This election cycle features voting during church services and an attempt to recall Supreme Court justices for upholding marriage between two consenting adults — gay marriage.

To those of us who expect Christianity to live up to the values it preaches, the effort of churches to vote these justices out of office is particularly disturbing.

Christianity is supposed to be about love for your neighbor and tolerance of human frailty. A barely secular campaign — one with much evangelical church support — seems to be a vengeful act. It will not restore peace and community to our frayed social fabric.

We face serious problems, the most painful of which is the Great Recession. It came close to being another Great Depression. This has caused serious economic dislocation which has made family life difficult.

The number of homeless and poverty-stricken families is growing. Will this effort do anything to remedy this situation?

More serious for the long run is global warming. Extreme weather, 500- and 100-year floods occurring every few years, heat and fires in the west — all these phenomena are part of climate change that may irrevocably alter our planet.

Humankind must alter the way to we live on this earth. That day may come sooner rather than later.

Isn’t this more important than whether two individuals commit to love and cherish each other?

What difference will all of this make if we cannot live on this planet?