Calmly Destroying 9Marks on Christian Voting - Jonathan Leeman

I told you yesterday that I was going to do some political content, and I wanted to start with this article by Jonathan Lehman of Nine Marks.

And he promised this article—well, he didn't promise it, but in a Twitter thread a few weeks ago, he had mentioned how his ethics about voting is very simple, and he said that maybe

I'll do an article about it at some point, kind of just teasing us, making us really want to hear what he had to say about voting.

He was like, maybe I will, maybe I won't, but it looks like he decided to do it. So good on Jonathan Lehman for giving us his thoughts on voting.

And the title of the article is What Makes a Vote Moral or Immoral? The Ethics of Voting.

Now, he wrote two versions of this article, a short version and a long version. I'm going to read the short version because, you know, ain't nobody got time for that.

But before I do, I wanted to remind you of something that he said on the

CrossPolitik interview. If you remember that interview I did, I don't know, like almost three hours reviewing the interview.

And, you know, I had some choice words about his perspective, but I want to remind you of this section.

This was in my, I think my first—no, this is the second video that I did about the Jonathan Lehman interview.

So let's just pull it up on the screen here and play this section. Or let's go back to Solomon again.

Let's go to Solomon. Let's go to 1 Kings 3 .28. You have the episode in Chapter 3 of the two prostitutes coming before Solomon.

Bye baby, no bye baby. There's no verse for this. What do I do here, right?

I know. Give me a sword. Cut the baby in half. Real mama says, no, no, no. It's hers. Everybody knows who's a real mama.

How does the narrator sum up this whole episode? Verse 28, here's the political philosophy of the

Bible in a single verse. And the people were amazed—I'm doing this by memory so I might get it wrong—and people were amazed that God had given wisdom to Solomon, the wisdom of God, to do justice.

What do we need to reign? What do we need to rule? We need wisdom. Okay, so a lot of—all right, so let me stop there.

So if you remember, I said on the video that a lot of people were very impressed by that answer, but I was very much not impressed by that answer.

Because wisdom, as the boys on CrossPolitik made very clear, wisdom comes from the words of God.

Like, how does a king gain wisdom? Well, the king learns what God says, learns what

God's commands are, learns what God's rules are. And you can pray for wisdom on how to best apply it and how best to, you know, cross -examine people to find out what the truth of the matter is.

But when it comes to what justice is and what it isn't, when it comes to what's right and what's wrong, there's no wiggle room there.

Like, God defines it very clearly in his word, and so a wise ruler or a wise king ought to know that word and then apply that word.

So it's not wisdom unhitched from the Old Testament. It's wisdom through the Old Testament, through the mouth of God.

And so it's a very weird way to sort of kind of like have this amorphous view of wisdom that guides how a ruler rules.

But even if you accept that, Jonathan Lehman is still just a complete disaster. I'll show you what

I mean in a second. So let's start reading. What makes a vote moral or immoral? The ethics of voting.

Listen to how he starts this. This is remarkable. He says, in this article,

I'm not going to tell you how to vote in the next election. I'm not going to take you to tell you what makes for a good or wise vote.

I'm not even going to offer my moral evaluation of the upcoming 2020 elections in the

United States. So here's the thing. Like, if you go with Jonathan Lehman and say wisdom is how we rule a nation, why is he not going to tell you how to be wise with your vote in 2020?

Like if that's the key, if wisdom is the key, if that's how we rule a country, right?

With wisdom, why is he telling you at the outset, the very beginning of his article about voting,

I'm not going to tell you how to vote wisely. Do you understand? Like, like Jonathan Lehman said that his ethics of voting was very clear.

And if it's very clear, then it ought to be very clear in the scripture because obviously he wouldn't just be giving us his opinion on voting.

He's a pastor and he's a, he's a teacher in the church. And so if it's so clear, you would think it'd be coming from the scripture, right?

You would think it'd be coming from principles from the scripture. And you think that he'd be pushing it as wisdom.

If wisdom is how you run a nation, as we just saw in the video that we just reviewed. But he's not going to give you wisdom.

He's not going to give you, he's not going to tell you what makes for a good vote. He's not going to tell you how to be wise with your vote.

This is like, like if I just can't imagine like reading this article and reading that first paragraph and saying, oh yeah,

I want to read further. Like what is he going to give you here? Well, let's, let's find out. Cause he's going to tell you what he's going to give you.

It's not wisdom and it's not good or evil. Here's what he's going to give you quote, rather my goal is merely to offer nine principles that will help you determine for yourself whether a given vote is morally better or worse, or at least morally permissible.

