Why This Far-Right, Pro-Life Christian Plans to Vote for Schwarzenegger

Self | 10/5/2003 | Daniel J. Phillips (BibChr)

[BibChr]

INTRODUCTION

I am what would be called a Calvinist, Fundamentalist Christian. This simply means, centrally, that I believe Jesus, including His teaching that the sixty-six books of the Bible are the very and true word of God. I believe that all abortion is morally wrong, except in that tiny shard of instances where it is the only choice to save the life of the mother. Children should be protect by law from conception on. Homosexual practice is immoral and destructive, and society should no more sanction it than it should bestiality or incest. These are important values to me.

Why in the world, then, do I plan to vote for Arnold Schwarzenegger with a perfectly clean conscience?

Who Wants to Know?

It's been a rough few weeks. I've been told innumerable times that I should change my screen name, which is an abbreviation of Biblical Christian (alluding to my Biblical Christianity web site). I've been told that I should take Jeremiah 8:9 ("...behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD, so what wisdom is in them?") from my tag line, and stop quoting Scripture. I've been called a fake, a phony, and a number of other such endearments. I've been told I must have lost my mind, that I am in sin.

The sources have been quite remarkable. They've included people who in the past praised my supposed sagacity and Biblical acumen, people who in the past have enjoyed my friendship and loyalty, and have had me defend them time and again when they were under attack. They have been on the receiving end of much support and friendship from me. Now some of them treat me with open contempt and disdain. The phrase "the benefit of a doubt" seems no longer to be as widely understood and accepted as I would have thought.

Why? What did I do to bring this on myself?

Did I renounce my faith? Did I leave my wife for a WalMart checker (or anyone or anything else)? Did I join the ACLU, NOW, NARAL, GLAD, NAMBLA, or any such abomination? Did I change my position on any of the values listed out above?

Nope. I just declined to vote for Tom McClintock, and thought it wisest to vote for Arnold Schwarzenegger for Governor of California.

What's That Verse Again?

One of most sharply illustrative examples was a recent one. Not to embarrass the source, the poster, presumably an ardent Christian, snapped, "You are continuing to reject God's Word."

Now, again, what had I done? What part of the Word had I rejected? The Biblical teaching on the Trinity, on the inerrancy of the Word, on the way of salvation in Christ, on the Deity of Christ? The calls to purity and truth? The teaching about the humanity of the unborn, and their right to life?

No, it can't be any of that, since I have done no such thing.

The part of God's Word I am said to have "rejected" can only have been the famous Bible verse, "Thus saith the LORD of hosts: Thou shalt vote for Tom McClintock; thou shalt not in any wise vote for Arnold Schwarzenegger, for that would be an abomination unto me."

I'm still pretty much looking for that verse.

Is it a Sin to Vote for Schwarzenegger?

Does the Bible say I morally may not vote for Schwarzenegger? Does it say that I must vote for Tom McClintock?

Actually, it says nothing of the sort, either way.

The milieu of the Bible is utterly foreign to the notion of a representative democracy. None of its characters lived under such, nor is it envisioned per se. Virtually all lived under one form or another of monarchy.

Do we learn anything about relating to ungodly or evil rulers, or living in situations in any way analogous to our own? Indeed we do. We see Joseph serving Pharaoh with such distinction and loyalty that he gained Pharaoh's complete trust (Genesis 41:44f.). Or to move far ahead, my namesake Daniel served not one, but four ungodly despots with excellence and loyalty. In fact, he says to King Darius, who had just forced him to spend a night with the lions, "O king, live forever!" (Daniel 6:21). Did that wish make Daniel an accomplice in Darius' evil? Should he have expressed the wish that God would smite Darius down right quickly? God does not seem to think so.

And neither Pharaoh nor Darius were Republicans — let alone conservative, Christian, pro-life Republicans.

What is behind such attitudes? I'd single out two factors.

First is an absolute belief in the all-encompassing sovereignty of God, who sets up one ruler and puts down another, and rules over the very thoughts and decisions of the king (Proverbs 21:1; Daniel 2:21, etc.).

Second is what Jeremiah the prophet told the Jews who were exiled in Babylon:

"Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare"
Jeremiah 29:4-7

Now, there is an imperative that I believe applies also to me as a Christian: seek the welfare of the "city" in which I live, pray for it, work towards it. And I believe that the role of those who walk with God is crucial, that their input is essential to the wellbeing of any society (cf. Proverbs 11:11; 14:34; 29:8). So I must apply any wisdom I gain from good to the good of my "city," in this case applying to California and America as well.

