Why Hillary Clinton is the right choice for pro-life evangelical Christians (like me)
It’s Election Day in the United States and I’d like to say I rose at 3:30 a.m. to pray for my country.
Not so. I awoke at 3:30 a.m. to a coughing four-year old with a runny nose. After 90 minutes in and out of his room (I think he’s finally asleep), I’m taking some time to pray, reflect, and write as this day of crazy begins.
I’ve put more prayer, reflection, thought, and words to this election than any since I first voted for president in 1996 (Bob Dole if you want to know). I was an activist Republican until college, when I decided that expressing my political opinions would do more harm than good. Before this election, I can think of only one instance since the late 1990s when I came out in a very public way for a candidate. That was in 2008, when my church asked me to write a 250-word pro-Obama piece for the church bulletin. Another member of the church was to write a pro-McCain piece. I reluctantly agreed and put hours and hours and then more hours into the project. I anguished over it for two reasons: 1) I had never voted for a Democrat before and was struggling to reconcile my Christianity with Obama’s pro-choice platform, and 2) I knew that in my particular congregation, my endorsement of Obama would put me in the minority (where my authenticity as a Christian would be open to dispute).
I mainly wanted to write a piece that came across as impartial and independent. I endorsed Obama on his merits alone and what his presidency could do for the country in the long view of history. I did not once mention McCain because I happened to like McCain a lot. I wanted to make it clear to readers that I was not rejecting McCain so much as I was choosing Obama as the better leader for the times.
Writing the Obama piece was the first time I ever had to dig deep into the issue of abortion. I grew up an evangelical Christian in a conservative family that voted Republican without question. We were passionately pro-life. My vote for the Republican ticket was always a foregone conclusion because abortion was always the issue around which every election turned. A Democrat may have agreed with us on all points, but he or she would not get our vote if he or she was pro-choice. Likewise, the most unqualified Republican could count on our vote as long as he or she was pro-life.
I did not question this until the 2008 election. Until then, I dutifully voted Republican in every election–local, state, and national.
Many factors influenced my first vote for a pro-choice Democratic candidate and I’ll share three here.
First, my views on government changed a great deal between 1996 and 2008. As an evangelical Christian, I am a student of the Bible. I come from a Christian tradition that upholds the belief that every person is capable of reading and studying Scripture to discover God’s will. I can’t recall how many times I’ve read the Bible, but it’s a lot. The period between 1996 and 2008 was the most intensive period of Bible study in my life. The more I read the Bible, the more I noticed the role of government in God’s worldview. Specific institutions and structures aside, government always has the same job before God: Justice.
Justice, however, is not what I initially thought. We tend to think of justice as criminal justice. That is, punishing those who commit crimes or waging war against those who threaten or violate our national security.
Biblical justice, however, is about fairness. What we would call civil rights, equal opportunity, or the haves helping the have-nots. God’s government concerns itself with aliens, orphans, the poor, and widows. Those who have property and wealth are to share with those who lack. Biblical government levels the playing field and makes life fair for everyone.
As my thinking on government began to align more with the biblical view on government, socially progressive policies resonated with me more and more. If government as God conceived it takes care of people who struggle to care for themselves, this is the standard by which I should hold government accountable.
Second, God convicted me that I must be the one to do what I thought needed to be done in the world. Nowhere in the Bible does God allow his followers to delegate their good deeds to someone else. Nowhere in the Bible does God excuse his followers from taking action because they voted for someone who would make laws to the same effect. While government has its role and should perform it well, God requires me to make the individual choice to live the values of my Christian faith.
What does that look like? I think for many Christians, it looks like a scene Jesus Christ describes in the Gospel of Matthew 25.31-40. If you’re not familiar, the Christ describes Judgment Day–the day when all the good guys go to heaven and all the bad guys go to hell (to put it in very rough language). Now, Judgment Day was a really big deal to me as a conservative evangelical Christian. I grew up in fear of it. I had nightmares about it. It was one particularly vivid nightmare about Judgment Day that practically hurled me into the baptistry at age 11.