God has given you the Bible and pastors like me to offer you principles. Yet he also has given you a conscience and created you to make these kinds of moral judgments.

Further I think I would be pastorally overstepping where I had to tell you how I think you should positively should vote, assuming there is more than one permissible option, which includes not voting, voting for a third party, writing in a candidate or even civil disobedience.

If you live in a country where with compulsory voting. At most, I think a pastor can from time to time warn you against paths that you should not take.

Seldom if ever, should he tell you which path you should take, assuming that doing so closes down other morally permissible paths.

Listen, I'm not a, I'm not a, I'm not a seminary graduate. I'm not a big brain, right? I don't understand what the heck he's talking about here.

And I don't think I'm a dummy. So it's just like, if this is supposed to be clear, there's really nothing clear about it.

So he's saying, I'm not going to tell you who to vote for, but I'm going to tell you what not to do. But, but that's actually, but I'm not giving you wisdom though.

At the same time, I'm giving you principles, but not wisdom, and I'm not telling you what makes for a good vote.

I'm just going to give you principles. So what, so what is Jonathan Lehman giving you here?

If you could explain to me what he's trying to give you here in a way that makes sense, you're a, you're a smarter man than me because he's given you biblical principles that aren't wise, because he explicitly said,

I'm not going to tell you what makes for a good or wise vote, but I'm going to offer nine principles that'll help you determine for yourself whether a given vote is morally better or worse, or at least morally permissible.

So they're principles, but this is not wisdom that he's given you here, even though he says that wisdom is how rulers rule, right?

That's the political philosophy in one verse is what he said. I'm not trying to be cute here.

I don't get it. I'm not trying to be cute. I don't get it, Jonathan. This is very confusing.

I think this is intentionally confusing though. That's just my opinion. All right. Nine principles. Here is what he wants to offer for us.

Nine principles. Let's talk about it. The first principle is your vote bears moral weight by virtue of a chain of causation.

Your vote bears moral weight by virtue of a chain of causation. When you vote in a democratic system, you're actually participating in the role of the governing authorities that Paul and Peter described.

Full stop. Yes, that's right. That's exactly right. That's how our system works.

And so every time that I've been cited Romans 13 because to say that I can't go to church anymore, it was false because I am the governing authority here.

Am I not? No, we'll see what he has to say. He says, your job is to align your objectives with the purposes which

God gives to the government in scripture, such as punishing those who do evil and praising those who do good.

Therefore, your vote requires you to make a moral evaluation about what's good and what's evil or wise and unwise, and then act on behalf of your evaluation.

You are morally responsible for this evaluation and act of judgment. Yes, that is correct.

That is correct. Since you're a part of the civil governing authorities, the

Constitution explicitly says that any power not granted to the federal government is given to the states or to the people.

That's explicit in the Constitution of this country. And so yes, you need to judge righteously, right?

You need to judge with impartiality. You need to judge according to God's standard. You're responsible for that.

So he's 100 % right here, absolutely. He continues. He says, suppose then,

Candidate Jack says he believes positions A, B, C, D, and E, while Candidate Jill supports issues I, L, M, N, O, P.

When I cast a ballot for Jack, I'm giving Jack the agency, that is, the power or ability he needs for turning

A, B, C, D, E into law over against L, M, N, O, P. If Jack is elected and succeeds in writing

A, B, C, D, and E into law, I become morally culpable for those laws, at least in some measure, by the simple formula of cause and effect with my vote as the first cause.

Our votes create the requisite agency. We're handing Jack or Jill the sword of the state. So two comments here.

Number one, I think this is a little bit overly simplistic. I don't necessarily agree 100%.

But number two, and more importantly than that, is this mental exercise that he's putting us through here, causes, positions

A, B, C, D, and E, this is very unhelpful.

And I think it's so unhelpful that he's morally culpable for trying to confuse people.

Because the issues are not A, B, C, and D. We have real -life flesh and blood issues. He needs to be specific about this.

He needs to talk about welfare. He needs to talk about abortion. He needs to talk about LGBT issues.

These are the real issues. We need to put flesh and blood on this. We need to keep it out of the theoretical.

Because when you keep it in the theoretical, it's cold. It's almost robbed of its humanity.

It's almost robbed of its meaning. We're talking about real issues that affect real people's lives.

It's not A, B, C, D, and E. I think that this is a rhetorical trick. Because yes, if you're taking a formal logic class, okay, we can talk about symbolic logic and things like that.

