Family Life

02.01.12 | Martha Manikas-Foster

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As the headlines and our dinnertime conversations focus on the race for the presidency, here at Inside Out we’re wondering how—or if--a candidate’s personal faith is--or should be—a consideration as Christians make decisions in the voting booth.

On the one hand, we think that Christian faith does not, in itself, make a candidate more competent to hold elected office. Yet most Americans do say that they’d prefer to vote for a candidate who in some way believes in God.

“I doubt that you’re going to find anyone in the US who’d be able to say, ‘Based on my faith alone, this party’s platform is 100 percent right and that party’s platform is 100 percent wrong,’” says Dr. Tobin Grant, our guest for this Inside Out discussion on voting and faith. “On the one hand, it’s a serious decision,” Grant says about voting in an election. “It’s not to be taken frivolously. But it’s also not something that you should allow to split up or divide the church or your faith or yourself with your neighbors.”

Dr. Tobin Grant is a professor of political science at Southern Illinois University and the author of both scholarly and general articles as well as books on politics and campaign finance reform. He writes on current political events for Christianity Today and was our guest on Inside Out last autumn to discuss the Occupy Movement.

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To find an assortment of Tobin Grant’s blog posts on American politics, click here:  http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctpolitics/

For information on Tobin Grant and list of his books, click here: http://politicalscience.siuc.edu/faculty/grant.html

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