Why Evangelical Christians should vote for Donald Trump in 2024 How should Christians apply the Bible to voting for Donald Trump or Joe Biden?
“The Republican party means to do nothing, can do nothing, for the abolition of slavery in the slave states. The Republican party stands on a level with the Fugitive Slave Law.” –William Lloyd Garrison, Abolitionist’s 4th of July Speech
“And there is need in this office of abler people than are needed in the office of preaching, so that it is necessary to keep the best boy for this work; for in the preaching office Christ does the whole thing, by His Spirit, but in worldly government one must use reason, — from which the laws have come, — for God has subjected temporal rule and bodily things to reason (Genesis ii), and has not sent the Holy Spirit from heaven for this purpose. Therefore, governing is harder, because it cannot be ruling over things that are certain, and must act, so to speak, in the dark.” –Martin Luther, A Sermon on Keeping Children in School.
Today a group of Christians are promising to stand for God and abstain from voting for the candidate and the party responsible for overturning Roe v. Wade. This is stupid. It is dangerous.
Democrats want to reinstitute Roe v. Wade and expand it—by using tax dollars to fund abortions up to the moment of birth (and some Democrats want it even post-birth.) Wouldn’t the right thing to do be to vote in a way to keep Democrats out of office?
Of course, stopping Democrats is the moral decision; however, that is what someone not blinded by passion or ideology would do. Yet, in 2024 just as in 2016 there are Russell Moore type Christians out there looking to help Democrats win the election.
Some other types of Christians are out there too pouting that Donald Trump modified the GOP’s platform on important Culture War issues like the definition of marriage and abortion. It is understandable to be upset by these changes. Yet, what is the right way to respond to it?
Christians could work to change the Republican National Committee representatives. Also, perhaps evangelicals should primary liberals and RINOs to get better representatives in Congress and state legislatures?
What Christians should not do is shoot themselves in the foot—metaphorically—by helping (or not doing all in their power to prevent) the accession to power of those political opponents determined to overthrow Western Civilization and Christianity itself.
While the Gates of Hell will not prevail against the Church, America and Christians here have no such guarantee. Thus, we must be vigilant and wise.
What does that wisdom look like? We must put aside childish things. What childish things? The inclination that politicians should act like pastors. That is not their calling, and it is not their job.
I thought we had finally rid ourselves of Russell Moore; however, a new group of virtue signaling losers have arrived to take his place. And yes, I meant losers because adopting this philosophy is guaranteed to lose elections. It is as myopic as virtue signaling abolitionists rejecting Abraham Lincoln because he valued the union and wanted to preserve it while battling slavery.
Fortunately, most abolitionists realized Lincoln was a good candidate and voted for him. The result was overthrowing slavery faster than they could’ve imagined.
Evangelicals must not make the perfect the enemy of the good.
The world is fallen; it is sinful. And just like Martin Luther said, most of these decisions in politics are made in the dark. When abolitionists voted for Lincoln, they could not know the Civil War and the eradication of slavery was at hand.
Likewise, when most evangelicals voted for Trump, the most they hoped for was preventing the progressive takeover of the Supreme Court for at least a generation. It was defensive to keep things from getting worse. God had other plans. More was won and the fruits of 2016 continue to be savored by conservatives.
We cannot know all that is before us. We are in the dark. We must as Luther said use reason to navigate the contradictions that the sinful world and its politics present to us. So, how should we do this?
A Basic Theology of the Christian and Government
Christians must grow up and stop applying preschool theology to political calculations. As I’ve argued elsewhere, the Christian is bound to vote according to God’s commandments. However, often these commandments in a fallen world might come into conflict. Thus, we should adopt Dr. Norman Geisler’s Graded Absolutism to guide us. (This applies to all moral decisions.)
As I pointed out in 2019, Some evangelicals appear to have a virtue-signaling death wish. Why is this? Because they are naïve. Let me quote something Christian philosopher William Lane Craig said about the 2016 election,
“I think there is a kind of immaturity among some people about moral decision-making where they think that moral decision-making is a matter of choosing between the good alternative and the bad alternative. That is a very naïve, almost childish, view of moral decision-making. We are frequently confronted with moral choices in which we have no good alternatives or, alternatively, we have two good alternatives to choose from and you have to then choose between two goods. But sometimes you have to choose between two bads.
“Intro courses in philosophy or ethics major on this point by presenting moral dilemmas to clarify students’ values. For example, a textbook illustration is the runaway streetcar example where if you do not throw the switch the streetcar will hit and kill a man working on the tracks. But if you do throw the switch then the streetcar will kill five people who are on the tracks. So which choice do you make? You don’t have a good choice in a case like that. There are two bad outcomes and you have to choose the lesser of two evils.
“I think the most poignant illustration of this point is Sophie’s Choice where the young mother is presented by the Nazi soldiers with a choice as to which of her children will be sent to the death camp and which one she can keep alive. If she refuses to choose one of her two children then both will be sent to the death camps. In a case like this, this poor mother had no good choice. She had to choose the lesser of two evils and pick one of her two children to be exterminated. It is just horrible.