But this is supposed to be helpful, Jonathan Lehman. This is supposed to be helpful here.

And so it's like, I just don't understand why we can't put flesh and blood on it from the outset.

But let's continue. Because maybe he'll start to put some flesh and blood on it and admit it in a way that makes sense. But again, he's not showing us what wisdom is, even though he's telling us that we're required to vote according to wisdom.

So I just don't understand that either. Let's continue. Two, with regard to what a vote does, your motives don't matter.

With regard to what a vote does, your motives don't matter, but see point eight.

Let's check out point eight. With regard to church membership, your motives matter.

Okay. Okay. Let's just read. Oh, man.

I'm gonna take an aspirin. I think I need to take an aspirin. Suppose you believe

E is wicked, yet you vote for Jack because you really care about A, B, C, and D.

Still, you cannot discount what your vote does. It gives Jack agency to pursue A, B, C, D, and E.

And you remain morally responsible for that. There's no way to absolve yourself of moral responsibility for the one thing you don't like and to keep it for the four things you do like.

Voting ballots are dumb. They can't discern your motives. The moral chain of causation remains.

Recall, furthermore, that scripture acknowledges a category for unintentional sin, Leviticus 4.

Okay. Okay. I like that. It's fine. Okay.

Okay. There's a distinction between morally permissible laws and immoral laws, which is crucial to our moral evaluations.

Some laws or actions promised by a candidate in and of themselves are morally permissible, even if they eventually prove to have unjust outcomes.

For instance, think of laws establishing the tax rate at X percent or to establish an immigration quota at Y people per year, or to incarcerate a person for Z years for possessing an illegal drug.

Yeah. So this is, okay, so I'm trying to think of how to put this because this is extremely confused.

So he's saying that it's morally permissible to incarcerate a person for Z years for possessing an illegal drug.

It's morally permissible to establish a tax rate at a certain percent or to establish an immigration quota at Y people per year.

He just says that these are morally permissible, right? But I would challenge that.

I would absolutely challenge that because I don't even know how would he ground this?

What would be the number of years you could lock someone in a cage for possessing an illegal substance, a plant, an illegal plant that you've made illegal?

Furthermore, what gives you the right to make a plant illegal? Furthermore, what function of the government that the

Bible talks about, he mentioned Romans 13, punishing evil and rewarding good. Which one of those functions does banning a plant fall into?

And which one of those functions does a prison sentence fall into? What about taxes?

Same thing. Which function of government does taxes fall into, income tax or whatever kind of tax?

Which one? So he says that they're morally permissible, but doesn't even give you an ounce of biblical warrant for it.

There's no Bible verse here. Let's continue. Other laws by their very nature are always unjust.

See Isaiah 10, 1 and 2. So it is, for instance, with laws establishing race -based slavery, segregation, or discriminatory mortgage lending practices.

And so it is with laws establishing abortion. Our posture towards morally permissible laws with bad or unjust outcomes should be different than our posture towards morally unjust laws.

With morally permissible laws, we can talk about reducing the bad outcomes even while continuing to affirm the moral permissibility of a law.

Not so with inherently unjust laws. The goal with unjust laws must be to overturn them, plain and simple, lest our ongoing support affirm what is inherently unjust.

What sense would it make to support pro -slavery senator while seeking to reduce the number of slaves?

Now, real politic considerations sometimes involve compromise. Half a loaf is better than no loaf, they say.

Still, even as we accept halfway measures for the sake of reducing bad outcomes, our overall goal and strategy must remain overturning the unjust law.

Again, like, if you start off with a falsehood, which is, you know, these things are morally permissible, and so if you start off with that falsehood, then the rest of the argument fails.

Like, no, it's not morally permissible to ban a plant and then charge someone with, you know, or punish someone with a certain amount of years in prison for banning that plant.

Any more than it would be morally permissible to execute them for possessing that plant. I mean, what would be the, how would you ground that?

How would you know? I just don't understand this. So, okay, so he's saying that some laws are unjust, some laws are permissible, but maybe are worked out in an unjust way.

How would he even know that? I mean, it doesn't make any sense. He's given us no reason to think that.

Let's continue. The character of a candidate matters by the same change of moral causation described in Does the character of a candidate matter to the ethical significance of a vote?

Yes. And it does by the same change of moral causation described above. Only now culpability transfers not through issues like A, B, C, D, and E, but through the person, him or herself.

If I choose a babysitter for my children, whom I know has poor character, or a landlord for the apartment building I own, whom

I know has poor character, or a treasurer for my church, whom I know has poor character, I become at least partially complicit in any bad decisions each of these individuals make.

