Christianity Today

No Perfect Options

Stephen Mansfield is author of The Mormonizing of America (Worthy Publishing, 2012). For further information, log onto MansfieldGroup.com.

To view the world through a Christian lens is to see a truth about life that is otherwise often papered over with happy faces and motivational slogans: The world is fallen, cracked, and flawed. Sin has deformed everything. It has made everybody a bit crazy.

It means that we never make choices between the perfect and its opposite. Every choice—whether for a spouse or a car or a pastor—is a choice for some brand of imperfection. Nowhere is this certainty more starkly revealed than in politics. The Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck made this point with his famous saying, "Laws are like sausages: It is better not to see them being made." Politics and the processes of government are usually ugly affairs that only occasionally produce satisfying results. The start of those processes rarely closely resembles the result. Usually a voter has to choose between "hold your nose" and "hold your nose tighter." Then he or she sits back and hopes for the best.

For American Christians, it is helpful to remember this as the November presidential election approaches. They face a choice between a politically and theologically liberal Christian and a politically conservative Mormon. Those who prefer Barack Obama, the left-leaning Christian, likely solved their dilemma in the last presidential election. Millions of voters are now confronting a new moral question: "Is there anything wrong with voting for a Mormon President?"

The answer is "No." In the 2012 election, voting for Mitt Romney—yes, a Mormon former bishop—is certainly a moral option for followers of Jesus Christ. For those who want a pro-life, pro-free market, pro-business, pro-defense, and "America first" champion, Mitt Romney is their man. It is no sin or dishonor of God to vote for him, even though his Latter-day Saint religion is far from orthodox Christianity.

To believe otherwise is to commit to a perfectionism that would make it nearly impossible to live in this world. If a candidate must be precisely aligned with our religion before we can vote for him, biblically faithful Christians will not be able to vote for either man in the upcoming election. Nor could they have voted for Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, or Reagan. Washington and Reagan seldom attended church. Jefferson and Lincoln had disqualifying doubts about who Jesus Christ was.

This demand for a perfect candidate would cause Christians to eliminate most presidential candidates in every election. There will be a price to voting for Romney, of course. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will enjoy heightened visibility and influence with a Romney candidacy and much more with a Romney presidency. Pastors will have to ensure congregations know right doctrine—a desperate need for this generation of Christians in any case. Individual Christian voters will need to distinguish, perhaps publicly, between their vote for the politician and their fierce disagreement with that politician's beliefs.

We did not create the limited possibilities of this fallen world. We must, though, make the most righteous choices possible within this fallen world.

Luther Would Know

Mollie Ziegler Hemingway is married to a former Mormon and blogs at GetReligion.com.

There is nothing inherently wrong with voting for a candidate who largely shares your political aims, no matter his or her religious views. It's perfectly fine to consider a candidate's religion, particularly to ensure that there are no beliefs with alarming implications for government policy.

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