Further, in so doing (as in all of my Christian life) God not only allows, but expects me to use my brain to its fullest. While it is beyond dispute that, where the Word speaks, I must hear, believe, and obey (John 14:15; 15:14; etc.), it is equally true that where it is silent or general, I must make the best reasonable, wise application that I can. God says that it is my part to make plans (Proverbs 16:1, 9). Planning, of course, necessarily involves strategizing, estimating, taking eventualities and consequences into consideration, counting the cost. In fact, Jesus expressly commends counting the cost before attempting anything (Luke 14:28). He laments that those professing faith too often tend to be so foolish and irresponsible, and says that they should be as wise as the children of this age, as wise as serpents (Matthew 10:16; Luke 16:8). We are to use opportunities wisely and responsibly and to the fullest (Ephesians 5:16), taking full responsibility for our actions and their consequences.

Let Me Explain -- No, There Is Too Much; Let Me Sum Up

I would hope that the relationship of the preceding to this election would be obvious, but experience has taught me to leave nothing to chance. Allow me to enumerate:

1. No Bible verse commands me to vote for Tom McClintock.
2. No Bible verse commands me to vote for Arnold Schwarzenegger.
3. No Bible verse prohibits me from doing either.
4. Abortion is a moral issue that should have an impact on my vote.
5. Theft, tyranny, rule of law, and freedom are also moral issues that should have an impact on my vote.
6. It is imperative that I apply maximum godly wisdom to do maximum good for my "city."
7. In deciding what to do, I must keep my goals in mind, and honor God by applying the wisest considerations of strategy, long-term planning, and consequences that I can muster.
8. Specifically, I should vote for the candidate who I believe will, in the long run, best promote and enable the accomplishment of the values I cherish as a Christian.

What Does Any of That Have to Do With This?

Again, I shall enumerate:

1. The Republican Party is a minority in California.
2. Tom McClintock, in over a month of campaigning, has failed to garner the majority support of even that minority party, let alone the mixed-bag of the California voting public.
3. Apart from that, McClintock has shown himself to be a poor choice as a leader.
   • He broke his reported promise to at least Darryl Issa that he would drop out if he couldn't win.
   • He irresponsibily dismisses consdierations of the consequences of his remaining in the race, on the one hand touting himself as Mr. Numbers, while on the other seeming to lose his math skills when it comes to reading polls and trends.
   • He knows that he is being used by Democrats and the gambling casino's to divide the vote against his party's front-runner, and takes no responsibility for his role as spoiler.
   • He voted for domestic partnership rights.
   • He mooted the subject of abortion by saying he would initiate no change in the status quo.
   • He would have to lead a majority-Demo legislature in a majority-Demo state, yet cannot even work as a team member with his own party, nor persuade most of it to follow his lead.
4. Bustamante and Davis are not even possible considerations. Need I say more?
5. Arnold Schwarzenegger comes closest to respecting some of my values as a Christian and a conservative, and shows the greatest promise of accomplishing some of them, so as to bring some good to the "city" whose good I am bound by God to seek.
   • Everything that was said at the outset of his ability to attract support from across the spectrum has proven true.
   • His fiscal philosophy is more conservative than Davis or Bustamante by far, citing Friedman and Reagan as his heroes.
   • His notion of the rule of law is far more conservative than Davis or Bustamante by far.
   • He pledges not to perpetuate the degree of theft of hardworking citizens enshrined in the Davis-Bustamante mindset.
   • Many, many people who have been working hard (not just talking) towards the goals I cherish have great confidence in him, including state and federal legislators like Dreier, Cox, Rohrabacher, Campbell, and many others.
   • His position on abortion is better than that of Davis-Bustamante.
   • He knows about the generation of wealth through the Biblically commended values of hard work and discipline, unlike the professional politicians he opposes and will replace.
6. Citizens of California do not need mere rhetoric and empty, self-serving gestures, we need positive change.

What About Abortion?

To say what none should need me to say, given that my essay The Bible and the Bull's-Eye on the Baby is just a click or two away, I find abortion abhorrent and indefensible. Accordingly, I disagree with about 98% of Schwarzenegger's position on abortion. I find it reprehensible and indefensible that he, or anyone, should be indifferent to the wanton destruction of unborn children. I have nothing positive to say about our areas of disagreement on this issue.

I wish Schwarzenegger's position were different. I wish there were an electable, gung-ho pro-life candidate in this race. But this is not a fairy tale, and I accomplish nothing by wishing. Because then I would also have to wish that the electorate were different (I do), that our culture were different (I do), and that our laws were different (I do).

So meanwhile that leaves me, a Christian adult, needing to make an adult decision. Do I waste my vote on a man who cannot win, and who said he would initiate no change in the status quo even if he were elected, just to make myself feel good?