Jesus tells us every good tree produces good fruit, but a bad tree produces bad fruit. If I knowingly plant a bad tree in my garden, is just the tree then responsible for the basket of bad fruit which my children carry inside?

Am I not responsible too? A leader's character and behavior teaches and even authorizes what's morally acceptable within that leader's domain.

Suppose a basketball coach has a pattern of telling racist jokes. By doing so, he's teaching his players that racist jokes are acceptable.

In a sense, he's even authorizing them to sit in a dugout and make such jokes among each other. He's creating some space in their conscience for such activity, even if others in their lives condemn racist jokes.

In other words, character has a very real tangible effect on the bali politik that is analogous to passing a law.

It's like the passing of an informal and unspoken law supporting those things which people will notice and follow. A leader's life is powerful.

Suppose then you knowingly hire this baseball coach who makes racist jokes, do you not risk at least somewhat complicit in his racism?

If so, might not the same principle apply to voting for a dishonest and unvirtuous candidate? I really have a lot of contempt for people who have not the guts to say what they mean.

Just tell us you're talking about Donald Trump, Jonathan Leemon. Let's just be honest about this. It's not sneaky, but it just makes you look like a little weasel that you won't mention him.

Again, I really despise keeping things in the theoretical when we've got real issues that we're facing every single day.

It's just really disgusting as far as I'm concerned. But anyway, but he's right though. He's right though.

In fact, the scripture, I wish he would give us more scripture here about this, but the scripture actually gives us a very simple framework as far as how to pick leaders, right?

Through the mouth of Jethro, Jethro was telling Moses to assign people under him to kind of deal with justice issues and to judge between people.

And what does he say? He gives very basic qualifications. He says, someone who fears the Lord, someone who hates a bribe, and it's got to be a man as well.

So, hates dishonest gain, fears the Lord, and is a man. Basic qualifications is not much more complicated than that.

Not much more complicated than that. And so, how do you know somebody fears the Lord? Well, you look at their behavior is how you do it.

You look at their behavior and you see what they do, and that's how you know if they fear the

Lord. And so, it's not going to be like you either fear the Lord or you don't kind of thing. Obviously, we're going to look at a whole body of work and a whole body of actions.

This is why I didn't vote for Donald Trump in the beginning, because it seemed pretty clear to me that he did not fear the Lord, right? He did not fear the

Lord, and so I didn't expect him to do the right thing. I didn't expect him to actually make good on the ways he was pandering to Christians, people who do fear the

Lord. But then, if you look at what he's done since he's been a president, there's a lot of really good things, and it certainly seems like he's attempting to pander to a

Christian base that fears the Lord. And so, you look at his actions, you look at his behavior, you look at the things that he's been able to accomplish, and you can see, well, yeah, there's something to this here.

There's something to this. Does he, do I think he personally fears the Lord in his personal life? Well, I don't know, but the thing is, if he was dirty, tax -wise or otherwise or things like that, we would have known about it at this point, because they're leaving no stone unturned here.

You know what I'm saying, they're leaving no stone unturned here, and all we get, instead of actual issues, we get fake conspiracy theories about ties to Russia.

We get fake news articles about how he's a tax cheat, when it clearly indicates that he's not a tax cheat.

It's just ridiculous. And so it's like, okay, so if all the bad stuff that they say about him in the last four years turns out to be false, then

I can only assume that they couldn't find any real bad stuff. Just a little theory there, but anyway, let's continue.

I just wish he would say what he means, and this is what's such a big problem with Big Eva articles, is that they rarely say exactly what they mean, so they just leave it up to interpretation.

And I just want to remind you, does anything about this clear this up at all? About how you should vote or the principles, how they apply to our current situation?

I just don't find anything about this helpful, but hey, maybe I'm just too stupid to understand. All right, number five, saying democracy doesn't sanctify your vote.

People say, surely there's always a morally righteous choice. That's true, but the Bible never guarantees one of the two major candidates in an

American election is a righteous choice. Maybe the righteous choice is not voting or writing in a candidate. See principle seven below.

Let's make sure we're not sacralizing democracy. Yes, that's good advice. All right, number six, there are a number of rocks on the scale, but some rocks are heavier than others.

I don't know why I'm laughing, I just, I just wish things were different.

I wish things were different. All right, two principles are bound up in this point, and we need to pay attention to both simultaneously.

On the one hand, a just government must attend to a multitude of issues, the economy, foreign policy, national defense, criminal justice, healthcare, various socialist issues, and more.

