It is almost always sinful to vote for Democratic candidates despite what the mainstream media tells you. For example, this is fundamentally dangerous: “I’m pro-life and I voted for Beto O’Rourke because I’m done being used by the GOP,” declared one opinion piece in the Dallas Morning News. One does not solve evil by resorting to a greater evil. The moral decision here is that I don’t want to see babies murdered, so I’m going to vote for the Democratic Party and more murdered babies. That is stupid. That is sinful.

If someone claims the GOP is using pro-life voters, then the only responsible reply would be not to vote for the GOP. It would never be to vote for the pro-abortion Party and candidate.

Notice the sophistry of the arguments against voting Republican. From one pro-life activist, “I saw the way pro-lifers compromised so many of their own upstanding ethics and morals to elect a man thrice married, who bragged about his infidelities and predatory behavior. And why? So they could get their Supreme Court seats.”

It isn’t compromise. It is appropriate moral reasoning. Christians and pro-life voters must obey the Greater Commandments. We don’t ignore the lesser commandments, but when dealing with a fallen, sinful world, we apply the highest ethical rule. For Christians, there is little higher than defending the life of an innocent baby. (For more on how to apply biblical ethics to voting, check out our essay on How Christians Should Vote in the 2018 Midterms and Beyond.)

But the point isn’t to save babies. The point of essays like the one linked above is to suppress conservative, evangelical turnout.

It is the why the New York Times and Washington Post give such outsized platforms to Russell Moore and his buddies at the ERLC.

The mainstream press is committed to destroying the post-Reagan evangelical consensus on pro-life issues. It is why Russell Moore spends so much time trying to make every progressive issue like immigration into a “pro-life,” “Gospel issue.” It is why the Post published an ERLC VP’s essay on the Imago Dei.

The Imago Dei is a new shorthand appeal in the immigration debate. Somehow because illegal immigrants, migrants and refugees are created in the image of God, it should change our policies on immigration. Evangelicals treat it as if it were a Get Out of Jail Free Card.

Being created in the image of God does not exempt one from the commands of Romans 13 nor the realities of national borders, which are ordained by God (Acts 17:26).

So why the appeal to this doctrine? It is to misuse a theological concept to push evangelicals away from conservative, Republican candidates. Ask yourself, why the Washington Post and New York Times publish these essays from the ERLC? Is it because the Times and Post are interested in helping Christians better serve Jesus?

Of course not. It is to win elections for their favored pro-abortion, anti-religious liberty candidates.

Good theology includes the entire counsel of God not only cherry picked proof texts and doctrines that further progressive political narratives about the free movement of peoples or what it means to be truly “pro-life.” Christian voters must follow the Bible and its deontolotical rules for engaging with secular society. That means finding the best candidate who matches biblical commandments to protect life and liberty. That will never be the candidate of a party that favors more abortion and reduced religious liberty for Christians. Never.

Don’t be deceived by the press or so-called evangelical leaders.