The Problem of Compromise

"But," someone says, "if I get involved this way, I may have to compromise my principles." And it is true that the "best" or "ideal" course of action is not a possibility very often in the give-and-take of political life. Almost any political choice will involve "compromise." For which of the two following men would you vote as mayor of your town? □ Candidate A: (He believes that Negroes should be able to swim in the public swimming pool and that there shouldn't be "restricted" housing covenants, so that Jews are forbidden to live in the "nicest" parts of town, but he drinks excessively and isn't much of a churchman.)
□ Candidate B: (He has been a lifelong member of First Church, is a member of the board of trustees, and is a teetotaler, but he believes in racial segregation and thinks that the Jews should be "kept in their place.")
Instructions: Place an "x" in the box opposite the candidate of your choice.

For whom do you vote? Either way you vote, you will be "compromising" some of your belief.

And there is your problem! For there is no Candidate C who combines all the good traits you want. It's either A or B. It's no solution not to vote. That is merely to say by your action that the Christian must remain aloof from concrete political activity, which is in turn a way of saying that Christian faith is irrelevant.

The Christian, therefore, has to realize that God has placed him in the world here and now, and that he must be responsible here and now. He cannot sigh and wait for the Kingdom of God when the issues will be black and white. He must choose now between the existing grays. The Bible does not show us people fulfilling God's will by twiddling their thumbs until things are tidied up. It shows us people doing God's will right where they are, in the midst of apparently uncreative, unpleasant situations:

in a slave-labor camp in Egypt;

in a rotten city government in Bethel;

under a despotic king named Solomon;

in exile in Babylonia;

under cruel Roman rule.

It was in situations like those that people had to speak and act and legislate and (if they could do none of those things) protest. And we today are called to the same kind of responsibility.