No, no, that's not, no, that's, that's not true.

That's not true. That's an assumption. You have to prove that. Because earlier in this article,

Jonathan, you said that Romans 13 gives us the roles of government. And you said two things. He said, punish evildoers and praise what is good.

So punish evildoers. Where's the room for the government to manage the economy there?

Okay. Where's the room there to manage the economy? Unless you're talking about like people who commit fraud, that's an evildoer.

Unless you're talking about people who steal, that's an evildoer. Okay. But, but the economy, that's, that's the aggregate activities of people in their everyday life, you know, buying and selling stuff like that, the aggregate of that.

There's no room for the government to manage that. No. Foreign policy, I guess if you're talking about, you know, protecting from invaders and stuff like that.

Yeah, absolutely. National defense. Definitely. But what, what, what are you actually talking about there? Trade, trade deals, taxes and stuff like that.

No, there's no room for that. Not, not according to scripture, Jonathan. And the thing is, we're talking about biblical wisdom here, right?

Like biblical principles. That's what I thought we were talking about, but no, there's no room for that. Criminal justice.

Yes. That's the primary function of the government. Punishing evildoers. Punishing evildoers though,

Jonathan, according to God's standards. So the whole idea of like banning a plant and then, and then having a 10 year prison sentence if you possess this certain plant that's banned, that's not part of it.

Right? So no. Health care. Health care. I would defy you,

Jonathan, to show me where the government has involvement in health care in the scripture.

Again, this is just assumed. And you tip your hand here, Jonathan. That's the other thing. You tip your hand when you say stuff like this.

This proves that you actually don't know what you're talking about when it comes to biblical principles for government.

You don't know. Various social issues and more. No. Jonathan.

No. The answer here is no. You've already, you yourself have said what the Bible says the government is for.

Punishing evildoers and praising what is good. Praising good people. That's it.

So where are you just getting all this stuff? The government must attend to a multitude of issues?

No. There's like two issues here that the government must attend to and the rest you've just asserted without any evidence whatsoever.

Jonathan, this isn't enough. This isn't good enough. This isn't enough. I'm sorry, but I don't want to join your cult.

And so if you're going to tell me what the government's for, you need to show me the chapter and verse on that one. Okay? I don't want to join your cult.

And so I'm not going to. There are a number of rocks on the moral scales that Lady Justice must weigh.

On the other hand, some rocks are heavier than others. They're morally, they're more morally significant. Thinking ethically about voting means accounting for more than one rock.

But it also means acknowledging that some rocks are heavier than others. A related point here concerns the question of one issue voting.

Can one issue disqualify a candidate? Hopefully every Christian would say that a pro -stealing or pro -pedophilia or pro -slavery candidate is disqualified no matter how good he or she is on other issues.

I wish everyone would arrive at this conclusion on abortion. Uncharacteristically clear,

Jonathan. Well done. Well done. Uncharacteristically clear. This whole article is a disaster, but this sentence is clear.

I wish everyone would arrive at this conclusion on abortion. Yes, a pro -abortion candidate is disqualified.

If you don't understand that the primary role of the government is to punish evildoers, and you know,

I would assume that people who kill babies are evildoers, then you would understand that that would be disqualification.

Same with pro -stealing. Pro -stealing, if you think that it's okay for people to steal or governments to steal, you are disqualified from being involved in the government.

Nobody should vote for you. Pro -pedophilia, it's the same thing. Pro -slavery, well, it depends on the version of slavery you're talking about.

But if you're talking about the slavery that comes from kidnapping, sure. Pro -kidnapping slavery, disqualification, because you don't know the first thing about justice if you support any of these things.

Very good, Jonathan. I'm a little hesitant to give you too much praise, though, because the rest of this article is such a disaster that I'm pretty sure you're going to take away what you've just said in a very clear way with your other hand.

Let's continue. Also, can bad character disqualify a candidate, potentially outweighing the other rocks in the scale?

If what we said above is true, that bad authorizes and creates moral space for immoral activity, it's hard to see how bad character cannot disqualify someone.

Yeah, I would agree with that. Imagine how radically the political landscape would change if every

Christian in the United States embraced the last two paragraphs. Some will call this idealism, which might be a fair critique if idealism means acting on principles, not outcomes.

That too is something you must weigh, pure principles versus realistic outcomes. My recommendation is to weigh these things, preparing yourself for the

Lord's final judgment. It's a good recommendation. I completely agree with that last sentence, and I'm very surprised at how clear this number six section is.

