I think of the numerous Republican statesmen I admired in my earlier years: Howard Baker, Mark Hatfield, John Danforth, Bob Dole, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, Jack Kemp, Richard Lugar, Alan Simpson, George HW Bush, Caspar Weinberger, George Schultz, James Baker, Henry Kissinger, Jeane Kirkpatrick, George Romney, James Schlessinger, Elizabeth Dole, William Cohen, Brent Scowcroft.

Remember those folks? Quite a list, huh? Those were persons with class and dignity. Some were people of faith, some not.

I grew up Republican, and proudly wore that label. I even canvassed for Dan Quayle when he first ran for Congress in 1976. But I stopped calling myself a Republican about 15 years ago, when I saw the party veering in directions which, as a Christian, I couldn’t endorse (the embrace of torture was the final straw). And now the Republican Party–the “Christian” party according to so many people–has chosen a man whose character is antithetical to every Christlike characteristic. Is there anything Trump values that Jesus would value?

It’s a different Republican Party. Yet a great many Christians I know (since I’ve spent my life among conservative evangelicals) remain committed to Republican politics, refusing to accept that the party they grew up with no longer exists.

I don’t write this as an endorsement of any Democratic candidate. By no means. But I do wish people of faith would disentangle themselves from allegiance to political parties. None of them represent Christianity. We need to be a separate, called-apart people within a secular society. We are explicitly told to not conform to the patterns of this world, and political parties are one such pattern, in no way created by God.