The combination of these two errors brings about an unfortunate result: Evangelicals are trained, perhaps subconsciously, that being a thoughtful Christian in politics simply means voting for the candidate who appears most Christian. It suggests that we should choose candidates based on party or evangelical allegiance rather than by a logical assessment of the situation at hand.

It’s never a surprise to open my RSS reader and find stories about the GOP presidential contenders. I do, after all, subscribe to the feeds of several news websites. I also subscribe to the blogs of some prominent evangelicals, so some of the articles I see are not from CNN or the Wall Street Journal, but Douglas Wilson, Al Mohler, or other evangelical leaders with large web followings.

I think religious leaders, especially those who have to stand in a pulpit on Sunday morning, ought to be very careful about publicly endorsing a candidate. I don’t think it’s wrong to do so, but I do think our priority ought to be to teach our people how to think about voting more than stumping for any one politician. At this point in the political season however, I think Wilson, Mohler, James Dobson, Tony Perkins, and many others have dropped the ball.

Let me be very clear – though I do not support Rick Santorum, I believe Christians and Christian leaders have the freedom of conscience to do so. I’m not trying to take these men to task for throwing their support behind the former Pennsylvania senator. I’m trying to take them to task because the arguments they use in his favor are often illogical or false and thus fail to assist in teaching us how to think about candidates and elections.

Allow me to engage with some items from recent weeks. Dr. Mohler wrote (republished by The Aquila Report):

In a world accustomed to bland politicians, Santorum breaks the mold. He admires conviction politicians, and he aims to be one. He speaks his mind, and then keeps on talking.

He talks of moral issues — shockingly — in terms of right and wrong.

He has questioned President Obama’s worldview, suggesting that the President’s brand of environmentalism is based in a “phoney theology” and not a “biblical theology,” since it fails to recognize the central importance of human beings. Mainline Protestantism “is in shambles” he explains, destroyed by liberal theology. “It’s gone from the world of Christianity as I see it,” he said.

Santorum has charged to the front ranks of the Republican nomination battle precisely because of his convictions. Even though these beliefs may be “unpalatable” to large sectors of the American public, they are the very arguments that animate the passions of conservative Christian voters, who drive much of the energy in the Republican Party.

Finally, Rick Santorum attracts protests on college campuses because people believe him when he speaks…That may be the real bottom line when it comes to the Santorum predicament. Saying such things might not be a problem, but saying them when everyone understands that you mean them . . . that is another thing altogether.

You can find very similar claims from the pens of

Doug Wilson,

One of the reasons I like Santorum is that he generates the right kind of hatred from the usual suspects. And I like even more the fact that he doesn’t care. His sense of morality is far less cool than his sweater vests.

Tony Perkins,

Former Senator Santorum is seeing growing support not because voters agree with everything he says but because of his authenticity. Rick Santorum also doesn’t have a lot of baggage that weighs him down.

and James Dobson.

“I believe you really care about the moral integrity of this nation and I believe you will fight for it,” Dobson said to Santorum.

These men contribute much to the promotion of the Gospel and of Christian values in the world. It is likely that we agree more often than we disagree and we certainly agree on more important things than GOP politics. Yet, I think it is not insignificant that their public zeal for Santorum comes at the expense of truth and reason.

Again, understand that this is not about how they should support candidate x instead of candidate y. There are no perfect candidates in this or any other election. This is also not about criticizing Rick Santorum, though that result is inevitable given the task at hand. This is about demonstrating how the arguments used by prominent evangelicals in favor of the former senator are ultimately unhelpful. And this by men who ought to be teaching, and demonstrating, a consistent and truthful approach to candidate selection.

There are at least two problems: 1) Many assertions made in support of Santorum do not reasonably follow from his voting record and public statements; 2) Many of the arguments used to disqualify Romney, Gingrich and Paul would also disqualify Santorum if applied fairly. The combination of these two errors brings about an unfortunate result: Evangelicals are trained, perhaps subconsciously, that being a thoughtful Christian in politics simply means voting for the candidate who appears most Christian. It suggests that we should choose candidates based on party or evangelical allegiance rather than by a logical assessment of the situation at hand.

Each of these men praises Santorum for speaking clearly and truthfully and have emphasized that he does so no matter what the consequences. Both Mohler and Wilson point to this as the primary reason why he is hated by so many – he speaks in black and white. He’s more principled than politician.

Yet Santorum voted for and, even four years later, supported “No Child Left Behind.” He endorsed Arlen Specter. He voted at least nine times for bills that gave money to Planned Parenthood. Clearly these aren’t actions consistent with principled conservatism. How does he defend them?