With the exception of this assertion that government is for all of these social issues and stuff like that, it clearly is not, and all you need to do is quote

Romans 13 to show that that's not the case. But if you wanted to do something else, you could just look at the moral law of God and the civil law of God that he gives to Israel, and you'll notice that God never gives

Israel kings or government any of the authorities here that Jonathan Lehman says that he does.

It just doesn't happen. So pretty good. Point six is uncharacteristic for Jonathan Lehman.

I'm actually impressed, to be honest. Number seven, is it morally permissible to not vote or to vote for a candidate that is certain to lose?

It depends. Ordinarily, I believe it's morally better to vote than not to vote. God has given us a stewardship with the blessing of a vote, and we don't want to be like the servant who buried his talent in the ground.

Why should we vote? For the sake of love of neighbor and justice. That said, nowhere does the

Bible say a person must pursue love and justice by voting. Therefore, if a person is convinced in his conscience that he'd be sinning by voting for Jack and Jill, both,

I wouldn't say he shouldn't vote for either so long as he's I would say he shouldn't vote for either so long as he's fully convinced in his own mind.

I would agree with that. Perhaps slightly better than abstaining from voting is to vote for a candidate that one's conscience can't can't accept, even if that candidate is certain to lose because you're still participating in the election process and formally registering what you believe is right and just.

I wouldn't say that this is better. I would say it's different, not necessarily better. But I'll be honest,

I. Section seven is also good. So point six and seven.

Very good, Jonathan. Very impressed. Here is point eight. With regard to membership, church membership, your motives matter.

Moral evaluation among Christians operates in two gears. Gear one, our determination of right and wrong.

Gear two, our determination of wrongs that, apart from repentance, require excommunication or removal from membership in the church.

What's key here is that not every immoral evaluation in gear one will downshift into gear two.

You might be again. I just I just I hate I hate this style where you just put everything in the theoretical and it's like gear one, gear two,

A, B, C, D, L, M, N, O, P. It's like all that does is serve to confuse people.

So I just really don't like that. It's just a personal choice, though. And it's not like he's sinning for doing that. He continues, he says, you might be personally convicted that a certain vote is probably sin gear one, but for any number of reasons, decide that it's not a sin for which you would recommend excommunication.

For instance, I believe it's ordinarily a sin to vote for a pro -choice candidate by virtue of principles one, two, six above gear one.

Furthermore, if someone was voting for the pro -choice candidate because of his or her support for abortion,

I would probably recommend excommunication gear to Christians absolutely must not support abortion.

Okay. I'm trying to think of how to describe a man who takes one of the clearest moral principles you could possibly imagine, killing babies, support of people, killing babies, like, like, like the person, like the person in your church says,

I'm voting for Joe Biden. And one of the reasons I'm voting for Joe Biden is because I believe it should be morally acceptable and even paid for by everyone to, to kill a baby in the womb or even, you know, slightly outside of the womb, partial birth abortion.

And, and the most that Jonathan Lehman can muster is I would probably recommend excommunication.

Like, what do you, how do you describe a man like that? It probably, probably recommend excommunication for someone like that.

I don't even know what to say. So I'm just going to continue. Suppose, however, a fellow church member told you she was voting for the pro -choice candidate in spite of the candidate's view on abortion.

She hates abortion yet. She says she's unconvinced. The pro -life party is actually pro -life.

She cares about other issues too. And she sees other strategic considerations in play. See principle nine below.

I would still affirm my own conviction that she was probably sitting for her support of that candidate as an unintentional instance of Romans 132.

And I would want to persuade her otherwise, but I would still affirm my willingness to come to the Lord's table with her.

In short, a fellow Christian's motives do make a difference, at least in terms of how I would relate to someone as a fellow

Christian. And here, the difference between because of, and in spite of is meaningful. Does this mean

Christians should accept any potential vote? So long as the person says they're voting for a candidate in spite of the evil aims of the candidate?

No. He's about to do it, isn't he?

He's about to do it. Everything I, all the praise that I gave him for 0 .6

of the clarity of his thinking on abortion. He's about to take that away right here.

Let's read. Let's read on. No. When the occasion comes that a party exists almost exclusively for the purpose of wickedness, when a party, when a particular evil becomes an entity's raison d 'etre, then at that point, churches should consider excommunication for party membership or support.

For instance, it's difficult to know how someone could vote for the KKK in spite of its racism and not because of its racism.

The KKK exists expressly for the purpose of racism. To be sure, there's no mathematically precise way to determine when that moment for a major party comes.

