For the Christian I believe there are two fundamental questions that must be evaluated in light of a Biblical worldview. How should a Christian evaluate the upcoming Presidential election? And once a decision is made concerning how to vote, how should a Christian act upon that decision.
To the first question, “How should a Christian evaluate the upcoming Presidential election?,” we are required to evaluate what a candidate has done and what they say they are going to do. A Christian perspective starts with the obvious understanding that nobody has a right to do whatever they think is right. The Bible clearly tells us repeatedly “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick, who can under stand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) Our requirement is to be lead by the Holy Spirit through obedience to God’s word.
In the book of James we are told, “Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.” (James 1:21-25)
In the current contest for President, as in most recent elections, there is no obvious candidate to which we can look to say, “here is a Christian, I will vote for this person.” Yet we still have the unquestionable reality that one of the two people now running will be the next President and our actions will help determine which candidate wins. Opting out to vote for a no-name on some third party ticket is the same thing as defaulting out of the process, equivalent to sitting on our hands and not voting. Only one of the two major candidates will be the next President. Which one should we support from a Christian perspective?
Short of being able to categorically support a firm, committed lover/follower of Christ, is there anything that ought to direct our vote? The answer I think is similar to the admonition in James above and it takes the form of selecting the person who in their enactment of public policy will be a doer of the word, and not just a hearer only. This is because the decisions by the President will directly influence our children and grandchildren, it will influence the direction of the nation at home and abroad, for either good or evil. Good or evil from a Biblical basis.
At present the claim by many nominal Christians, as well as the world at large, is that many Christians are willing to vote based on a single issue; abortion. What is the reality? If you believe God ordained all life, and that he has a special place in his view toward children, then it seems there is a solid reason to vote for a candidate on this issue alone. Why?
The use of the word abortion is a convenient term for hiding the real name for the procedure. Murder. To vote for a candidate who advocates, supports, and demands abortion / reproductive rights, is to vote for the continuation of the murder of babies. People are conditioned to the political punditry of the matter of arguing about a woman’s right to her own body, or the rights of the unborn, or whether or not abortion / murder of a baby is justified in the case of “rape, incest, or to protect the life of the mother.” Christians should consider what God has to say about the matter.
God said, “You shall not murder.” (Exodus 20:13) He repeats and expands this when Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire.” (Matthew 5:21-22) Those who murder, and those who think it in their heart, are guilty of murder and face judgment for it.
When Job was contending with God, he said “Remember, I pray, that you have made me like clay. And will You turn me into dust again? Did You not pour me out like milk, and curdle me like cheese, clothe me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews?” (Job 10:9-11) And David said, “For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mothers womb. I will praise You for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.” (Psalm 139:13-16) Isaiah said, “Yet hear now, O Jacob My servant, and Israel whom I have chosen. Thus says the LORD who made you and formed you from the womb, who will help you; fear not O Jacob My servant; and you, Jeshurun, whom I have chosen.” (Isaiah 44:1-2)
Modern science has confirmed that at the moment of conception life begins. The complete person is determined from that moment in time as a human life. Long before science discovered the mechanical principles involved in reproduction, genetics, development of the human, the word of God clearly proclaimed life begins at the moment of conception under the personal auspices of God. We don’t decide what is life or when it begins; God has already determined it and has spoken.
From Biblical truth to modern biology the human baby is alive at conception with God superintending the development of every person in history starting at that moment. In fact, even before the conception takes place, God alone determines life. He closes or opens the womb, the very ability to conceive and start a life, as he chooses. (I Samuel 1:5, Exodus 1:21)
There are many issues in a Presidential election where each candidate make their statements for good or ill. Among these there are vast differences of lesser or greater importance. Each of these issues should be argued and evaluated from Biblical truth. In this election, it is not unimportant as to whether or not one candidate supported the release of rioters in 2020 after they burned cities, or whether a candidate has been hostile to the nation of Israel, favors a Marxist ideology in justice, economics and growth of government, promotes lawlessness through invasion across an undefended open border, advocates homosexual marriage and transgender mutilations of children or unwell adults, or has been party to the targeting of Christians who oppose abortion or the arbitrary reach of the government into truly private healthcare decisions regarding the mandatory implementation of COVID vaccines.
For the Christian though there can be no ground more fundamental than the recognition and protection of life for the most vulnerable and helpless among us; the babies in and recently delivered from the womb.
One candidate in this election has been adamant for an entire career in not only making murder of unborn babies legal in every state in every way possible, but stands as an active advocate for promoting such murder both here and internationally. One candidate promised and Providentially delivered the overturn of the Supreme Court Roe v Wade decision which at least put an end to automatic, Federally driven, murder on demand, returning the authority to stop such practices to the various States. God forgive us that the battle in the States hasn’t preoccupied every Christian with sleepless, prayerful fasting to bring an end to legalized murder everywhere.
No Christian can support a candidate who is actively promoting and advocating murder. There is only one choice in this election on this issue. Murder, and seething for the advancement of murder, disqualifies one candidate in terms of both the mandate to commit no murder, or as Jesus expanded it, to desiring to see murder perpetrated. It should be on the tip of every Christian tongue, and should be strongly preached from every pulpit. Bring an end to this national crime far greater than our national sin of slavery now 159 years in our past. God told Cain in Genesis 4 that the blood of his brother Abel, whom he had murdered, cried out to him and that as his curse on Cain the ground would no longer produce for him. Imagine the cry God hears from the ground for the estimated 64 million murdered babies in this country since 1973 and which continue in the 600,000 per year range even now. What curse does a Christian imagine may be stored up for the United States if we don’t repent and ask for national forgiveness? What decision can any Christian make in this election cycle in choosing a candidate who at least has taken steps to stop the slaughter?
The second question I proposed at the beginning, “how should a Christian act upon that decision?” The answer is clearly two parts: First, vote for President Trump and against Kamala Harris. Second, as a Christian, repent, pray, and ask God to forgive us while working to stop the slaughter. Our churches should be alive with fervent activity to promote the candidate who is best positioned to bring the murder to an end. Our pulpits should be thundering not only about Christians being positively involved in this election, but remorselessly sounding the call for action at the Federal, State and local level to bring it to an end, to acknowledge our sin as God’s people for not working and praying to bring this to an end for decades, and to ask forgiveness for our indolence.