No. Abortion is not the issue in this election. Sad or happy, that's just the case. Davis is not being recalled because Californians loathe his stance on abortion. I wish he were, I wish they did; but he isn't and they don't. He is being recalled for lack of leadership, corruption and fiscal mismanagement. In all these areas, Schwarzenegger shows promise of being an improvement.

Okay, so corruption and fiscal mismanagement are issues of concern to me as a Christian, too. So do I seek to do my "city" good by a gain in those areas, where a direct gain on abortion is simply not possible? Or do I refuse to do any good because I can't do all the good I want to do?

I opt for the former.

And, in the long term, I believe this serves my goals better than aiding Davis-Bustamante by voting for McClintock, or opposing the recall. Arnold is not pro-life, though he is better than the current governor (i.e. he favors parental notification, and opposes live-birth infanticide). But he will support politicans who are pro-life. He has already pledged to campaign vigorously for our pro-life President. He will campaign for pro-life Senatorial and Congressional candidates. This is, in the long term, good for the issue.

Also, consider this: who is being driven out of the state? Is it not family men and women, unable to support their families under a worsening economy? And who stays? Is it not the elite, or the government-dependency class? Are they likely to be pro-life?

So opposing Schwarzenegger would drive out the pro-life element in the state, and in the long run harm life issues that I care about, by hacking away at the already-slender minority of voters who see the issue as I do.

Further, what has the scorched-earth segment of McClintock's supporters done for the future of our interests in this state? If what has happened here is any indication, have they challenged the public image we religious conservatives carry as being self-righteous, demanding, short-sighted, unpleasable, and hateful? Have they presented themselves as folks who can work with those who don't fully agree with them, or as demanding full and unquestioning compliance on every particular?

In this connection, I cite myself one last time. My most coolly cutting and caustic critics have been people who agree with me on the issues of the day 95-100%, and disagree with society as a whole — but simply differ from me on this one strategic choice. Yet that hasn't even slowed them in dealing in the most hostile manner, and calling me the most extraordinary names, without warrant. Has behavior like this increased the stock and influence of conservatives in California, or decreased it?

But what about faith?

One of the most embarrassing comments to me as a Christian was made by a fellow who called Hugh Hewitt and faulted him for lacking faith. God can do miracles, he said (correctly). So why not "believe God" that He will do a miracle and cause McClintock to win the election? Hugh's problem was his lack of faith.

I find this very offensive. Faith, in the Bible is not our way of enlisting God to do our will.

Rather, faith is a response to an explicit word from God (cf. Genesis 15:6).

Now, do we have a word from God that He wants McClintock to win this office?

First, in brief, I think the word "NO" is hardly strong enough. NO verse in the Bible says anything about God's will for McClintock's fate in this election.

Second, if God wanted to do a miracle, why not a Gideon-like miracle? Remember, even though Gideon started out vastly outnumbered, God thinned down his army to a bare skeleton crew, so that the resultant victory would clearly be His (Judges 7). So maybe we'd actually be "helping God" by voting for Schwarzenegger, on this caller's mistaken premise.

But of course all this is foolishness; in the absence of a direct word from God, we are held accountable (as I've shown) for implementing wisdom, strategizing, and responsible planning. You want to show your "faith," do it by obeying God in utilizing those God-given abilities.

Other red herrings

In an attempt to make one's vote in this election a matter of Christian orthodoxy, a new and additional test of salvation and spiritual reality, some have quoted Isaiah 5:20 — "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!" In this connection, one has sometimes heard, quoted as if it were Scripture, the bromide, "The lesser of two evils is still evil." And I think on rare occasion someone has cast out to 2 Corinthians 6:14, "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?"

These are all true statements, and all just as irrelevant to this decision as they are true.

As you have seen, I do not call evil good. Schwarzenegger's position on abortion is marginally better than his opponents', but it is still an evil position.

But wait a moment — does that verse not also wish woe on those who call good evil? And have not many Arnold-bashers on this thread been guilty of that very sin, time and again? If Schwarzenegger says something liberal, they jump all over him. But if he says something conservative, or says he agrees with McClintock or promotes one of his ideas... they still jump all over him! If he says something liberal, he's telling the truth and we should hate him for it, mocking his accent and his name and his being married to a Kennedy spin-off. If he says something conservative, he's lying, he's a dupe and a phony, and we should hate him. In a stunning reversal of practicing what Paul commends as the way of love in 1 Corinthians 13, and with apparently no self-awareness at all, these folks only keep a record of evil, hope nothing, believe nothing, and recently have virtually rejoiced in evil.