“Similarly, in a case like this, we didn’t have two good candidates to choose from. Both were flawed in multiple ways, and the outcomes were flawed in multiple ways. Yet, that doesn’t exempt you from having to make a decision in a case like this. You choose the lesser of two evils – which outcome would be better for the United States of America than the other? I think, as you already indicated, the implications for the Supreme Court are just huge in this case. We were choosing which President would be appointing not only the replacement for the late Antonin Scalia but perhaps for other justices as well. That could radically affect the direction of the Supreme Court for a generation to come.”
Another thing a Christian philosopher said about Donald Trump is helpful too. Dr. Norman Geisler wrote, “For reluctant conservatives who were looking for someone more to the right of center, we must remember that conservatism does not equal Christianity. Likewise, neither does liberalism equal Christianity. But when I am sick, I choose the most competent doctor who may or may not be the most Christian doctor. Likewise, the most competent political leader may not be the most Christian one.”
Biblical lessons for politics
What would a Christian that is today complaining about the GOP’s Pro-Life platform do in the place of Shiphrah and Puah? (Exodus 1:15). You may remember Pharaoh wanted male Hebrew babies murdered. These midwives didn’t comply and then when asked by Pharaoh, what did they do? They lied about it. And yet we find in that same chapter, “So God was good to the midwives, and the people multiplied and became very numerous. Since the midwives feared God, He gave them families” (Exodus 1:20-21).
And lest the lesson be lost on us, God rewarded another liar—Rahab (Joshua 2). And not only did Rahab escape the slaughter, but she was also included in the lineage of Jesus.
“Perhaps the best we can say here is that if it is justifiable in some exceptionally rare circumstances not to tell the truth, those circumstances would entail the protection of innocent lives in contexts such as ‘war, murder, or criminal activities,’” as Dr. R.C. Sproul writes regarding Rahab’s actions in his book Now That’s a Good Question!”
So, what I’m telling you is nothing new. Sometimes things that seem absolute like not telling lies are not so absolute when higher issues are at stake. It wasn’t a compromise of the Never Lie directive to deceive a power attempting to murder children.
But there are further lessons that Bible teaches about interactions with political power.
The problem of divorce
“He saith unto them, Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so.” (Matthew 19:8)
God hates divorce. Yet, in the theocracy He established, divorce was permitted.
Why? Jesus explains why—the hardness of the public’s hearts.
If you are going to legislate according to the Bible, then how do we decide the correct approach to divorce? Was Moses wrong? Was God wrong in telling Moses to allow it? Of course not. What we should take from the Logia on divorce is that we may not know as much as we think we do about what God wants government to do in a specific situation. As I’ve said before, the Bible is not a handbook to government. It does not tell us the correct amount of dollars to spend on healthcare or defense. What it does is give us principles.
What does God want government to do? He tells us that it is to create order. New Testament scholar C.E.B. Cranfield explains, “The ruler helps the Christian toward ‘the good’ which God has in store for him, toward salvation (we take it that it is salvation to which, mainly at any rate, τὸ ἀγαθόν in this verse refers), if he is a just ruler, by providing him with encouragement to do good and discouragement from doing evil (which even the Christian needs in so far as he is still also an unbeliever), and by curbing the worst excesses of other men’s sinfulness and providing them with selfish reasons for acting justly.”
The point of these incentives is to create an ordered society so that other institutions like the family and church can do their jobs.
According to Cranfield, the purpose of the state is to provide the conditions for evangelism by keeping chaos under control: “It is implied that God wills the state as a means to promoting peace and quiet among human beings, and that God desires such peace and quiet because they are in some way conducive to human beings’ salvation. It is God’s purpose that the state should, by restraining chaotic tendencies of human beings’ self-assertion, maintain those outward conditions under which the gospel may be preached to all and sundry without hindrance.”
This is worth stressing again: the function of the state is different than the function of the church. So, while divorce may be banned for Christians except in rare cases, it does not also follow that divorce must be banned by the state if such a ban were to lead to political disorders.
Why? Because the end of the state is order, and the end of the church is different. Also, the end of the state is different than the purpose for individuals. While the individual should glorify God, the state must honor God’s mandate to create order for its citizens. The biggest problem in evangelical political theology is this confusion of ends.
None of this means that Christians should cease pushing moral policies. Rather, it requires the manner of pushing these policies (means) should relate to the purpose of government (ends). It is probably wise here to refer the reader to the earlier linked article on Graded Absolutism so that you may understand this is a deontological system and not consequentialist.
It isn’t compromising God’s truth to vote for a lesser evil. In fact, it is the God-given moral duty to do so. We also have a moral duty to be wise in how we vote. There is a true threat to your liberty and to life. Failure to vote to stop that is a moral failing and a sign of defective theology.