As a kid growing up in mortal fear of Judgment Day, I was obsessive about a list of do’s and don’t’s that were the difference between an eternity in heaven or hell.
The most important “Do’s” on the list, by far, had to do with getting my religion right:
Do practice baptism by immersion (and this done exclusively in a Church of Christ baptistry by a Church of Christ member or it didn’t count).
Do belong to the correct church (the *only church): The Church of Christ.*
Do attend Church of Christ services three times a week: Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday night.
Do partake of the Lord’s Supper every Sunday.
Do try to convert as many people (especially Baptists, Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, and other “lost” Christians) as possible to the Church of Christ (The Lord’s Church).
As I grew into adulthood and I read the Bible more and more on my own, something about this list of “Do’s” seemed more and more out of tune with Christianity. It was the judgment scene in Matthew 25 that changed my mind about what it means to be Christian enough for heaven.
What was it that people did to be worthy of heaven?
When you read Matthew 25.31-40, the Christ (who is sitting in judgment) says nothing about attending the correct church, holding the correct religious views, or voting for the correct candidates.
Those who are fit for heaven (because they have been living as heaven on earth) are those who: Feed the hungry, welcome the stranger (alien), clothe the naked, care for the sick, and visit those in prison (the oppressed). The Christ says those who DO these things fit right into his Father’s kingdom because they’ve been practicing the kingdom all along by how they live their lives. You see, Christianity is not about adhering to the correct doctrine and voting for the correct candidate; it’s about living a life that closely resembles the life of Jesus Christ.
In Matthew 25.31-40, we see clearly both God’s intent for government (take care of those who struggle to take care of themselves) and for each one of his people who subjects herself to God’s rule.
It is not enough to vote for government officials who will care for people on the margins of society; I must personally care for people on the margins of society. This is what it means to be Christian as Christ defines Christianity.
As a Christian, I can and should vote for candidates who will feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, care for the sick, and release the oppressed. But, more important, as a Christian I must actively do those things myself. I cannot outsource them to a proxy in Washington. My vote does not count before God; my daily practice does.
Third, I got smart about the abortion issue. My first clue that I needed to “get smart” was the recognition that certain candidates I supported for being pro-life only became pro-life when it was time to run for office. This is where I began to see the politicization of the abortion issue to lock down entire voting blocs, including my own bloc of evangelical Christians. You see, to the architects of political campaigns, abortion is not a conviction; it is a chip to play. For years, those campaign chiefs could count on my vote simply by pushing the “pro-life” button. They knew I would give no further consideration to anything else that disqualified their candidate once he or she appealed to my pro-life stance. Likewise, they knew I would give no further consideration to their opponent’s qualifications once they painted her or him with the pro-choice label. This is why we call it a “hot button” issue. It is as Pavlovian as you can get.
The truth was: I was being played by political strategists.
Here’s some more truth. When I began to explore the facts about abortion and politics, I discovered things like these:
1. The Supreme Court that enacted Roe v. Wade comprised seven justices who were appointed by Republicans and just two justices who were appointed by Democrats. Since 1973, there have been five Republican administrations and three Democratic administrations. Those Republican administrations got elected on the promise of appointing Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade. That has not happened. That will not happen, because:
2. Presidents have far less power over abortion law than you think. For example, Supreme Court appointees must go through Senate confirmation, a process that ensures that anyone who makes it to the bench will be a compromise candidate. It is next to impossible for a President to stack the Supreme Court with justices who will take an extreme view one way or another. Expecting that a a pro-life president will lead to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade is an expectation that will go unmet.
