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Unless Christ Jesus is on the ballot, the choice will always be the “lesser of two evils”.

But it’s a false dichotomy. Let’s look at the Bible and see what we can find about this issue.

In chapter 5 of the second books of Kings, we find the story of a military officer named Naaman who served the king of Aram. Naaman was widely respected and honored for his military prowess and courage, but he developed leprosy. During some of the raids that Aram made against Israel, an Israeli girl was captured and given to Naaman as a slave. When he was afflicted with leprosy, the slave girl told Naaman about the prophet Elisha, who could heal him.

The king of Aram agreed to send Naaman with gifts to the king of Israel to be healed. He eventually found Elisha and though he became irritated with the way Elisha treated him, he found his faith and the Lord healed him.

When Elisha refused payment for healing Naaman, the officer made two requests of Elisha:

“If you will not,” said Naaman, “please let me, your servant, be given as much earth as a pair of mules can carry, for your servant will never again make burnt offerings and sacrifices to any other god but the LORD. But may the LORD forgive your servant for this one thing: When my master enters the temple of Rimmon to bow down and he is leaning on my arm and I have to bow there also—when I bow down in the temple of Rimmon, may the LORD forgive your servant for this.”

Namaan knew that he had encountered the true God and he made a solemn oath that he would only make sacrifices to the God of Elisha. But he also understood that he had a civic duty to his king because of his position. He knew that he would have to not only enter the temple to another god, but he would have to bow to the idol as well. He knew it was an offense against the God of Israel, so he asked for forgiveness.

Now consider this. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus says the following to the people of Nazareth when they rejected his message:

“Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown. I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed—only Naaman the Syrian.”

How would those who say they cannot vote for “the lesser of two evils” answer Naaman when he asked for forgiveness in advance of bowing to an idol? Is there not an obligation to make choices we would rather not make, and to interact with a culture and society we would rather not interact with?