Modern-day evangelicals’ false sense of obligation to show up at the polls every time there is an election, regardless of whether there is a righteous choice or a trustworthy candidate on the ballot, not only results in the votes of Christians being taken for granted, but also in the inevitable compromising of the Gospel. 

When it comes to politics and governance in America,  compromise is considered a great virtue. Politicians are praised for their bipartisanship and ability to compromise their beliefs in order to cross the aisle and pass legislation. On the other hand, any politician who refuses to compromise his principles and renege on his promises in order to cross the aisle and pass bipartisan legislation is condemned on Capital Hill as an intolerant ideologue. 

When it comes to the preaching of the Gospel, however, compromise is no great virtue, but a great vice. Whereas the Apostle Paul refused to give an inch and compromise the Gospel for an instant (Galatians 2:5), today’s evangelicals appear ever-willing to compromise the Gospel in order to go to the polls and punch a ballot.

Paul understood that a compromised Gospel was ineffectual in winning converts or changing the world. This explains why he commanded Christians to “turn away” from those who have “a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof” (2 Timothy 3:5). The “power thereof” is obviously the Gospel, which Paul unashamedly declares in Romans 1:16 to be “the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes.” 

Unlike the Apostle Paul, who stayed away from those who  denied the Gospel—“the power of godliness” and only “power of salvation” for both individuals and nations—today’s evangelicals compromise the Gospel in order to climb in bed with politicians who deny it. A perfect example of this is how evangelicals lined up at the polls to vote for a Mormon in the last presidential election.

The Bible teaches us as Christians that we should not welcome into our house a cultist or anyone preaching a false gospel. To do so is to encourage them in their preaching of a false gospel, to give credence to the false gospel they preach, and to be seen by God as aiding and abetting them in the propagation of their false gospel (2 John 10-11). If this is true, then, how much more guilty are we of encouraging a cultist in the preaching of his false gospel and of giving credence to the false gospel he preaches if we attempt to vote him into the White House? 

Of course, evangelical support for presidential candidate Mitt Romney in the last presidential election failed to prevent Barack Obama from winning a second term in the Oval Office, in which he has proceeded unimpeded by Romney’s political party to dismantle our country. What evangelicals did accomplish by voting for Mitt Romney, however, is the  following:

• The Church of Jesus Christ of latter day Saints has been taken off the lists of cults by such prominent Christian organizations as the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.
• According to public opinion polls, the Mormon cult is seen more favorably today by the American people than at any other time in our nation’s history.
• And, thanks to the fact that so many evangelical Christians went to the polls to vote for Mitt Romney, most Americans now see the Mormon cult as synonymous with the Christian Faith.

In the end, we undermined the Gospel, America’s only hope of change, and changed nothing in America.