This is a more appropriate subject for a book-length treatment, and maybe one day I'll get to the point where I've done enough research and devoted enough thought to the issue I'll write about it more in-depth. For now, in the waning days before Tuesday's election, this article will have to do.

Let me start with a one point that you'll have to take as a given for the remainder of this article: There are committed, devoted Christians who, in good faith, will vote for Sen. Barack Obama.

This article is not intended as an attack on these individuals, nor is it a defense of them. Instead, I'm going to try my best to attempt to explain and analyze their underlying beliefs, why these beliefs lead them to support left-wing Democrats like Obama and why I think they're misguided.

ABORTION

Let me concede one point up front. There are certainly some churches and some Christians who look at an unmarried, pregnant teenager and only see the sin of extramarital sex. This is wrong. It isn't following Christ's example and come judgment day, they'll have to answer for it. However, I think the idea that this attitude is widespread in churches -- especially evangelical churches -- is a caricature.

Most polls of so-called single-issue voters show that it isn't the economy, foreign policy, taxes or education that is the single issue -- it's abortion. After the 1973  Roe v. Wade ruling that made abortion-on-demand the law of the land, the two major parties started choosing sides on the issue resulting in the current alignment of the Democratic Party as the pro-choice side and the GOP as the pro-life side. As this developed some politicians changed their party affiliation based on this issue; others changed their position on the issue and remained in their original party. There are exceptions, of course, but the pro-lifers in the Democratic Party and the pro-choicers in the GOP can generally meet in your average office cubicle.

Most churches, and their members, can be divided into three categories on this issue -- like the rest of society. You have the pro-choicers, the pro-lifers and those who are personally opposed to abortion, but don't want it made illegal for a variety of reasons. It's this third category that I want to delve into a little.

These Christians say that they don't want the return of the infamous coat hangers and women dying from self-induced or otherwise botched abortions. This is a caricature of pre-Roe America. Were there women who used coat hangers on themselves in order to induce an abortion? Certainly. Was it widespread? Hardly. I would liken it to the news stories you hear once or twice a year of a teenage girl who gives birth in the bathroom at the high school dance and then tries to flush the newborn down the toilet. They are both rare aberrations that distort a clearheaded approach to the issue. You've heard the saying that "bad cases make bad law." Likewise, basing public policy on a handful of psychologically troubled individuals makes for bad public policy.

These Christians are also concerned that women seeking -- or women who received -- an illegal abortion would be criminally charged. That wasn't the case pre-Roe and no one has suggested it would be the case in a post-Roe America. The only ones facing criminal liability under both sets of legal rules would be the doctor.

Finally, these Christians blame churches -- and therefore other Christians -- for their failure to act in Christian charity to create an environment where women undergoing so-called "crisis pregnancies" would be encouraged to keep the baby. One person told me that there aren't enough Christians who are willing to just open their home to take in a women and her child and provide for them.

You will also hear these Christians hurl the oft-heard charge that evangelicals and pro-lifers only care about children up to the point that they are born -- but not after.

The logic here is that the law and government policies on abortion (waiting periods, parental notification requirements, taxpayer funding, etc.) are irrelevant. What Christians should be doing is funding their local crisis pregnancy center, taking these unwed mothers into their homes and clothing them, feeding them, providing funding for pre- and post-natal care. If Christians do all of this, then abortions will eventually either drop to a rate that no longer shocks the conscience or stop on their own.

If this is your belief system, then Obama's extreme stands on abortion and infanticide are a non-issue. Obama could provide a $500 refundable tax credit for every abortion a woman has and that wouldn't make a lick of difference, because what the government does doesn't matter.

Of course, it does matter. The number of abortions skyrocketed after Roe. Enabling states to set even modest restrictions on abortion would result in both fewer unplanned pregnancies and more children being born. There would also be more opportunities for churches to extend Christian charity to those in need.

Oddly, this sort of lassiez-faire approach to the abortion issue is unacceptable in just about every other area of public policy for them, whether it is affirmative action, tax policy, social policy, foreign policy, etc.

