None of the above: why I won't be voting for president

Christian Century, Sept 21, 2004 by Mark A. Noll

Regarding religious freedom: All of modern world history reinforces the proposition that people must be allowed to exercise the basic human right of worshiping God, or not worshiping God, as they choose. The violation of this right has proven destructive of social well-being, corrosive of social harmony and stultifying to human flourishing. That religious freedom is almost certainly the most basic human right has been demonstrated by the repeated social constriction and economic regression where it has been abridged.

Regarding international rule of law: In an increasingly complex and riven world, the U.S. must act with scrupulous justice in its actions overseas. U.S. policies based on unilateralism--whether in trade, diplomacy or war--can only make the international arena more dangerous for all. Since the U.S. is by far the strongest nation in the world--the new Rome of the early 21st century--it should ponder the overextension, the shortsighted presumption, the failures of imagination and the unilateral use of force that caused such difficulties in the latter phases of the Roman Empire. Warfare remains the most explosive instrument of international policy. Self-interest is a legitimate reason for the use of force, but only when the strictest standards of justice--jus ad bellum and jus in bello--are observed.

I have arrived at these seven political convictions as a result of my Christian faith. Yet each can be advanced in terms of the public good without reliance on a particular faith. Of course, I may be mistaken either in what traditional Christianity should mean politically for an American citizen in the early 21st century or in how best to argue for these positions with reasoning not demanding a commitment to traditional Christianity. But as long as I hold these positions, I am a citizen without a political home.

Mark A. Noll is professor of Christian thought at Wheaton College. This article appears in a book just published by the Brookings Institution Press, One Electorate Under God? edited by E. J. Dionne Jr., Jean Bethke Elshtain and Kayla M. Drogosz. Used by permission.