given the freedom that we have been granted by God, and the relative peace and prosperity in which we live.

If a particular believer is persuaded (as I would like the opportunity to persuade you) that the welfare state is designed to spitefully destroy the inner-city and the immigrant and subject them to chains in exchange for their permanent vote, that abortion is the taking of a life that is made in God’s image, that the plantation school system has succeeded in dumbing down upwards of four generations now who are disconnected from the intellectual tools requisite for the maintenance of civil liberty, and that the present United States government is a rogue institution in violation of the ninth and tenth amendments of the Constitution, and its perpetrators should be brought to justice—if you are a conscientious believer who is convinced of those facts, then that same conscience dictates that you act accordingly. No people in history have been granted so many blessings and have done so little to preserve them. That is to our everlasting shame.

The opposite track from thinking in “bits and pieces,” as Schaeffer called it, for four solid years, and then pulling the lever for the walking slogan with the ‘R’ one Tuesday afternoon, is for the church to begin cultivating a unified program of education that moves from the university down through adult education (Sunday school and weeknight Bible studies), then down into Christian schools, homeschooling curriculum and networks, as well as calculated infiltration onto the secular campuses. When we speak of a unified education, we are speaking of the inculcation of our worldview. And there are many good beginners’ books on the subject that will help any layman who wants to take the first small steps in that direction. Just to name a few: Voddie Baucham’s Family-Driven Faith, Charles Colson’s God and Government, Al Mohler’s Culture Shift, Nancy Pearcy’s Total Truth, James Sire’s The Universe Next Door, R. C. Sproul’s Defending Your Faith, are some good places to start.

Here is the catch, though: short of a consensus on doctrines—including often divisive doctrines—such unified worldview inculcation is just another pipe dream. That is what the parachurch groups do not seem to understand. There is a reason why God ordained the local church to be this advancing army. Unless we are permitted to think coherently about the biggest, most central, eternal things, then we cannot unify our knowledge about the diversity of other things. That is the way worldviews work—the foundations come before the shingles, the moons revolve around the planets, which, in turn, revolve around the sun. And the church is “the pillar and bulwark of truth” [1 Tim. 3:15]—the biggest truths concerning eternity and redemption and the kingdom. These truths are the stuff of doctrine—God, Christ, Scripture, Salvation and the Second Coming. Try as they may, the various cultural movements that arose from Neo-Evangelicalism’s attempt to reduce dogma to the lowest common denominator could never have succeeded in anything but to create a lot of sound and fury that left the core of the mind simmering on the backburner along with those “backburner” doctrines for “theological pin-heads.” So long as culture warriors mock the monks who asked how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, their own heads will remain the same size and no genuine worldview can ever emerge. In other words, so long as we think that social justice is bigger than justification by faith alone, no rational public philosophy can occur. The biggest things in realty shape the smaller things. The smaller things are about the bigger things. As C. S. Lewis put it, “Aim at heaven and you get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.”

Beyond the convictions we may feel about domestic politics, we also have to understand that the various enemies of what is left of Western Civilization hold the last nail for its coffin. I am pointing this out merely to remind that the good times are running out fast. What kind of a faith are the churches cultivating in the life of our sons and daughters that will face such enemies? When are we going to get more alarmed at that prospect than the “offensive” implications of that last question? Men are not men when the only thing that will make them excited is outrage at the crude interruption of their suburban bread and circuses that these spiritual realities bring.