Why Prefer Christian Candidates?

Jean Bethke Elshtain

Jean Bethke Elshtain, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics at the University of Chicago, is the author of "Sovereignty: God, State and Self" and an editor of "One Electorate Under God?: A Dialogue on Religion and American Politics."

Updated October 31, 2011, 10:25 AM

There’s a crucial question that tends to be forgotten: should Christians look for a candidate who identifies as a Christian? Such august fathers of the church as St. Augustine reminded Christians that they should always mark a careful distinction between the earthly city and the heavenly city and, further, that they should not anticipate being governed by a Christian. How important is the candidate’s professed religion? Martin Luther argued that Christians could very well be governed by “a Turk” (his term for Muslim) so long as they could practice their faith freely.

There is no 'checklist' for who Christians should vote for.

That said, as voters we look for candidates who embrace principles we cherish. On one level those are principles shared by all Americans (hopefully), namely, the presuppositions imbedded in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. We have no religious test for office, and we have no religious establishment. We have a secular state. That does not mean now, and never has, that we have a thoroughly secularized society. That has never been the case. Religion and politics have always intermingled in American society and politics. That is just fine. But it does complicate who one votes for and why.

As Reinhold Niebuhr pointed out over half a century ago, Christians can share certain basic principles and differ quite strenuously on the public policies that best align with those principles. For example: in every reputable social science survey, Christians indicate that caring for the poor is of the highest priority. But that does not automatically translate into support for one policy or another. The principle and the policy are not welded together. There will be some Christians who favor huge government programs to deal with poverty, and others who insist that such programs only perpetuate poverty and second-class citizenship. It follows that there is no “check list” for who Christians should vote for. It has always been thus and will continue to be. There is no bright line save, it seems to me, if one can imagine a candidate — and it is hard to imagine this in contemporary America — who advocates ethnic cleansing or some similar horror. Then Christians should present a united force.

Topics: Politics, Religion

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