A reader over on Facebook pointed me in the direction of a post on Douglas Wilson’s blog, a site I have visited a number of times. Wilson is a prominent Reformed evangelical writer, pastor and teacher, a founder of New Saint Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho, and the pastor of Christ Church. I have a great deal of respect for Wilson, so I was quite interested in what he had to say. What was he going to do? Well, after reading his post twice I can say that he finds the two candidates equally repellent and so he’s not voting for either one. As he says, “And if I am going to be in that opposition (whether against Trump’s authoritarianism or Hillary’s despotism), I want to go into that opposition with my garments clean. I do not intend to have the yard signs of my coming adversary in my garage.
Wilson is very passionate about the number of lives that have been lost to abortion, and I say, Good for him. He then moves to criticize Thabiti Anyabwile, the pastor of a church in the East Anacostia region of Washington D. C., a heavily African-American area sadly known for its poverty. In a series of articles written on The Gospel Coalition website which I discussed back before the conventions, Thabiti explained why he was voting for Clinton and why he found the idea of a Trump presidency intolerable. He has taken an enormous amount of heat for this position.
Now, here’s the thing: Wilson cites statistics saying that abortions take place for African-Americans at three times the rate that they occur in whites, and that these rates can be called genocidal. I have no reason to doubt the veracity of his statement. But Wilson lives in Idaho, a state with a very low black population, and he teaches at a college he founded and preaches at an established church. He’s very, very engaged with the issues of the world on his blog and in his books, and he’s gone so far as to debate the late Christopher Hitchens on the existence of God. (I’ve watched the video.) And I’m sure that, even though (or perhaps because) he lives in a small town, there are plenty of people with complicated problems who come walking into his office seeking his counsel and help. I’m not accusing him of living in an ivory tower. The fact of the matter is, though, he’s far removed geographically from the genocide he describes. On the other hand, Thabiti is right there on the ground. How many pregnant African-American teens has he counseled as pastor? Many, I am sure, even in the short time he has been there. (The church was launched in April of last year.) Does he entreat them not to abort their babies? I am absolutely positive that he does. (The Anacostia River Church meets for now at Anacostia High School, which, as far as I can tell, has an in-school health clinic at least partially run by Planned Parenthood, although they do not of course perform abortions there. There is a full-fledged PP clinic within five miles of the school. Talk about working to make a difference within the enemy’s territory!) Wilson accuses Thabiti of being silent about the evil of abortion, but he has apparently read only one of the three articles that Thabiti wrote. (I am re-posting the links to all three articles at the end of this post.)
So what is Wilson’s conclusion? That if you support by your vote a candidate whose positions are antithetical to your own, even if you are doing so only because you believe the opposing candidate is worse, then you have forever forfeited any kind of moral authority: “If we in the Church are on the verge of having to say ‘a plague on both your houses,’ then it would be good if millions of us hadn’t just finished voting for one or the other of those houses.” But exactly the opposite is true. If I wash my hands of the stain of voting for one or the other undesirable candidate then I have no voice at all. Why should any politician listen to me? There’s a great difference between saying “I didn’t vote for you, and I didn’t vote for your opponent, and now I’m going to thunder against you” and saying “I voted for you and now I’m going to keep you in check” or “I did all I could to keep you out of office by voting against you, and now I’m going to do all I can to rein you in.” It seems to me to be a Pontius Pilate kind of thing to do, to refuse to vote, as if by doing that you’ve washed your hands and are now declared innocent.
In the end, this whole question of whether or not principled Christians can bring themselves to vote for Clinton on November 8 may be completely moot, as the chorus of voices calling for Trump to back out of the race is becoming louder and louder. I don’t know if the much-speculated-upon “intervention” happened this weekend or not, but even if it did take place it would at most result in a couple of sane, stilted, read-from-the-teleprompter speeches from Trump before he explodes again. I said in my initial post on the election that I was planning to vote for Clinton unless something drastic happened at the convention and Trump was not nominated. In that spirit, I would be obligated (and relieved) to cast my vote for a replacement nominee.
Here are the re-links to Thabiti’s three excellent articles:
“A Vote to Check Unpredictable Evil with the Predictable” May 10, 2016 (This is the only article that Dr. Wilson cites.)
“Can We Talk? Or Why I Think a Trump Presidency Is Intolerable Even Though You May Not Agree” June 6, 2016
“On Abortion and Racism: Why There Is a Greater Evil in This Election” June 7, 2016
Here are three topics I plan to address next week, leaving room for whatever happens in another crazy news cycle:
An interview over at Breitbart News with Roger Stone, Trump’s campaign advisor and confidante, about how Trump supporters should react (in a word, violently) if Clinton wins.
An interview between Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal and Jacob Weisberg over on the ever-pungent-and-piercing Trumpcast at Slate.com.
From Breitbart News to Slate.com–No one can accuse me of limiting my news intake!
A comparison of the DNC’s and the RNC’s platform statements on abortion, and how much those statements really matter.