Tag Archives: erlc

Christians and Voting for the Lesser of Two Evils

Update: While Russell Moore (discussed below) appeared to advocate abstaining rather than voting for an immoral candidate, Franklin Graham went on record for the opposite point of view, saying Christians may have to vote for the “less[er] of two heathens.”

Writing at Christianity Today, Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, discussed the moral situation some Christians may find themselves in at the ballot box — feeling as though they are having to decide between the “lesser of two evils.”

Moore essentially says that Christians cannot justifiably support either “evil.” The most notable part of Moore’s article was his use of the US military as an analogy to this Christian conundrum [emphasis added]:

Think of military service, another office of public responsibility, as an example. Members of the military don’t need to approve of everything a general decides to be faithful to their duty to the country.

But if they’re commanded to either slaughter innocent non-combatants or desert and sign up with the enemies of one’s country, a Christian can’t merely choose the least bad of these options. He would have to conclude that both are wrong and he could not be implicated in either.

It’s an interesting, if somewhat ill-fitting, analogy.

Yes, Christians (and every Read more

Hobby Lobby, the American Culture, and Religious Freedom

Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, writing at his Moore to the Point, referencing today’s arguments at the US Supreme Court regarding health care mandates and religious freedom, which he calls “the most important religious liberty case in a generation“:

This case isn’t about politics or culture wars. This case will set the tone for the next hundred years of church/state jurisprudence in this country. This case will tell us whether we’ve bartered away a birthright paid for with our forebears’ blood…

Our government has treated free exercise of religion as though it were a tattered house standing in the way of a government construction of a railroad; there to be bought off or plowed out of the way, in the name of progress.

The government wants us to sing from their hymn book, “Onward, Sexual Revolutionaries,” but we can’t do that. We love and respect our leaders, but when they set themselves up as overlords Read more

Christian Hypocrisy on Non-Traditional Marriage?

Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, recently provided a thought-provoking response to accusations that Christians are “hypocrites” because Christians have not gone after other “unbiblical” marriage as they have “same-sex marriage.”

As an example of an unbiblical wedding, [Kirsten Powers and Jonathan Merritt] cited a ceremony between a Christian and a non-Christian or involving a divorced person who does not have a biblical basis for divorce.

Moore’s response is fairly simple: While the Christian worldview may not support those people getting married, once they are married, they are in a valid, biblically-recognized marriage.

“[W]hile a biblical view of marriage would see that such people (fornicators, believers to unbelievers, unlawfully divorced, etc.) should not get married, and that the church has no authority to marry them, we also would affirm that such people, when married, actually are married,” Moore said. “A pastor who joins a believer to an unbeliever bears an awful responsibility for doing something wrong, but the end result is an actual marriage.

“The same-sex marriage differs not in terms of morality, but in terms of reality. It is not that homosexuality is some sort of wholly different or unforgivable sexual sin. It’s that Read more