I live two houses down from the elementary school where I am registered to vote, so I walked over in the chilly breeze this morning and stood in line to cast my ballot. I briefly considered not voting in this election, but I finally decided that making a decision with some significant reservations (as would have been the case regardless of which of the candidates I chose) was better than remaining apathetically uninvolved out of spite. But the reason that I wrestled with the decision of whether or not to make that walk this morning is a significant one: I cannot “vote my conscience” without simultaneously violating my conscience. I’m sure that many Christian voters (at least thoughtful ones) find themselves in this same position. How can I possibly assign accurate relative values to multiple things which I believe in so strongly, and which no political party unites in its platform? How can I possibly reconcile voting pro-life AND pro-death penalty, or pro-life AND pro-war, or pro-life AND anti-gun control, or pro-life AND pro-indifference to the environmental plight of God’s creation, or pro-marriage/family AND anti-compassion for poor families, or . . . . you get my drift, I am sure. How do we live with these contradictions that seem so natural to us? And how do we make Spirit-led decisions between obviously imperfect options? What box can I tick, what button can I press, that will allow me to stand for the value of ALL life that is created by the word of God, imbued with His breath, formed in His image, nurtured by His hands—unborn life and aged life, “innocent” life (if there is such a thing) and convicted and condemned life, prosperous suburban life and impoverished ghetto life, human life, animal life, and plant life, American life, Mexican life, Iraqi life, Afghani life, and Sudanese life?

I think that, at the end of the day, believers have a responsibility to stand boldly for a holistic, biblically-informed set of convictions, regardless of whether or not one political party puts all the issues into one basket for us. When someone asks us whether we’re conservative or liberal, our answer should probably be, “on which issue?” Jesus, for example, was a “conservative” when it came to respect for God and propriety in worship (witness the temple cleansing) and the proper attitude of the Jews to their Roman masters (“render unto Caesar . . .”), but was decidedly “liberal” in His views on Sabbath-keeping and associating with “sinners.” There is no obvious incongruity in His stances on these issues, and in fact they are all held together by the Great Commandment to love God (as opposed to defiling His house) and to love people (rather than rising in armed revolt against them, looking down your nose at them, or refusing to come to their aid because of what day of the week it happens to be). Similarly, love for others prompted the early church to practice a communal economic system that was certainly closer to what we think of as “socialism” than what we think of as “capitalism” (see Acts 2 and 4), yet that same love also ensured that no one suffered coercion and oppression at the hands of some oppressive centralized authority. What an interesting, pan-party set of political ideals we might hold if we still based our views squarely on the Great Commandment!

Of course, we may vehemently disagree with one another on important political issues, even after we have sat together in love and discussed them, prayed about them, and sought enlightenment from the Scriptures concerning them. So please, above all, let’s stop pretending that the political choice for Christians is somehow a no-brainer. This country needs a few politically-aware, passionate Christians with brains if we ever hope to get beyond the current impasse.