In case you have been sleeping like Rip Van Winkle, this is a Presidential Election year in the USA.  Faith will be declared, inspected, invoked, and provoked from all sides over these next few months.  Some will offer opinions from positions of knowledge, while others will offer authoritative sounding opinions from positions of functional ignorance.  It may become particularly true of this election since both presumed candidates have expressed faith traditions outside the American norm.  One, the Republican, is in no respects a Christian. The other, the incumbent Democrat, professes a form of Christianity that leaves many understandably skeptical.

So, given these choices, how should American Evangelicals approach the coming season?    Should we vote for a darkhorse Independent or Third Party candidate, who has no realistic chance to win but, who matches our Evangelical identity?  Should we sit this one out, and wait until next time when we might have a viable candidate more in line with our theological ideologies?

Dick Doster says forgoing the election is not an acceptable option. Here’s why:

Christians, when rightly informed and motivated, change the character of political debate. They bring the moral standards of God’s kingdom into the civic realm and thereby become agents of His common grace — of His provision for those who believe as well as those who don’t.

This is the opening paragraph of Doster’s thought provoking article, Politics: Why Christians Must Be Involved, published at byFaith Magaizne.  Click the article title to read Doster’s whole piece.