DOMESTIC POLICY
Whether it is Social Security, welfare, health insurance or affirmative action, Christians that hold "social justice" as their driving ideology generally side with Democrats on every one of these issues.

The choice is understandable. Christ commands his followers to care for those who are less fortunate (Matt. 25:31-46). The church at the time of the apostles made sure that they "gave to anyone as he had need." (Acts 2:44-45).

So, these Christians listen to politicians promise to provide universal health care, extend unemployment compensation, expand welfare and think to themselves: "That's what Christ would do." And they vote accordingly.

And that's where I think that they get it wrong in a number of ways.

First, they are conflating the church with the government. (Ironic considering these are typically the same people that see the Christian "right" as the ones attempting to create a Christian theocracy.) Jesus didn't command his followers to make sure the government provided for the poor -- the church was to do it.

Second, government is a blunt instrument. The kind of assistance that a church can give to those in need -- along with the necessary accountability -- is superior to that of government. Just look at how the so-called Great Society contributed to the destruction of the black family.

Third, this isn't really charity of the kind Jesus commanded. Taxes are collected by the threat of force. (If you don't understand what I mean, try not paying your taxes and you'll see the force -- from behind bars.) Forced charity isn't charity at all.

I've noted this before: the church shouldn't be outsourcing social programs to the government. The U.S. government, by design, takes out of all these programs the essential bit that makes them work -- God. This outsourcing also has an effect on Christians left, right and center: it promulgates an attitude of "I gave at the office." Why would one donate money to a church fund to help widows and orphans? The government's supposed to take care of that.

FOREIGN POLICY
When it comes to foreign policy, the Christian center-left has one guiding principle:

If we're nice to other people, they'll be nice to us.

That may work in many interpersonal relationships -- but it's not something that has a proven track record in global politics.

This is the one area of policy where the Christian right doesn't really support the idea of a "Christian nation" and the Christian left does.

Unlike Islam, which has a system for government (aka sharia), Christianity is has no such guide. Government's first responsibility is the security of its people, and if the first few centuries of church history are any guide, one thing Christianity isn't ideally designed for is physical security.

Turning the other cheek, when it comes to military or terrorist attacks, encourages more of them and pretty soon there isn't a nation left do defend.

I don't think there's any Christian -- or anyone else for that matter -- who is completely happy with the bad people with which the U.S. government has allied itself through different periods of our history. But sometimes the greater good has required it. Was the Shah of Iran corrupt and brutal? Yes, but what has replaced it can hardly be said to be any better.

Other cases where we have supported dictators have eventually turned out better: Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines.

THE ENVIRONMENT
Despite the caricature, Christian conservatives aren't anti-environment, for the needless, wanton destruction of endangered species and pro-global warming. But the Christian left takes the command to be good stewards of the Earth to mean something else entirely -- to the point that some of them make up Bible verses to support their position.

The difference here is one of degree. The Christian left is willing to suffer higher gas prices, higher electricity prices, higher unemployment, higher housing prices, etc., in order to "save" the environment. For some strange reason, this enforced impoverishment of people on the margins is an acceptable sacrifice for the greater good. How do they reconcile this with their views on the government and social policy? Well, the government can take care of these people who find their themselves unemployed.

This is seen to a greater, and more morally outrageous degree, with regard to third world countries. We have developed genetically modified crops that are easier to grow, resistant to pests and can feed more people. Yet, there are luddites who punish countries economically if they plant and grow so-called frankenfoods. So, in order to maintain what little trade they have, people starve.

And don't even get me started on how many millions of lives have been sacrificed because DDT was banned.

CONCLUSION
There are people voting Tuesday for Barack Obama for president who no one should be surprised to see one day in heaven. A vote for a Democrat is not a mortal sin. It's a misjudgment. It's a mistake. But doing so doesn't imperil your immortal soul. It is not evidence in and of itself that someone is or is not a Christian.