For the Nazi party, that moment arguably came in 1934 with the Barman Declaration. Yet every instance involves a judgment call and every church, as led by its elders, needs to ask the

Lord for wisdom, moral clarity, and the courage to make that judgment. He did it.

So 0 .6 is, it's rendered garbage now because he pretended to be bold and clear that he wishes that everyone would arrive at the one -issue disqualification of a candidate for abortion, and then he spends the next six, seven paragraphs taking that away from you.

He's not clear on this at all. Guys, when are you going to see it?

When are you going to see it, guys? I know a lot of you still support nine marks. When are you going to see it?

This is sinful cowardice.

This is something that a lot of people don't know. The scripture mentions a few sins that the lake of fire is reserved for.

And you know what one of them is? The cowardly. The cowardly.

The lake of fire is reserved, among other things, for the cowardly.

Jonathan Lehman starts off this article and says, I'm not going to give you wisdom here. And he was right.

He knows that abortion support should disqualify someone from getting your vote, and yet he can't find it within himself to say, you know what?

The Democratic Party, whose central thing is abortion, all you need to know to do freaking out, losing their minds, trying to pull out all the stops to stop

Amy Coney Barrett from being affirmed to the Supreme Court, it's because of her position on abortion.

It's because of her position on abortion. But the thing is, though, and we're going to talk about this.

The rest of this month, I'm going to be unraveling and unpacking this. The thing is, though, that also the

Democratic Party is upside down, wicked, evil, antichrist in almost every one of their points.

Every single one of their party platforms is wickedness worked out in public policy.

You tell me where you think the Democratic Party is good on something that they're promoting publicly.

Like it's actually a good, a moral good, according to Scripture, according to God's standard of morality, according to God's standard of justice, against stealing, against covetousness, against murder, against honoring father and mother, against all these things, right?

You show me where the Democratic Party is actually good at one of those things. Comprehensive human flourishing.

Yeah, that sounds good. But when you actually open up the pull up the hood and look underneath of what that means, you know what it means?

It means taking money from people and giving it to other people. It means training your kids on the principles of LGBT dogma.

It means all kinds of partiality in the law itself, even in the tax rates, partiality.

Partiality all over the place. God is not partial, but the Democratic Party has made partiality a fundamental component of their party platform.

And so abortion is like the worst of the worst. Like I can't imagine anyone who could say, yeah, you know, abortion is bad.

But, you know, what about all this other stuff? Like that moral calculus means that your mind is broken. Your heart is a heart of stone.

Like you're not understanding things, right? Abortion is so evil. Like God, when he talks about people giving their sons to Moloch and passing them through the fire, what does he say?

He says these are things that haven't even entered my mind. These are things that God destroys nations for.

Okay? So even if it was just that, that would be enough to church discipline someone who supports

Democrats. Church discipline. Excommunication if they support them. That would be enough. But if you looked at the list, there are no redeeming qualities.

Each party plank is worse than the last. It's upside down.

They're calling left, right. They're calling up, down. They're calling north, south. Everything is opposite of what it should be.

Everything is upside down. It's anti -Christ. It's anti -biblical. Everything is as opposite as it could possibly be.

Including the stuff that sounds good. Like social policies and health care and stuff like that.

Even that is upside down. And so, you know,

Lehman, if you're really looking for wisdom, moral clarity, and courage to make that judgment, then you need to go to the scripture.

You need to go to the scripture. Even the passage that you scoffed at and said, Yeah, but the Bible says you should kill your kids.

What a mess.

I don't even really know what else to say. What a mess. We're going to talk about this. We're going to talk about this a lot more.

Here's point nine. In the final analysis, before we move on. So racism is too much.

You can't vote for a party that has racism as their central plank. Granted, that sounds good. Anti -Semitism, same thing.

KKK can't do it. Nazis can't do it. But somehow, killing babies doesn't meet that level yet.

This is a seared conscience. Do you understand me? This is a seared conscience.

There's really not much else to say about it. Number nine. In the final analysis, ethically evaluating our votes involves both moral principles and strategic calculations.

We need to view any given vote within the larger and highly elaborate game of democratic governance.

A game, of course, consists of several periods and many moves. Plus, you don't judge the success or failure of a game by any one period or move.

You judge each move by how it contributes to the outcome of the whole game. And the game of politics transpires over multiple election cycles.

If the first principle above laid the foundation upon which the rest of the principles built, the last principle is the earthquake that shakes the buildings and makes the whole structure of our moral evaluation look a little less sturdy.

For instance, suppose a friend tells you he intends to vote for candidate Jack who supports something you both believe is wrong.