Sometimes you take one for the team…

The primary argument given in support of Santorum is that, unlike the others, he’s too principled to take one for the team. But when referencing these choices Santorum said “I have to admit, it was against the principles I believed in.” In this case, Santorum is being more honest than many of the evangelicals who endorse him. He admits that he picked politics over principles from time to time. They tell us that he’d never do such a thing. When challenged on these points the typical response is “Everyone does it. He doesn’t do it nearly as much as the other guys.”

Dr. Mohler contends that “The moral convictions Santorum articulates are deeply rooted in the Christian inheritance of Western civilization.” The convictions he articulates? Perhaps. The actions that result from those convictions is another matter. The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington found him to be one of the three most corrupt senators in Washington in 2006. Yet while Santorum admits to putting the “team sport of politics” above his own convictions many prominent evangelical leaders continue to proclaim that he is above this kind of thing.

Another example: his campaign has not taken the strong moral stand we are led to expect from him when setting a contrast between Christianity and Mormonism. This is, in my estimation, particularly damning evidence against the claims that Santorum stands firm on principle even when it’s unpopular.

At a Michigan campaign stop on February 27th Santorum was introduced by a Michigan pastor named Kent Clark. Mr. Clark was asked by CNN if he believes that Romney, a Mormon, is a Christian. He replied,

No. Those if us who are Christians believe very strongly that God came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ and we base all our values around that.

Notice what Mr. Clark did – he responded to the question with a clear answer (“no”) and with a reasonable explanation for that answer. In order to be a Christian you have to believe in the full divinity of Jesus Christ. As he rightly stated, “…we base all our values around that.” That’s a great answer and a great way for a leader to demonstrate how Christians should answer those kinds of difficult questions. Sadly, the CNN article ends this way:

Asked if Santorum agrees with Clark’s characterization of Romney’s faith, campaign spokesman Alice Stewart told CNN he does not.

Which team is he taking it for when he instructs his campaign to call Mormons Christians? I would suggest: his own. (And please don’t suggest that his campaign had never discussed the issue with him or prepared for the question.) Remember that Santorum had no problem labeling un-Chrisitan the liberal political theology of President Obama (though he would later recant of that as well). After all, primary voters don’t get mad at you for criticizing anything about President Obama. Yet that same courage and conviction seems to have left him when dealing with the extremely touchy issue of Christians making statements about Mormons.

Again, my intent is not to bash Santorum. It’s to point out the demonstrable error evangelical leaders are making when they put all their eggs in the “extremely principled” basket. By his own admission (“taking one for the team”), by examination of his position (it would be political death to claim Romney isn’t a Christian), and by the detailed analysis of watchdogs it is not hard to see that Santorum enjoys no special place on the moral high ground among politicians. I’m not saying you can’t make equally damning arguments against the other candidates. I’m saying that the evangelical leaders throwing their weight behind Santorum have done so with grand statements that seek to set his integrity, faith, and moral compass above all other comers. These arguments are ludicrous and unhelpful.

A second consideration is this: many of the arguments Santorum supporters use to disqualify Romney, Gingrich and Paul would also disqualify Santorum if applied fairly.

Here’s something Tony Perkins wrote about Romney:

Rick Santorum’s rise in the polls is also another indication that voters remain uncomfortable with Mitt Romney.
Even though former Governor Romney has been running for president for years, he has a polling threshold that he
just can’t get past. People aren’t comfortable with him because his record is very different from his campaign
platform. That is not to say that conservatives are saying his platform isn’t authentic but it clearly is an obstacle
when campaign rhetoric and historical record do not match.

A quick scan of watchdog website PolitiFact.com reveals that Santorum campaign rhetoric is more-often-than-not dishonest or misleading. Anyone who watched the final GOP debate saw Santorum admit that some of the things he’s opposed to on the 2012 campaign trail are the very things he voted for when he had the opportunity to oppose them.

Consider Santorum’s supporters attack against opponent Ron Paul on the issue of life. They, and the candidate himself, suggest that Paul is anti-life because he has voted against pro-life bills that increased the roll of the federal government in the issue. The problem with these kinds of accusations is that they assume a person can only vote for or against a bill for one reason. They are intended to be sound bites and to discourage voters from considering a candidate’s rationale for voting a particular way at a particular time.

