For years, I’ve struggled to put my finger on why I’ve been so intuitively disconnected from my Republican Party. Yes, to the shock of many, I am still registered in the GOP. But if I’m frank about the whole thing, I’ve always been more concerned with how the “upside-down and backwards way of Jesus” intersects with the messy world we live in than with the political parties themselves. My ballot is shaped less by loyalty to a particular political ideology and more by my attempt to discern how the Sermon on the Mount can inform public policy for all who bear the image of God.

Nonetheless, my disheartenedness with the Grand Ol’ Party has only grown over the last decade. So I’ve continued to churn on why. Why am I so outside of the tribe I was once in? What shifted? What were the policy issues? And it finally dawned on me:

I never became a Republican primarily because of the platform or a set of policies. It was for one reason only: character first.

Like many evangelicals of my generation, I had certain issues that mattered deeply to me. But what first drew me to the GOP in my twenties was a conviction I heard repeated over and over again: character counts. In fact, character was presented as the nonstarter for all leadership.

The message was clear. A candidate could have all the right policies, all the right positions, and all the right promises, but if they lacked proven character, they were unfit to lead – hard stop. Character was the fault line, the watershed issue, and the non-negotiable standard that could not be compromised.

Going a step further, I believed the primary process existed, in part, to protect that conviction. “We the people” of the “character-first party” would never allow someone who might undermine this stalwart value to become our candidate. Character was not simply an issue among many. It was the foundation beneath all the others; without it, we labor in vain – or worse, for our vanity.

Now I’m in my mid-fifties. And over the last decade, I have watched that conviction steadily erode.

What has surprised me most is not simply that character has become an elective rather than a compulsory standard regarding leadership, but also how often its absence is excused. And all for what? For policy gains? For political victories? For social change? For fiscal responsibility? To combat the left? The culture? The uncertainty of the future?

I often hear, “Yeah, but the character of the opposition on the left is _____________!” (fill in the blank). As though the new standard is that character no longer matters, so long as the other side is worse. But that was never the principle I thought we were advancing. If character truly matters, it must matter even when it costs us something. It must matter even when it means losing. Otherwise, character is not a conviction. It’s just a platitude.

Personally, I would rather lose while upholding the belief that character matters than win by convincing myself that poor character is tolerable if I can hold my nose long enough. Credibility is lost the moment we excuse in our own leaders the very things we once – oftentimes still – condemned in others.

Unfortunately, the result has been a seismic shift. We once argued that a good leader must first be a good person. Increasingly, we seem to argue that effectiveness matters more than integrity, strength more than goodness, winning more than virtue. And every time the absence of character succeeds, it only proves the point more. Maybe character never really mattered after all.

And that’s the hinge on which my disheartened soul swings.

For me, that is the sole – and soul – great loss. Not political accountability but moral credibility.

I joined a party that once insisted character was essential to leadership. Today, it is often treated as incidental. Which then sacrifices credibility.

And when credibility is lost, it is notoriously difficult to recover.

And when character no longer commands respect, power is often used to do what integrity once did.

And when the carrot of character is proven to be optional, the stick of control is reached for as the most effective substitute.

And when this happens, the cycle can only spin downward because we don’t require anything different except more of the same.

Yet, I still believe what I was taught all those years ago. Character matters. It matters in our homes, churches, businesses, communities, and especially in our politics. Wise policy matters. Competence matters. But character matters most. Character is still first.

Maybe that’s why I’ve felt politically homeless. Not because I care most about politics, but because I’ve always believed character comes before politics. And perhaps more tragically along the way, I’ve watched much of my evangelical tribe trade away its witness and moral credibility for the idols of political power, certainty, and victory. Things the Scriptures would call the spirits of the age.

Personally, I would rather lose while preserving character than win by excusing it away. Why? Because when we abandon our own standards, the world takes notice. But when we hold to them no matter the cost, they notice that too.