TOUCHSTONE's David Mills writes this month about the temptation some Christians feel to embrace a so-called third way to rise above the polarities of politics. Here's his conclusion:

"Some divisions can never be transcended by any Third Way, because the two poles represent eternally opposed ideas, held (at least by Christians) to be truths incapable of surrender. The unborn child has the right to live or he doesn’t. The embryo is a human being deserving of care and protection or he isn’t. A man and a man can’t be married or they can.

"What a Christian might do practically, when faced with the imperfect choices presented by politics in a country as divided as ours on almost every matter, is a different and a difficult question. He might accept a solution offered as a Third Way when that is the closest he can get to a public policy the Christian can endorse, as when he approves a restriction on abortion when a complete ban is impossible. That is why we pray for wisdom and why politics should be taken as a high calling.

"But what the Christian citizen cannot do is accept the Third Way as an ideal or end. He cannot take it as an excuse to abandon his principles and retreat from the public square. The Christian must maintain his independence and remain open to new ideas, while remembering that at the moment the Third Way is usually the way of death, made as attractive as possible."