3. The annual number of abortions in the United States has gone down dramatically since 1992. In fact, the number of annual abortions decreased every year but two since Bill Clinton’s first election. Abortion rates hit their peak during the Reagan administration in the 1980s while the most dramatic decreases took place under Clinton and Obama. If my own pro-life voting bloc really cares about decreasing the number of abortions in this country, evidence would seem to support voting for pro-choice Democrats as a better means. This demonstrates how political strategists are able to avoid facts to get people to vote based on fear and preconceptions.
4. Political treatment of the abortion issue tends to be quite shallow and thin for all of the reasons I stated above. The truth is, abortion is a complex issue with a lot of depth. As a lifelong pro-lifer who voted Republican until 2008, I always made abortion about ending the practice itself with no though whatsoever about the causes or options for bringing about its end. I didn’t ask who was getting abortions or why. I didn’t consider any solutions other than a straight ban on abortions.
But if ending abortion is what pro-lifers like me really want, what do we do with the facts? As in, the facts that point to an overall decrease in abortions under pro-choice presidents? Those facts would seem to indicate that, since 1973, a vote for a pro-choice Democrat was a vote for an overall reduction in the number of abortions in this country.
Pro-choice does not mean pro-abortion. Nobody in this country wants abortion. Nobody. This is something that I believe the political strategists want pro-lifers like me to ignore. Because if pro-choice people are looking for a way to end abortion and pro-life people are looking for a way to end abortion, political strategists no longer have a hot button to push.
It is highly improbable that abortion will end in the United States through court rulings or legislation that make it illegal. Those who insist that this must be the only way to end abortion are essentially saying the only play they will accept is a Hail Mary pass. If they can’t have it their way, they’ll take their ball and go home.
The truth is, abortion is as much about child care, family planning, health care, and women’s rights as it is about fetuses.
Let me give you an example of what I mean.
My wife and I would love to have another baby, although we don’t expect it to happen by natural means. We’re in our early 40s and after my wife had a miscarriage last year, she’s reluctant to go through another pregnancy. We would love to adopt a child, but we’re not taking action for financial reasons.
I’m not an expert on adoption, but knowing what I know I can ask: What if pro-lifers like me could devote some of the energy that we put into lobbying for anti-abortion legislation into lobbying for legislation that makes it affordable and easy to adopt? Would not the effect be the same? And wouldn’t it be more likely to pass into law with less conflict? Wouldn’t it take into more consideration the needs of both children and mothers?
As a pro-life voter, I have become more supportive of pro-choice candidates because they seem more ready and willing to discuss all the options available to make life better for children and women so that abortion is less likely. I mean, if the goal here is a reduction in abortions, then let’s vote for the candidates who actually propose solutions that reduce abortions. And those candidates these days happen to be pro-choice.
So, in conclusion, as a pro-life evangelical Christian, I voted for Barack Obama (twice) and will vote for Hillary Clinton. These are the reasons:
1. Their philosophy of the role of government is more in line with what I believe to be the biblical role of government, that is: Leveling the playing field to uplift those who are down in society.
2. That being said, I only live the Christian life by practicing Christian compassion, kindness, and mercy like that I find in Matthew 25. Voting for candidates who are in line with the biblical philosophy of government is the good and right thing to do, but it does not even start to fulfill my Christian duty. For example, if I really care about unborn fetuses, I have to go care for their mothers directly and personally. Voting for the pro-life candidate is not doing my Christian duty. Caring for mothers is.
3. Pro-choice candidates actually do more to promote what pro-lifers like me claim to want: A reduction in abortions that also takes the well-being of families and mothers more into account. Voting for a candidate just because he or she claims to be pro-life is succumbing to political calculations that take my vote for granted. It also endangers the country because I may knowingly vote for a candidate who is unfit for office simply because he or she claims to be pro-life.
I am an evangelical Christian who is pro-life. And for these reasons, I am casting my vote for Hillary Clinton today. If you agree with me, I hope you’ll join me. If not, I hope this is the beginning of your own reconsideration of how you choose your candidates in the future.
Grace and peace to us all.
Grace and peace to the United States of America.