My confidence is not so much that most evangelicals will make the correct choice (though I believe they will), but that they will be fully persuaded over who they believe to be the correct choice. Again, when have we been offered two more polarizing candidates with glaringly antithetical agendas? And why have so little confidence in the ability of the brethren to develop individual and strong convictions by November?

Whether portraying spiritual closeness with Roman Catholic clergymen, or painting a picture of our need for a fresh polemic to refute them(!), Carl Trueman’s brush is often broad and his hues blurred.

Trueman’s latest masterpiece contrasts what he calls “Trumpite ‘evangelicalism’” with “Biden’s brand of ‘devout’ Catholicism.” He asks his readers to consider, “Which is more threatening” to the Christian? Trueman predicts “it will be a truly difficult {question} to answer with any great conviction when entering the voting booth.” I can’t but wonder, with whom does Trueman believe he shares his predictive undecidedness?

Assuming Trump and Biden are still on the ballot in seven months, I find no reason to doubt the voting convictions of my liberal and conservative friends, or that in November Christians will vote one way or another without much hesitation. After all, when have we been offered two more polarizing candidates with glaringly antithetical agendas?

A party whose leader confuses the biblical canon with the writings of Jefferson or a party that is legislating the very abolition of man and gloats about that in its election campaign?
Trueman

Let’s run with that. Trueman is outraged by Trump promoting a Bible containing reprints of several of America’s documents, believing that Trump does not distinguish the canon from Thomas Jefferson’s writings. Whereas Biden “spits” on the sacred.

For what do we have? A candidate for the presidency who treats Christians as nothing more than promising marks for his hucksterism and an incumbent who spits on all they hold sacred.
Trueman

By Trueman’s calculations, one party’s candidate is a huckster who hides behind a false religiosity, while another overtly desecrates all that Christians hold sacred. In passing we might note that an attack on the sacred is something that can be assessed objectively, whereas one’s private-intention to deceive to the level of huckster* is not so easily discerned.

Since we cannot discern motive, why not make it easier on ourselves and judge what can (and may) be judged? Rather than trying to discern which candidate has the blackest heart, what if we just assume that the light of nature has grown equally dim among the leading two candidates? As a clarifying exercise, let’s assume one candidate overtly seeks to destroy Christian and American values from a purely secular perspective, and the other candidate is toying covertly with Christians to advance his own MAGA agenda. With those sorts of cancelling-out variables off the table, is there anything left to evaluate that might keep us from flipping a coin on November 5?

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