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‘An Evangelical Voters Guide, Six Weeks Out’

Posted by MARK DANIELS in Politics, Religion.
Sep 25th, 2008 | Comments

That’s the title of a useful post written by Asbury Theological Seminary professor, Ben Witherington, on his blog. It may surprise those fed on a regular diet of wrong impressions created by some who claim to speak for all evangelicals or disinformation spooned out by some in the media regarding evangelicals, other Christians, and all theists. Witherington’s advice breaks stereotypes and is non-partisan. One might even call it moderate.

His main pieces of advice to evangelical Christians contemplating the upcoming election:

Do your homework
Plan on voting even if you are frustrated
Do not be a one-issue voter
Think about how much character should weigh in who you vote for
Prioritize what you, in good conscience, think are the most crucial issues–and evaluate the candidates on the bases of those priorities
Be smart enough to see when a candidate is not being honest or forthright about his or her views
Don’t just vote on gut instinct. Think, evaluate, discuss, pray before pulling the lever.

I think that this is a good list not just for evangelical Christians, but all Christians, and really, for anyone who takes their citizenship seriously. Read the whole thing.

In 2007, I wrote a series of posts on How Christians Might Think About the 2008 Presidential Election. Some of the points I made there dovetail with Witherington’s, although my goal was to present a series of lenses or prisms through which Christians might consider the election process, including how they themselves participated not only as voters, but as folks standing around the water cooler reacting to the latest negative ad or the most recent news from Wall Street. The links to that series are:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7

I particularly like two pieces of advice Witherington gives in his post. The first is to avoid being one-issue voters. The second is to be smart enough to discern dishonesty in candidates. The latter reminds me of something Jesus told his followers: “See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves” (Matthew 10:16).

Would that we all were as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves…including our candidates.

[This has been cross-posted at my personal blog.]

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Marlowecan

Mark, this was an interesting post.

I suspect the Democrats have largely written off the evangelical vote...except for the quadrennial front page story in the New York Times -- taken out and dusted off, with a word changed here and there, every four years -- about how evangelicals are abandoing the GOP and moving to the Democrats in ever-great numbers.

Your post reminded me of a story I read of the Bush strategy to woo the Amish . . . which had important numbers in such states as Ohio . . . in 2004.

The Kerry campaign totally dismissed the Amish, of course. Rove, however, gave some thought to winning their votes.

Knowing their modesty, and their dislike for garish display, Rove had Bush visit Amish communities without ANY press coverage whatsoever. Moreover, Rove had Bush merely introduce himself and talk about himself for a bit.

Bush explicitly DID NOT ask for the Amish vote, or ask that they consider him and vote at election time.

Respect and cultural sensitivity paid off for Bush.
Kerry, not surprisingly, won zero Amish votes.

For the first time the Amish came out in significant numbers to vote for Bush, reinforcing his strength in rural and exurban regions.

The MSM in Ohio were focused entirely on campuses and inner cities, and ignored Bush's strengths. Hence the Democrats stunned shock on election day as these discounted voters blew Kerry's Youth Vote out of the water.

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