by Rod D. Martin
November 10, 2016

“Hello, Mr. Martin. My question is why do good, Christian people who are teachers (you know, the smart educators and influencers of our children) vote Democrat? Especially when it was Hillary!”

LOL Where would I even begin?

The short answer — in broad generalities — is that teacher education is heavily slanted toward leftist philosophy, so relatively few teachers are beginning from a Christian worldview, i.e., a comprehensive application of the Word to every area of life. So many see salvation and the Gospel and “righteous living” as separate — compartmentalized — from any application of Biblical principles to other topics, such as politics, economics, etc.

Note well: since socialism is entirely predicated on the systematic, institutionalized breaking of the 10th Commandment, this is not a small matter.

Now more specifically with regard to Trump, it is easy to find him offensive; and it is hard to swallow someone — especially for a Christian — who is open about his past sins and sometimes acts in ways that would offend our kindergarten Sunday School teacher. I get it; and more than that, I was for the other guy: I bundled for my friend Ted Cruz.

Still, I think our duty is not to see our vote as being about us — as though we are somehow cloaking the candidates we vote for in our moral authority and approval — but as a choice between two outcomes for our countrymen, with the object being to advance as much good and limit as much harm as possible under the circumstances.

I would not have chosen Donald Trump as our nominee; indeed, I did everything I could to prevent that. But given a choice between a man who is sometimes offensive but surrounds himself with believers and seems intent on advancing things that would benefit the church, and a woman who is manifestly corrupt, careless if not treacherous with our security, and intent on appointing Justices who will shred the First Amendment, I don’t think we faced an especially difficult choice.

But again, I think it was difficult for some of our friends because they couldn’t get past the immediate issue of Trump’s not being “nice”. And in serving the “tyranny of nice”, they strained at a gnat while swallowing a camel.

Fortunately, the country as a whole disagreed.