Luther once noted that he would rather have a wise Turk than a foolish Christian ruling over him. And that is to say something. If you don’t know, Luther, along with most Germans, was less than fond of the Turks, their Muslim enemies.
I have tended to follow his lead. When picking a ruler, a president in our case, it is better to have a wise unbeliever than a foolish Christian. When picking a president we are not picking a Pastor regardless of how presidents often speak from their podiums.
And yet, Luther made clear that there were dangers with a Turk ruler, namely that they might call on the people to worship a false God or cease to worship the true God. And that would cause a Christian to have to disobey the ruler and likely bring persecution upon themselves.
And so, it is best to have a wise Christian ruling in the White House. But if there is no wise Christian on the ballot, next we ought to move to a wise unbeliever before a foolish Christian. Just like you do not pick a plumber to come to your house because he has a fish in his ad in the yellow pages even though you know that the complaints about his work are piling up at the BBB, you also should not pick a president just because he claims to be a Christian if his record shows he cannot rule well. Remember what you are choosing him or her to do, rule, not preach.
And that leads me to one of the candidates running this year, Mit Romney. Mormons are not Christians in my understanding of the faith. And to many, this outlaws him as a viable choice for a Christian voter. But not me. After all, the likelihood of a Mormon in our day and age outlawing th exercise of the Christian faith is small. It is certainly less likely than a Turk outlawing it in Luther’s day.
Don’t get me wrong. I am hoping for a wise Christian to step forward, but if I find the Mormon to be the only wise ruler on the ballot, I will not hesitate to vote for him.
Look at several analogous situations in the OT. For example, Cyrus, King of Persia, was a Persian yet freed the HEbrews from captivity, allowed the temple to be rebuilt, etc. He was hailed as King of Kings even by the Hebrews and later on this title was also used to address the Lord God of Israel.
With the particulars of this situation, one thing I can say about Mormons is this. Despite my loathing of their beliefs, they, unlike many others, actually live their faith and practice what they preach. Can anyone explain how else they have consistenly expanded every single year with converts? They have a strong familial base and a strong belief system to unify themselves to one another–it is the envy of Christianity! Now I don’t know too much of Mitt Romney; I doubt I would vote for him anyways (I’d only vote for myself, but you already knew that Phil), but virtue can even work through the non-Christian else God would not be God.