Conclusion: Democracy has many flaws, and human governance is full of unpleasant vicissitudes.
This isn’t the first time that people—even a religious people—have made a foolish political decision. In many ways, it is the tragic history of human politics. I have heard several pastor friends basically say, “I feel like I’ve failed when I see a Trump bumper sticker in my church parking lot on Sunday morning.” I think that it’s a little excessive and deceptively prideful to think that we have the suasion and power to prevent every member of our congregations from falling out of political line. Folks who make political deals with the devil need to be met with charitable correction rather than derision. To go back to Alex Wilgus’ essay: “Perhaps political inertia is an undesirable trait for a people who are supposed to keep their lamps oiled, but it’s not a feature of collective insanity or hypocrisy. It’s an insane person taking advantage of perennial and typical social characteristics.”
So, be sad, but not surprised.
However, I think the role of the Christian political and social commentator has a lot more at stake, and those with such platforms are going to be held accountable to a higher standard by the Almighty. Anyone who has read Grudem’s work on politics realizes it suffers from a revivalistic tunnel-vision that posits “Christian politics” as “right-wing classical democratic liberal politics.” And I usually don’t expect excellent political commentary from theologians and biblical scholars in general (they suffer many of the same weaknesses as the rest of the academic class). However, because Grudem has deemed himself a worthy political commentator and does have some “pull” in important circles, I think his call should be considered a terrible misstep bordering on moral compromise.
The truth is, evangelicals do have a lot to lose with voicing support for Donald Trump: “our moral authority to say character counts in the White House” [as well as any other political office]. And that is quite a pearl to gamble away on uncertain gains.
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