Is it an act of conscience to facilitate, by act or omission, the election of Hillary Clinton? Is it conscionable to participate in the consolidation of the Obama legacy, an agenda featuring the celebration of infanticide, the destabilization of the Middle East, the empowerment of Russia and Iran, the perpetuation of economic malaise, the organizing of racial tensions domestically and the destruction of affordable health insurance, to name just a few of the progressive horribles?
Sifting through all the rhetorical chaff leads to this single irreducible question: is it an act of faith or conscience to empower one of the most immoral, corrupt, felonious and despotic candidates in modern American history? The answer seems simple but not to those who have failed to carefully consider or who have allowed conscience to be overridden by hubris.
Despite the flights of fancy and lunacy put forward by pygmy celebrities vying for legitimacy in the opinion industry, there is no rational, legitimate, or moral third option--either Hillary or Trump will win the 2016 presidential election. GOP oligarchs have seen to that. Sadly, it has become fashionable to conflate sentiment with conscience among superficial scribblers and chatterers. In their company, man's moral compass is desensitized to the magnetic of Biblical truth and conscience is left to dissipate into a vapor of subjective values. The result is that every man does what is right in his own eyes. Politically, this results in the suicidal notion of protest votes cast on the ancient, burning altar of Baal and its modern equivalent--the Hillary campaign. It's the pseudo-conservative version of "if it feels good, do it."
It isn't news to most that this presidential election cycle is highly unusual. Seemingly, as never before, voters have been herded into a bizarre colosseum of Machiavellian construction to do mortal battle with beasts of conscience while the jeering elites of the opinion industry and barons of the politic classes bemuse themselves with the naive plebes scrabbling in the dust below. Under the cloying heat of rhetorical combat, voters are presented with only two choices. One represents a liberal Republican candidate foisted on the electorate by a colluding GOP aristocracy, and the other is a political Jezebel no less twisted, tyrannical, and Godless than her Biblical archetype.
It's as if the American voter's doom is to open one of two portals to a burning abyss, one leading to more big government, a Bernie Sanders-like model of foreign trade, and ensconcing a liberal trojan horse in the person of Donald Trump. The other iron clad portcullis seeps sulfuric steam and leads to a realm ruled by a diabolical Hillary junta--her ample flanks guarded by the starved beasts of agenda reporting who snap and froth from the volcanic approaches. Though Trump is no conservative, Hillary is doubtless a minion spawned from the infernal realm of paternalistic, secular statism. Despite her conveniently recent prostrations before the edifice of Methodism, Hillary is a thorough secularist and wears religion as a sheep's wool cloak over her well rounded wolf's haunches. Her avid support of tax payer funded infanticide banishes her from the realm of Christendom.
Conversely, and contrary to the constant harangue from Never Trump nihilists, Trump isn't the anti-christ; though Hillary certainly is the antithesis of everything bearing the name of Christ. Conscience, properly understood, is truly implicated in contemplating a Hillary presidency. But an ill defined concept of conscience is constantly appealed to by many who seek to shirk duty by clothing apathy, cowardice, or ambition in piety. Conscience is malleable and takes the shape of the vessel it occupies. It isn't authority but only functions legitimately when given shape, substance, and direction by revealed truth. Conscience may be blunted or perverted and may seem to give legitimacy to completely immoral choices.
An oft cited Biblical passage, "whatsoever is not of faith is sin," (Romans 14:23) is referenced clumsily to justify abandoning the very Christian duty to make hard choices based on objective, Biblical principle. This passage is cited in support of irrational delusions, the obverse of faith, which excuse easy cop-outs and which salve the consciences of those who know better but persist in throwing away their influence on third party candidates. This is not faith. And, this is not the time for third party aspirants. The Bible describes faith as "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1) Faith is substantive and has empirical basis. Like conscience, faith is not the subject of whimsy or sentiment. Biblical faith is built on the rational (come let us reason together (Isaiah 1:18)) and the systematic (line upon line (Isaiah 28:10)).
Nowhere in scripture does God council His people to cloister themselves and abandon the public square (Acts 19:9) to the forces of darkness, to do nothing, or to engage in acts of futility. As citizens of a free republic, we are especially obligated to make the best choice possible toward securing liberty. Believers are instructed to function as salt and light (Matthew 5:13-16) in every sphere of influence in which we have been placed.
Salt and light are active allegorical devices. In Biblical times salt acted as a preservative, preventing the spread of corrupting decomposition. If people of faith think they are obeying the edicts of conscience by refusing to participate in the mechanisms of political influence, they are simply in error. Furthermore, Christians are exhorted to act as light in a dark world. Light is not recumbent but actively engaged in dispelling darkness--it is its nature. Nor is it consistent with the nature of salt or light to be applied in futility or without effect. Both of these allegorical elements act in the positive service of truth and by virtue of their physical properties they work to great effect. Likewise, it is unconscionable to cast precious electoral influence into the gutter by engaging in silly protest voting on third party tickets. What is more, it is completely immoral to cast a protest vote in favor of Hillary Clinton, knowing her antipathy to Biblical principle. To withdraw from the public square, to hide oneself and shrink into a cowardly silence is to betray the Christian's obligation to truth, to substantive participation (Mark 12:17), and to the advancement of the Kingdom of God.
Obviously, Donald Trump is not a conservative. Trump isn't a Christian within the Biblical meaning. Trump is often boorish, vulgar, and profane. Trump is not what many of us had hoped for but so what? Conjure an image of Trump as diabolical as you please and it will still pale compared to the reality of the unindicted felon, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Hillary Clinton's list of deplorables strains credulity by shear volume. And, it is simply impossible to claim the title of conservative or to wear the honorific of Christian if aid is given, by act or or omission, to this stalinist in a designer Mao suit. She has violated the gross negligence provision of the Espionage Act, lied without conscience to the families of the Benghazi dead, and enthusiastically supports Planned Parenthood's baby body-parts butchery.
Simply put, the only course that is conscionable is to cast a vote for Donald Trump. He isn't a great candidate but he isn't Hillary. People of faith are required to pursue the good. In this case, the good is far from the ideal. Let conscience be informed by this: "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." (James 4:17) Edmund Burke put this another way, "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."