Yet due to a host of real politic considerations, he believes voting for Jack is a better long -term strategy for your shared cause.

It's hypothetically possible he's right, though you seriously doubt it. How then do we morally evaluate his actions?

You might still warn him that he's probably sitting in his vote, but also affirm that you're not ready to break fellowship with him because he's seeking a good end.

Do you see how it's a wizard spell to take it all out of the real and put it into the theoretical?

Because he's talking about a fake candidate, Jack, with fake issues and ABCD and gear three and stuff like that.

But let's not forget what's being talked about here. Let me pull you back into reality here.

This is what Jonathan Lehman is saying. He's talking about your friend who says, I'm pro -life, but I'm going to vote for a pro -abortion candidate because they support comprehensive human flourishing, and I think we can limit abortions by making sure that poor people have access to money and health care and housing and stuff like that.

That's how we limit abortions, because the Democrats are good at comprehensive pro -life, and I want to limit abortions, and I think that's the better strategy in the long run.

This is what Jonathan Lehman is talking about here. He doesn't have the balls to tell you what he's talking about here, but I do.

I do. This is what he's talking about here. And what does the Bible say about why people kill?

Jonathan, what does the Bible say about why people kill other people? Does it say that the reason why people kill other people is because they grew up poor, or they didn't have access to the best health care, or they didn't have stable housing or good food to eat, and that's why they kill?

Is that what it said in the Bible? Does it say that people kill because, you know, they've been oppressed for so long, and they were treated like animals, and so now they no longer value the sanctity of human life, or something like that?

Is that what the Bible says about why people kill? Jonathan, let me clue you in on where wisdom comes from, okay?

Here's where wisdom comes from. It comes from the scripture. So if you want to know why people kill, you open up the book, and when you do that, here is what you will read.

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you?

You desire and you do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.

You do not have because you do not ask, and you ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions.

You adulterous people. Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?

Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

That's why people kill. That's why people kill, and that's why people will vote for people who desire more killing.

That's why people vote for people who desire more killing, and so there's no probably sinning about it.

If you vote Democrat, you are definitely sinning, and you definitely need to repent, and you definitely should be excommunicated from the church of Christ if you do not repent because you have made yourself an enemy of God.

I didn't do that. You did it. What's crucial, however, we'll finish the article.

What's crucial, however, is that his overall goal must be to overturn the intrinsically unjust law as in principle three above.

He cannot wave off the injustice and say, well, it's never gonna change. I might as well focus on other things. His heart would need to cry out against the injustice.

In short, a smidgen of flexibility might be permitted only at the tactical level, not at the level what his heart and actions must be set against.

Conclusion. How then should you ethically evaluate the difference candidates on offer in the next election?

That hard work is now over to you. Look over these principles again. Supply any additional ones that you think you might be missing.

Educate yourself on the candidates. Talk with the elders of your church. Talk with your fellow members. Pray, ask

God for wisdom, and act. Does anybody think that this was a helpful article?

A clear article? A wise article? Does anybody think that? I just,

I can't imagine thinking that. This article is a disaster. It's an absolute disaster.

So many assertions that go unproved. They just assume and just want you to go with them there.

So many things, like abortion's different than racism. Did he even offer you one reason as to why that is?

Why is abortion different than racism so that it might allow you to support the party of abortion where it wouldn't allow you to support the party of racism?

Does he even offer even one scintilla of an explanation there? No. He doesn't.

He doesn't. He just knows that this would be very unpopular if he took the hard stance that he needs to take.

If racism's too much to vote for a party, then certainly killing babies in the womb and sometimes outside of the womb would cross that line as well.

But no, not for Jonathan. Not for Jonathan because Jonathan is a coward. Jonathan is attempting to make friends with the world and in doing so makes him an enemy of the cross.

Don't get mad at me. That's what it says in James. Look, you can't beat sin with more sin, right?

You can't beat sin with more sin. I know that people make convincing arguments that being comprehensively pro -life allows them to vote for a pro -choice candidate, but this is not what the scripture says, guys.

Even your stupid strategy is clearly against what the scripture says. The Bible says people kill because they desire and do not have.

It does not say that they grew up poor or they grew up black or something like that.

That's just how they want to kill them. They grew up black in America. You can't really blame them. We're seeing that not only with abortion but also with these riots and stuff.

That's evil stuff, man. That's not my position. That's their position. Guys, this is brutal.

This article is brutal. But I'm looking forward to the rest of this political content. Let me know if you found this helpful in the comment section below.