In conversations with my family about the upcoming election, statements like "Won't it be terrible if Obama is elected?" come up frequently. I suppose the answer is yes, quite possibly things will be bad. Of course, things might be equally bad if McCain wins—there is no guarantee. No doubt, Obama is a very scary guy and the thought of his presidency makes me cringe. But I am a pessimist by nature and consequently I have a sneaking suspicion that he might win. Why? Well, one of Obama's vague promises of change is some kind of economic reform which is better than McCain's who, because he is a Republican, will be exactly like George W. Bush. That combined with the fact that human beings in general are selfish creatures who tend to care more about their checking account balance than about every human's basic right to life gives Obama a pretty good chance. Given our recent financial crises and bailouts and what-not, money is at the top of the priority list for too many of us. And while the financial matters should concern us, it is stupid to care more about the economy than about the right to life. After all, economics doesn't matter a damn if you're dead.
I don't really know whether Obama's economic policies are better than McCain's or which one of the two has a better plan for getting out of Iraq. Quite frankly, I really don't care. If I can't trust a candidate's position on a human's most basic right to life, then I can't trust him to make sound economic or military decisions. What I do care about is that Obama is a pro-abortion extremist who voted to refuse medical care for babies who survive abortions—which, effectively, amounts to infanticide. I further care that McCain, while creepy, is mostly anti-abortion. Though he is in favor of abortion in cases of rape, incest, or life-of-mother-at-stake situations, and in favor of government funding for embryonic stem cell research, which, like abortion, involves the destruction of human beings, he remains the lesser of two evils. Or, to borrow Mark Shea's term, the "Lesser Cannibal." If there actually existed a pro-life independent candidate who stood even a slim chance of winning, I might vote for him. However, I haven't found one. So if for no other reason than to help prevent Obama from winning, McCain will get my vote in November. (It's a shame that Ron Paul isn't on the North Carolina ballot.)
But I digress.
Notwithstanding who wins the election, my pessimistic attitude requires me to believe that things will be bad and eventually get worse. Western Civilization has removed God from the equation and has embraced moral relativism as its fundamental organizing principle. The U.S. Supreme Court itself embraced this moral relativism in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. They declared that it is each individual's right to "define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life." If we each define our own concept of existence, we are left without an absolute on which we can base our vision of the common good. Consequently, morality becomes a free-for-all—whatever is bad for you might be okay for me. I expect that we will soon see the open acceptance by the majority of things like gay "marriage," and involuntary euthanasia for those too old to be useful. One needs only to look at the Netherlands to know that this will soon be heading in our direction.
With this moral decline, we will see a concurrent backlash against Christianity. And this trouble will come ultimately from those who would turn their hatred of life into public policy. Let us hypothetically consider a future Congress which passes two bills, one requiring churches to witness homosexual unions, and the other requiring all physicians to perform abortions. A future President might sign those bills into law. Christian physicians and pastors would then refuse to violate their consciences and thus violate the law. Then, someone would sue, appeal, etc. until the case eventually reached the Supreme Court. The Court, having assumed for itself the power of judicial review in Marbury v. Madison in 1803, would of course uphold the new laws. Churches would soon see their tax-exempt statuses taken away and doctors would lose their licenses to practice. And this would only be the beginning of sorrows.
But no matter what persecutions we Christians in the U.S. will face, we should not be surprised. Jesus never promised to save us from tribulation in some half-baked Left Behind really-three-comings-of-Christ scenario dreamed up by Tim Jenkins and Jerry Leroy or whoever they are. Our Lord himself told us that "they will deliver you up to tribulation, and put you to death; and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake" (Mt 24:9, RSVCE). We in the West have had a fairly easy time since Constantine legalized our religion and returned our previously confiscated property in A.D. 313. But elsewhere in the world Christians are being persecuted even today. Over the centuries we have been hated because always and everywhere Christ's morality challenges practices common to the secular social order. In the early centuries when Christianity was still illegal in the Roman Empire, we were hated because we were fiercely opposed to things like, say, abortion, or throwing undesirable infants into the Tiber to drown. We face these same evils today, but instead of throwing our babies into the river, we toss their dismembered remains into a box labeled "biohazard." Christians went to their deaths in the first and second centuries because they proclaimed that Jesus is Dominus Deus over against the emperor's claim to that title. Today, we are hated because we refuse to bow down to the Lord God of Self, and that really irritates the moral relativists who do.
Though I paint a very pessimistic picture, I do not mean to suggest that we Christians should simply drop out of public life. We do not live in a totalitarian regime where we have no voice. Our government is a republic in which we can participate and thus we have a moral obligation to do so. Not all of us should run for office or even volunteer for a political party, but each of us can vote, no matter how futile it may seem.
However, we must go to the polls with realistic mindsets. A focus on only two candidates for a single office is too narrow (and McCain v. Obama isn't much of a choice anyway). We must remember that though the President may initiate policies, he cannot overturn Roe v. Wade or remove the knuckleheads currently on the Supreme Court (although he can appoint lesser knuckleheads to the Court when the greater knuckleheads retire). It is ultimately Congress who makes laws and/or gives up its power to the President, and ultimately the Supreme Court who interprets those laws and finds things in the Constitution that aren't really there. This election most likely won't affect things drastically one way or the other—neither of the two candidates venture too far left or right of center. Moral decline and the rise of evil will most likely happen slowly in the case of the United States, but unless there is a drastic intervention by God Almighty, the culture of death will ultimately prevail. Perhaps not in the next four years, but possibly in eight or twelve or sixteen years.
But Christians have hope. The death culture's victory and whatever persecution we face because of it will only be temporary. Our Lord promises that though "most men's love will grow cold, he who endures to the end will be saved" (Mt 24:12b–13, RSVCE). Thus, we can with confidence await the day when God says, "It is done," and in the meantime we can pray, "Come, Lord Jesus" (Rev 21:6; 22:20, KJV).