When the tape was released earlier this month of Donald Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women, I felt hopeful about politics for the first time in months. It wasn’t that I took pleasure in the fact that Trump was indeed as terrible as I thought he was. I was hopeful because to me the tape was clear, incontrovertible evidence of his unfitness for office, evidence that even the most ardent leaders on the religious right would be unable to ignore.

As a conservative evangelical, the past year has been emotionally and spiritually draining. I have watched as leaders on the religious right who purport to represent me have enthusiastically supported a presidential candidate who opposes the very values that supposedly defined the religious right. And although some evangelicals have denounced Trump’s campaign as promoting a racist, nationalist, fraudulent, and ignorant form of politics, others have warned that if Clinton is elected, the American experiment will come to an end.

Evangelicalism has been sharply divided over Trump, and so my hope was that this tape would finally persuade the remaining evangelical defenders of Trump to abandon him. But for the most part, that’s not what happened.

Several religious right leaders have refused to denounce Trump

Instead of rescinding their endorsements or resigning from their positions on Trump’s advisory board, many leaders doubled down on their support.

Jerry Falwell Jr. announced on CNN that he would support Trump even if the allegations against him were true.

Wayne Grudem, an important evangelical theologian and one of the few leaders who rescinded his endorsement and called for Trump to withdraw, re-endorsed Trump right before the third debate. Grudem argued that since both candidates are “morally objectionable,” we need to focus on policies.

Ben Carson made a similar argument on MSNBC, insisting that Trump’s character is a distraction from the “real” issues.

Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, claimed that he never supported Trump because of their “shared values, rather it was built on shared concerns.”

James Dobson, Mike Huckabee, Robert Jeffress, Ralph Reed, and Eric Metaxas all reasserted their support.

And to a person, they offered the same reason for supporting Trump despite his bragging about sexual assault and the growing number of allegations of assault: Trump may have a bad character, but his policies are good, whereas Clinton has a bad character and her policies are bad. Therefore, Christians should vote for Trump.

Perhaps the most illuminating example of this logic at work was featured in a column for LifeSiteNews, a very popular pro-life website. Managing director Steve Jalsevac warns that Christians are “dangerously falling into Democrats’ trap of focusing on personalities instead of issues” (my emphasis). He laments the way “personal disgust for the character of Donald Trump” has distracted from the issues (my emphasis).

Jalsevac makes explicit the logic of so many leaders on the religious right: Character is fundamentally private and only tangentially related the public work of policymaking and politics. Sin is still bad, but since we are all sinners, and since we are not electing a “pastor in chief,” what matters most is what kind of president the candidates would be. The real is the political. Everything else is just style.

The religious right in 1998: “Character DOES matter. You can’t run a family, let alone a country, without it”

Having grown up as a conservative evangelical during Bill Clinton’s administration, I believe that character matters. This is what leaders on the religious right taught me when Clinton was caught in his affair with Monica Lewinsky. At the time, some people tried to shrug off Clinton’s infidelity as a private matter: Of course he shouldn’t have done it, but this didn’t affect his ability to be president. But conservative evangelicals rejected this logic, and they were right.

In response to President Clinton’s infidelity, the Southern Baptist Convention passed a “Resolution on the Moral Character of Public Officials”:

Therefore, be it RESOLVED, That we, the messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention, meeting June 9-11, 1998, in Salt Lake City, Utah, affirm that moral character matters to God and should matter to all citizens, especially God’s people, when choosing public leaders; and Be it further RESOLVED, That we implore our government leaders to live by the highest standards of morality both in their private actions and in their public duties, and thereby serve as models of moral excellence and character; and ... Be it finally RESOLVED, That we urge all Americans to embrace and act on the conviction that character does count in public office, and to elect those officials and candidates who, although imperfect, demonstrate consistent honesty, moral purity and the highest character.

The resolution bases its conclusion on the belief that the character of public leaders has a formative effect upon the nation. The Old Testament has numerous examples of kingdoms that suffered for the sins of their leaders. Part of the reason for this is that the Bible does not treat sin as primarily internal and private. The effects of sin always go beyond our hearts, potentially harming our family, our neighbors, and our community.

And so if someone is placed in a highly influential position and he or she has a significantly sinful character, the potential for that person to harm others is tremendous. The Southern Baptist Convention understood this and called upon its members to reaffirm the importance of character.

Even today, some of the strongest evangelical voices opposing Trump have come from the Southern Baptists. Two of the denomination’s most respected leaders, Russell Moore and Albert Mohler, have publicly denounced Trump. Still, other prominent leaders and pastors have endorsed Trump, including Richard Land, Jack Graham, and Robert Jeffress, who has made several TV appearances in defense of the candidate.

Also in 1998, James Dobson, then President of Focus on the Family, wrote a letter to his followers deeply worried about the country’s disregard for Bill Clinton’s infidelity:

Our most serious concern ... is not with those in Washington; it is with the American people. What has alarmed me throughout this episode has been the willingness of my fellow citizens to rationalize the President’s behavior even after they suspected, and later knew, that he was lying. Because the economy is strong, millions of people have said infidelity in the Oval Office is just a private affair–something between himself and Hillary. We heard it time and again during those months: “As long as Mr. Clinton is doing a good job, it’s nobody’s business what he does with his personal life.” … As it turns out, character DOES matter. You can’t run a family, let alone a country, without it. How foolish to believe that a person who lacks honesty and moral integrity is qualified to lead a nation and the world! Nevertheless, our people continue to say that the President is doing a good job even if they don’t respect him personally. Those two positions are fundamentally incompatible. In the Book of James the question is posed, “Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring” (James 3:11 NIV). The answer is no. ... We are facing a profound moral crisis — not only because one man has disgraced us — but because our people no longer recognize the nature of evil. And when a nation reaches that state of depravity — judgment is a certainty.

