The Christian, and more particularly the Catholic, vote. 2024

I recently noted, after the second assassination attempt on Donald Trump, a group of folks I know posting prayers for Donald Trump.  

I've noted this before.

In this instance, I post the example below.

Now, let me start off by noting, that  praying for anyone, particularly those in some kind of danger, distress, or bad situation, is a Christian thing to do, and should be done.   That's not the point here.

What is, is the adoption by some Christians, and more particularly by some Catholics, of the concept of Trump as a Christian warrior, is badly misbegotten.  The "Cause his enemies to stumble and fall into confusion and panic" line is particularly worrisome.  Indeed, if he were granted "clarity", it seems to me that he'd have to spend darned near all of his remaining days on Earth in reparative acts of repentance.

There's not an observant Christian in this race.

Indeed, while praying for Trump should be done, and for Kamala Harris as well, the real question in this race, if you are an observant Christian, is not necessarily which of these two candidates should you vote for, but rather should you vote for somebody else.

I'd suggest that at least if you live in a state which is going to go for Trump, or going to go for Harris, you must in fact vote for a third party.  

Lets start with the situation I find myself in.  What if you are an observant Christian, or more particularly a Catholic, and live in a state Donald Trump is going to win.  As an observant Christian, you should not vote for Donald Trump.

First of all, there's no real reason to believe that Trump himself, in spite of some, particularly Evangelicals, claiming him as a Christian, is a Christian.  He's a nominal Presbyterian, we know, but if he actually believes any Presbyterian doctrine, he must be an extreme Calvinist that believes in predestination as he apparently feels he can do whatever he wants and it doesn't really matter.

Personally, he's a serious polygamist who has not only repeatedly married, divorced, and remarried, but he's had at least two well known affairs while married.¹   His conduct towards women in general is abhorrent.

He's also a constant liar, with serious lies being a grave sin.  He tried to steal the 2020 election, which is obviously a grave sin.

Among the horrific lies he's spread are ones about immigrants.  And he's threatening to deport millions of people who are, granted, illegal aliens, but who now live in the country, with some having done so for a very long time.

What some will say, is that Christians have to vote for him, as he stands opposed to the moral decay that's brought about such things as transgenderism, and he stands against the sea of blood that the Democrats would unleash in regard to abortion.  Both of those are valid point, although on abortion he's modified his position to one that resembles that of a lot of Democrats.

Then there's Kamala Harris.

Harris is a Baptist, but hardly reflects the traditional religious positions of the Anabaptist Protestant faith.  She isn't a serial polygamist, to be sure, but her spouse had a prior marriage, which is problematic in Christian theology.  Setting that aside, as it's become so common amongst Christians, and as it is ignored by most of Protestantism, its her views on other things that make her a no go for Christians.

She's in favor of the current Democratic platform that fully endorses the horror of Roe v. Wade, which she'd see enshrined as law.  The current GOP platform is silent on abortion, as an act of cowardice, but the Democrats are all in on it.

The Democrats are also all in on transgenderism, something for which there's no evidence as being grounded in nature, and may well be grounded in mental illness.   And while confusing the boundaries between natural marriage and genders has not been a big issue in this campaign, it's clear where the Democrats are on that as well.

For those reason, an observant Christian cannot vote for her.

But you don't need to.

At least you don't need to, as noted, if you live in a state that's going hard for Trump, or hard for Harris.

The only political party that really squares with Christianity is the American Solidarity Party.  If you've heard the Four Things homily I noted the other day, it's the only party you could be a member of and not be squirming in your seats.

It's the only really moral choice in this election, and if you live in a state that's going hard for Harris or Trump, I'd argue its the choice you have to make. In those states you don't have a "lesser of two evils" choice, but rather a protest against evil requirement.  Voting for Trump or Harris in a state that's going  hard for one or the other endorses their platform, and serves to only do that.

It also serves to reinforce the insane two party system that is not serving the country, at all and needs to end.  It's time to end it.  Voting for a third party starts that process.

Footnotes:

1. Recently I've seen it noted that Melania Trump is the first "Catholic first lady since Jackie Kennedy".

Yeah, well not a very observant Catholic.  In the eyes of the Church she's in an invalid marriage for more than one reason.  Barron Trump was, we'd note, baptized in an Episcopal Church, even though Catholics have a duty to raise their children as Catholics.

I don't know her current moral state, of course.  She's not seen much with Donald.  Given Trump's behavior, they may well be living as "brother and sister".  But the point is that she can't exactly be held up as an example of public female Catholicism.

Related threads:

The Four Things.

The Four Things.

Because I've referenced it more than one time, but apparently never posted it (cowardice at work) I'm going to post here the topic of "the four sins God hates".  I'm also doing this as I'm getting to a political thread about this years elections and the candidates, in the context of the argument of "Christians must. . . " or "Christians can. . . "

First I'll note using the word "hate", in the context  of the Divine, is a truncation for a much larger concept.  "Condemns" might have been a better choice of words, but then making an effective delivery in about ten minutes or less is tough, and truncations probably hit home more than other things.

Additionally, and very importantly, sins and sinners are different.  In Christian theology, and certainly in Catholic theology, God loves everyone, including those who have committed any one of these sins, or all of them.

This topic references a remarkably short and effective sermon I heard some time ago. The way my 61 year old brain now works, that probably means it was a few years ago.  At any rate, it was a homily based on all three of the day's readings, which is remarkable in and of itself, and probably left every member of the parish squirming a bit.  It should have, as people entrenched in their views politically and/or economically would have had to found something to disagree with, or rather be hit by.

The first sin was an easy one that seemingly everyone agrees is horrific, but which in fact people excuse continually, murder.

Murder is of course the unjust taking of a life, and seemingly nobody could disagree with that being a horrific sin. But in fact, we hear people excuse the taking of innocent life all the time.  Abortion is the taking of an innocent life.  Even "conservatives", however, and liberals as a false flag, will being up "except in the case of rape and incest".

Rape and incest are horrific sins in and of itself, but compounding it with murder doesn't really make things go away, but rather makes one horror into two.  Yes, bearing a child in these circumstances would be a horrific burden.  Killing the child would be too.

The second sin the Priest noted was sodomy.  He noted it in the readings and in spite of what people might like to say, neither the Old or New Testaments excuse unnatural sex. They just don't.  St. Paul is particularly open about this, so much so that a local female lesbian minister stated that this was just "St. Paul's opinion", which pretty much undercuts the entire Canon of Scripture.  

A person can get into Natural Law from here, which used to be widely accepted, and which has been cited by a United States Supreme Court justice as recently as fifty or so years ago, and the Wyoming Supreme Court more recently than that, and both in this context, but we'll forgo that in depth here. Suffice it to say that people burdened with such desires carry a heavy burden to say the least, but that doesn't make it a natural inclination.  In the modern Western World we've come to excuse most such burdens, however, so that where we now draw lines is pretty arbitrary. 

Okay, those are two "conservative" items.

The next wasn't.

That was mistreating immigrants.  

This sort of speaks for itself, but there it is. Scripture condemns mistreating immigrants.  You can't go around, as a Christian, hating immigrants or abusing them because of their plight.  

Abusing immigrants, right now, seems to be part of the Conservative "must do" list.

And the final one was failing to pay workmen a just wage.  Not exactly taking the natural economy/free market approach in the homily.

Two conservatives, and two liberal.

That's because Christianity is neither liberal or conservative, but Christianity.  People claiming it for teir political battles this year might well think out their overall positions.