But is the lesser of two evils an evil? I suppose; but what is not acknowledged is that every vote for any human being other than the Lord Jesus Christ (who isn't one of the 135 in this election) is a vote for the lesser of two evils! Ecclesiastes 7:20 says, "Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins." Is that still true, or is it not? To be specific, is McClintock without sin? If the reports are right, was it not evil for him to promise to leave the race if he was not winning, and then not do so? Is he the exception to the many sweeping statements in Scripture showing that we all still err, even the saved? Then a vote for McClintock is no less a vote for the lesser of two evils. And the decision must be made on another basis.

As to being unequally yoked, unless my vote marries me to Schwarzenegger or says that I am joining my heart to him, I need not be overly concerned about that.

But what about abortion, again? As I've said, it's not the issue of the election, and McClintock has made it moot (whether he admits it or not).

As they say in the commercial "Wait -- there's more!"

Many Arnold-bashers voted for and supported President Bush (and many do not). To the former I would pose this question: "Is Bush's position on abortion the Biblical position?" Indeed it is not. The President apparently believes it is just and right to punish a child for his parents' sins. If one of his parents was a rapist or committed incest, President Bush believes it is morally permissible to kill the child. But he is wrong. It is not, in fact, moral, nor Biblical.

But we who voted for and support President Bush still recognize that his position is a huge step in the right direction, is far better than his opposition's position, and constitutes a gain. So we support him... though he is strictly speaking the lesser of two evils on this matter.

They can see and apply this in regards to President Bush (thank God), but can't see the same principle as it applies in the current situation.

Let us develop that just a little more. To my harsher critics I have often posed this question: "Where did you last go out to dinner?" None has answered. Maybe they know where I'm going with this, and know in their hearts their position will break down. Because if they said "Jake's Hash House," I could legitimately ask, "What is Jake's position on abortion? What was your waitress' position on abortion? The cashier, the cook, the bus boy -- what are their positions on abortion? How do you know that none of them will take your money and actually use it for an abortion tomorrow?" And once we finished with Jake's, we could go on to their newspaper delivery boy, and all the employees of every doctor, car mechanic, gardener, and chiropractor they patronize.

I'm sure they'd not like that line of thinking. They'd sputter that there is a difference. But is there? If my voting for Schwarzenegger for the good things I believe he will do, hiring him to be — not a pastor, but — the governor of a troubled state necessarily involves me in approving his position on abortion, how does the giving of actual money that could go to an abortionist not constitute the same sin? Is ignorance a real excuse? Is the fact that these people do a "don't ask, don't tell" on abortion relieve them of responsibility, on their premises? I don't think so.

No, as God said through Jeremiah, I am seeking the good of my "city." It is for that good that I intend to "hire" Schwarzenegger as my critics every day "hire" countless pro-abort people, not for their position on abortion, but to do a particular task. I know that Schwarzenegger will not do all the good I wish to see done. But then again, neither would McClintock nor any other human being. Professed Christians need to get back to these Biblical truths:

It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in man. 9 It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in princes.
Psalm 118:8, 9

Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.
Psalm 146:3

Important as the influence of the powerful can be, we need to stop imagining that all we need is to get the right man in office, and he will wave his magic fairy wand and make it all better. Not as long as we live in a republic. Not as long as our fellow-citizens do not "get it." It is we ourselves who bear the pressure. We must pray, we must lead exemplary lives, we must build more persuasive arguments and be bolder about making them. We must seek God for revival, and do what we can to bear witness and win over those opposing what is for their own good. The best politician in the world cannot do that, and we need to stop acting as if we think they can accomplish what we have failed to accomplish. That Arnold Schwarzenegger is the best we can do in this election is indeed a comment on California, and not a good comment at that. But we will not honor God by being so foolish as to allow the best to be the enemy of the better.

It should give us pause that our real, true enemies in this war all want us to vote for McClintock, or against the recall; they clearly see Schwarzenegger as their opponent and our ally.

It is not to our glory that so few of us fail to see what they all clearly do see.

In Sum

As a conservative pro-life Christian, I plan to vote with a clear conscience for Arnold Schwarzenegger. It is a rough choice, a hard choice. It will not be the most enthusiastic vote I will ever have cast. But he is the only candidate who (A) comes close to some of my values, and (B) will actually do something to forward them, because (C) he can win.

Meanwhile, I will pray for his conviction of sin, and his conversion to faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. And I will maintain the thought that he is likelier to respond to a loving witness, than to the seething and volcanic hatred that I have seen some of my professing fellow-Christians express towards him, and towards anyone who dares to speak a kind word about him, day after day.

[MEGoody]

Good points.