by Dan Eichenberger M.D.
At the birth of the American republic, the Founders staked everything on a revolutionary conviction: human rights do not originate with kings, courts or governments. They are “endowed by their Creator” with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Government exists to secure rights, not to redefine or dispense them. As John Adams observed, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.”
The Founders designed a government of strictly enumerated powers that were “few and defined,” as Madison wrote in Federalist No. 45, because they understood human fallibility. Today that design has been reversed. Federal authority reaches into education, healthcare, family life and economic activity through regulation, spending and administrative agencies.
This divergence appears in modern party alignment. The Republican Party, though imperfect, generally emphasizes constitutional limits, decentralization and restrained federal authority. The Democratic Party increasingly advances centralized solutions, expansive regulatory regimes and nationwide mandates that displace local control, parental authority and personal initiative.
The cultural consequences are clear. Personal responsibility has weakened. Marriage and family face redefinition. The right to life of the unborn is treated as negotiable. The central question is unavoidable: Do we still believe what we claim to believe about the principles that made self-government possible?
For Christians, the answer is not optional. Scripture does not treat morality as preference. Christ calls us to love our neighbors in concrete action when they are threatened. The Good Samaritan and Matthew 25 show that failing to help when we can is morally serious. James 4:17 is direct: “If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.”
Isaiah 1:17, Proverbs 24:11–12, and Psalm 82:3–4 command us to defend the oppressed, rescue those being led to death, and deliver the weak from the wicked. Romans 12:9 and 21 tell us to hate evil and overcome it with good. Ephesians 5:11 requires us to expose deeds of darkness. Romans 13:3–4 teaches that governing authorities exist to restrain wrongdoing, and in a republic like ours citizens share that responsibility through voting. Jeremiah 29:7 calls us to seek the welfare of the city where God has placed us.
This produces a clear obligation. Christians must love their neighbors by restraining evil when they have the power to do so. Failing to restrain serious harm, or enabling it by inaction, is a failure of love. Therefore, when we possess effective influence, we are morally obligated to use it to oppose and restrain that evil. Refusing to do so is not moral purity; it is a failure of the principle of loving your neighbor.
If rights come from a source higher than the state, belief cannot remain detached from action. One cannot credibly defend personal responsibility while expanding dependency, protect freedom by restricting speech or solve economic problems through endless spending. These contradictions mark much of the modern Left. Republican positions, while not flawless, more consistently align with responsibility, limited power, free enterprise and moral order.
The contrast appears across weightier matters. On religious liberty and free speech, Republicans have more consistently defended First Amendment protections while Democratic-led policies have supported restrictions on worship and expanded censorship. On the Second Amendment, Republicans largely defend the right to keep and bear arms; Democrats increasingly support restrictions. On the sanctity of life, Democrats defend abortion as a fundamental right even late in pregnancy; Republicans more consistently seek protections for the unborn. Judicial appointments that returned the issue to the states represent the most significant pro-life development in decades.
On marriage and family, Democrats increasingly undermine parental authority and promote contested gender ideologies; Republicans more often defend biological reality and parental rights. On economics, Democrats favor increased regulation, taxation and centralized control; Republicans emphasize deregulation, domestic energy production and market-based solutions. On the rule of law and borders, Democrats have tolerated large-scale illegal entry; Republicans more consistently argue for enforcement paired with lawful immigration.
Beneath these disputes lies a deeper divide. The Founders rejected identity-based politics in favor of individual dignity and shared citizenship. Modern progressive ideology emphasizes group identity and grievance, expanding government to engineer outcomes. The Republican vision, though inconsistently applied, more closely reflects the Founders’ emphasis on virtue, merit and limited power.
Candidates will always be imperfect instruments. Romans 3:23 declares that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Demanding a sinless candidate is to demand what Scripture says does not exist. The issue is stewardship, not purity. A vote is not a full endorsement of every trait or failing; it is a directional decision about law, culture, liberty and the vulnerable.
Our vote is not merely choosing the lesser of two evils. It is an act of lessening evil. Personal dislike of a candidate’s personality should not outweigh the concrete benefits of policies that restrain serious harm on weightier matters. Stewardship prioritizes neighbors’ outcomes over our own comfort.
In a two-party system, which we effectively have, abstention or a third-party protest vote does not remain neutral. Power does not pause. Judges are appointed, laws enforced and cultural norms shaped regardless. Consider the math: With 100 effective votes, a majority requires 51. If 10 people abstain or vote third-party, effective votes drop to 90, and a majority now requires only 46. Those non-votes lower the threshold and make it easier for the side advancing greater evil to win. Third-party voting, or abstaining from voting, in national elections fragments those who might restrain centralized power and, in practice, benefits the political Left.
When voters who share conservative convictions choose not to participate, the practical result is the advancement of policies they oppose. The Founders understood politics as the art of prudence among flawed alternatives; not disengagement from responsibility.
Do you believe what you say you believe about the ideas that made America exceptional? Then let belief govern action. Stand for the vulnerable. Champion truth over passing trends. Exercise citizenship with conviction. The culture will not correct itself. It will continue to drift. Preserving liberty requires principled resistance, grounded in history, moral clarity, and a determination to pass on freedom intact to generations to come.
Be a good neighbor. Use the lawful influence God has entrusted to you to restrain and lessen evil. All fall short, so act faithfully with the imperfect options before us.
Dan Eichenberger, M.D., M.A., an adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, is an Indiana native with 30 years experience as a primary care physician, physician executive and healthcare consultant. He is the recipient of the Indiana University Southeast Chancellors Medallion.
