“However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.” George Washington

There has, perhaps, never been a time in our nation’s history when these prescient words by our first president rang truer.

This year, America’s political parties have given us:

• A candidate who, judging from his own statements, has likely never read the U.S. Constitution, versus a candidate who, judging from her own statements, holds it in contempt;

• A candidate whose history shows him to be someone who vacillates between liberalism and conservatism depending on what will advance his own cause, versus a candidate who has shown herself to be an enemy of conservative principles and values;

• A candidate whose very public life has shown him to be concerned only with personal expediency, sacrificing moral imperatives to moral relativism, versus a candidate whose very public life has shown her to be concerned only with personal expediency, sacrificing moral imperatives to moral relativism;

• A candidate whose public statements show him to be utterly lacking in Biblical wisdom, despite his alleged success in business matters, versus a candidate who considers Biblical wisdom to be antiquated and even perverse;

• A candidate who believes he has no reason to fear God, versus a candidate who seems to believe there is no God to fear;

• A candidate whose public statements suggest a penchant for fascism, versus a candidate whose public statements suggest a penchant for fascism;

• A candidate who is evil, versus a candidate who might be less evil.

There is no choice. Both major-party candidates promise us the same thing — a nation further divided, a country at war, a time of great sorrow.

I mourn for our nation.

But I will not vote for either of the two major-party candidates. I will not stand before God and try to explain why I chose evil in 2016.

I will pray. I will put my faith in God, not in the political constructs of man. I will humble myself and turn from my own wicked ways and encourage fellow Christians to do the same. I will love my neighbor, and I will love God. And then I will wait for God — not Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton — to heal this land.

That is what I am called to do as a follower of Christ.

Res Spears is a former reporter and editor of The Tidewater News and is currently the managing editor at the Suffolk News-Herald. He can be reached at res.spears@suffolknewsherald.com.