Contrast this stirring statement with Dobson’s justification of his endorsement of Trump: “I’m not under any illusions that he is an outstanding moral example,” he told Christianity Today in September. But, he went on: “It’s a cliché but true: We are electing a commander-in-chief, not a theologian-in-chief.”

Note that the very argument that is widely used by Dobson and other members of the religious right in 2016 to justify his support of Trump is denounced as a sign of judgment on our nation by Dobson in 1998.

When did religious conservatives abandon “character matters”? Right around the time Trump came along.

This dramatic shift didn’t take place in the late ’90s, however. As recently as December, 2015 Mike Huckabee was denouncing the private/public division of character. On Hugh Hewitt’s radio show, Hewitt asked former Gov. Huckabee if millennials would care about Bill Clinton’s infidelities if they come up in the 2016 campaign.

Huckabee responded:

Probably not, for two reasons. One, they were infants when it all happened. And the second reason is that growing up in a moral climate in which people just don’t seem to care that much about other people’s lives. They don’t make the connection between personal character and public character. They don’t seem to think that there is a correlation. I think there is. I think if a person will lie to an individual, they will lie to a country. I think if a person is not honest with themselves, they’ll be dishonest with the voters. And so I do think character matters, I believe it always had. It doesn’t mean we elect perfect people. We don’t, we never have, we never will, but I do think that it matters that a person represents himself or herself with a level of authenticity and that doesn’t always happen, Hugh, and I do think it’s one of the pitfalls of our current political environment.

Ironically, millennials seem to recognize the danger of Trump’s character, preferring Clinton by 48 points. As a group, however, white evangelicals have overwhelmingly come to accept this private/public character divide. In a recent survey by PRRI, 72 percent of white evangelicals said “an elected official who commits an immoral act in their personal life can still behave ethically and fulfill their duties in their public and professional life.” In 2011, only 30 percent agreed with this statement.

In just five years, white evangelicals went from overwhelmingly denying a division between private and public character to overwhelmingly embracing the division. It is very difficult for me to imagine an explanation of this shift other than the candidacy of Donald Trump.

I do not want to speculate here on what exactly in Trump’s candidacy caused this shift in white evangelicals. Most of the possibilities are grim and warrant their own thorough exploration. But right now evangelicals can turn back to our traditional teaching that character matters and correct the mistake of supporting Donald Trump.

Evangelicals should reclaim their commitment to the importance of political candidates’ morality

Evangelicals should return to the belief that character and politics are not separate spheres. Your character will necessarily shape your politics, because who you are, what you love, and what you desire determines how you will act. And if you love your own pleasure more than justice or your neighbor, then you will take advantage of your neighbor when it pleases you. And that is precisely the kind of man Trump has demonstrated himself to be.

For example, Trump’s comments about his freedom to grab women because he is famous are not “locker room talk”; they are the words of a man who appears to believe that abusing his power for his own pleasure is funny. They are the words of a man who seems to want other men to be impressed by his power to abuse women without consequences.

After the release of the tapes, many women have come forward to allege that Trump has sexually assaulted them. In addition, some Miss Teen USA contestants have said that he walked in on them getting dressed, just as he bragged about to Howard Stern in 2005. Since he owned the pageant, Trump said that he could get away with seeing the contestants nude. Again, he apparently used his power inappropriately to violate women without consequences and then bragged about it to other men.

Some evangelical leaders have claimed that we just have two morally flawed candidates. They point to Hillary Clinton’s flawed character and her sins and conclude that since they are both sinners, we have to simply judge them on their policies. But that does not reflect a Christian conception of character and behavior.

Like many evangelicals, I cannot vote for Clinton because I do not believe she would be a good president for my neighbor. Since I believe that life begins at conception, Clinton’s intention to repeal the Hyde Amendment so that federal funds can be spent on abortions reveals a profound flaw in her character.

But her flaw does not magically make Trump’s flaws any less grievous. Given what we know about Trump from his own words, from his actions, and from the multiple allegations against him, he will abuse his power. There is no justification for giving a person who abuses his power one of the most powerful roles on earth, no matter how much he denies the allegations or offers feigned remorse. And that is why it is so important for evangelicals to return to the belief that character does shape a politician’s public work.

I understand the anguish that many evangelicals feel at being faced with what appears to be a hopeless decision, which is why I have explained that I cannot vote for either candidate. If we believe the character of both candidates makes them unfit for office, the answer is not to deny that character matters, but to find an alternative.

At this point, I believe the best choice is to support Evan McMullin, a man of good character and good politics. No, he will almost certainly not win the presidency. However, with our vote we can live out a hope for a president who is worthy of the title and who we believe will bless our neighbors and our country. And in the process, we will be working toward something essential to the flourishing of our country: the cultivation of virtues.

Alan Noble, PhD, is the editor in chief of Christ and Pop Culture, co-founder of Public Faith, a professor, and a member of the And Campaign.

First Person is Vox's home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines, and pitch us at firstperson@vox.com.