Meanwhile, these evangelical leaders give Santorum a silver star for his consistent pro-life positions (neverminding those funds for Planned Parenthood). After all, Santorum can explain why those bills were worth voting for despite the PP funding just as easily as he can explain why he endorsed Arlen Specter despite Specter’s atrocious record on the life issue. But wait, those are just the kind of nuanced explanations that Santorum’s opponents are not allowed to offer, at least in the minds of those promoting the former senator.

Instead of obfuscating and promoting the anti-intellectual rhetoric Christian leaders ought to see these times as teachable moments and show their people that reasons matter. When the issue of the Specter endorsement came up, Santorum explained why he did it. He made a judgment call and decided that it was worth having Specter in office if it meant another vote for pro-life justices. We might disagree with his calculation but it was his to make and owning up to it and explaining the reasoning behind it is the right thing to do.

Christian leaders should teach their people to have the intellectual humility to recognize that reasonable Christian people can have different assessments about these things. We would do well to regularly admit this point and to admit that our endorsement of a candidate is based on just that kind of subjective calculation. The fact that it is subjective doesn’t mean that all choices are legitimate or equally wise but it also prevents us from looking like a fool when our case for eliminating candidate x can so easily be applied to our own.

Doug Wilson once wrote,
I have written about the dangers of ideology in politics (which addresses the how more than the what), and thought I needed to say one additional thing about that. By ideologue, I do not mean someone who is zealous, or who is focused on what he is doing. I do not mean someone who sacrifices for a political cause — I rather mean someone who sacrifices the wrong things.

Santorum has admitted that he, on at least a few occasions, sacrificed his principles for another objective. And Wilson would readily admit that when we’re choosing a candidate we’re making some sacrifices too. But the question is not simply “which candidate causes me to make the fewest sacrifices.” It’s a more nuanced “which candidate causes me to sacrifice the fewest of the most important things.” That puts us multiple layers deep into subjectivity, and this is precisely the kind of issue where pastors should be helping the congregations learn how to think.

Is having a pro-life president more important than a president who will only engage in
just wars? Is having an anti-gay-marriage president more important than having a president who thinks government ought to let people keep their own money as much as possible?

So let me critique specifically on this point. The rhetoric by those surrounding Santorum is that in choosing him, while we may be making sacrifices in leadership ability or fiscal responsibility, we’re not making sacrifices related to morality. And what Christian wouldn’t sacrifice some of those things for the sake of higher morals? Thus Wilson can suggest that those who support Romney, Gingrich, and particularly Paul it seems, are sacrificing the “wrong things.”

But in Wilson’s own case, this leaves him in a difficult position. He has voiced support for many positions taken by Ron Paul but thrown his vote (and influence) behind Santorum. But the claims of Santorum’s moral superiority are demonstrably false. This puts Wilson between the rock of needing to label Paul supporters as “purists” and “ideologues,” and the hard place of claiming that his support for Santorum is because he is a man of pure ideals.

Making the arguments for Santorum the way they do they suggests to us, at least implicitly, that choosing the morally pure candidate is to be preferred and that Santorum is that candidate. But when Santorum’s moral inconsistency can be so easily demonstrated this line of reasoning becomes no more reasonable than silly statements like “A Christian could never vote for Obama.” Neither does much to teach us how to think.

If you want to help me be a good voter give me an assessment of each candidate that is honest and uses a consistent set of criteria. It’s easy to admit that no candidate is perfect but how about admitting that no candidate is perfect on any single issue and that no single issue, at least in this election, is identified clearly by the Scriptures as the one issue to rule them all. Being pro-life is really important. But let’s be honest and tell Christians that even the most solidly pro-life candidate might not be the objective “best choice” in every election for every office.

It’s not that I think these men need to distance themselves from Santorum to correct the error they’ve made. But the rhetoric which demands Santorum as the choice for Christians because he so obviously holds the moral high ground needs to be toned down. Instead, we should be teaching our people that they are allowed to have differing opinions about which political issues are most important in a given election. Every Christian voter should be trying to discern how to make the best moral judgment when casting their vote. But this judgment must be made with a large dose of humility and a willingness to engage in reasoned debate about other candidates. Then, instead of having to defend the indefensible – our candidate’s moral perfection – we can begin having really helpful and far more interesting conversations about which causes we believe are most important in this election, and reasoning from our positions on those causes to our candidate of choice.

Paul Mulner is a minister in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church and serves as pastor of the Covenant of Grace ARP Church in Winston-Salem, NC. This article first appeared on his blog, I’m Paul, and is used with permission.

[Editor’s note: One or more original URLs (links) referenced in this article are no longer valid; those links have been removed.]