How Should Christians Vote? (Part 2)

For we are made for eternity as certainly as we are made for time, and as responsible moral beings we must deal with both. - A.W. Tozer (1)

My plan had been to make this post about how as a Christian we should think through voting for candidates when none professes Christ. However, I wanted to take this time to expand on the subject of withholding the vote for someone who claims to be a Christian, yet looks nothing like one. While this topic is fresh in my mind I hope to anticipate some of the pushback that I expect to receive and offer a coherent defense of this position. To summarize my position in the last post, I believe that as Christians, we cannot vote for someone who is a false Christian; the primary reason being that tying ourselves to someone we know willingly drags the name of Christian through the mud destroys the witness we have to the world, thus making us less effective at doing our primary jobs on this earth. Though it is impossible for a person to know the heart of another, the Word of God has given us many guideposts to look at someone who claims to be a Christian and determine if they truly are. One of those passages is Galatians 5:16-24:

“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

If a political candidate purports to be a Christian do they seem to gratify the desires of the flesh, or do they exhibit the fruit of the Spirit? These fruits of the Spirit are not something that can be turned on and off for the Christian, they are also not something that get excused for politicians. All Christians, at all times, throughout all of history have this fruit. We have crucified ourselves with Christ, and he has given us these new passions and desires in place of the old. If someone claims to be a Christian and yet unrepentantly pursues the desires of the flesh, the cost for supporting them is far too high. Additionally, even without their overt confession to be a Christian, does a candidate claim to be the “best candidate for the church?” Are they active within faith-based events and speak to the moral ground that Christians hold? Does the broader church unequivocally support a given candidate? I want to include these questions as part of what this discussion includes because even if they do not say they are a Christian, if they strongly imply it, and the church supports them on supposed Biblical grounds, everything that candidate does will be reflected back on the Church, and Christians more broadly. Thus the broader culture will see what that candidate does and make judgment calls about Christians in general. Which is not fair, but it is the truth. So when I say “false Christian” I am including those candidates who explicitly state their religious status, or imply it with their proximity to the church and faith based events/objectives.

Supporting candidates who are false Christians not only negatively impacts our ability to witness to the world, but it also negatively impacts those within the Church. When Christians hold this “win at all cost mentality,” this idea that “the ends justify the means” it has far reaching unintended consequences. One of those is that in recent years, there has been a precipitous decrease in regular church attending. One Lifeway study found that overall, “the Protestant church is slowly shrinking from within.” (2) Overwhelmingly the drop in attendance has been among young people, some specific reasons for leaving the church are shown below:

Reading between the lines, the first reason for leaving “I moved to college and stopped attending church” shows to me that for many of these young people, during their time at home and in their home church, they did not receive a significantly compelling view of God. Either from the influence of their parents, or their leaders in church, they might have seen God as something that is nice to have, but not a necessity. So as soon as life changes, they cut him out. The next three reasons point to what I would characterize as a general lack of love people are seeing from the Church. Many young Christians I have talked with who are still in the church, and some not, grew up hearing love preached in the pulpit and talked about at youth camp, then they would read the Bible and all that is has to say about love, but in recent years, they have seen love take a back seat. Young Christians have seen parents, or those in church leadership who display more of a love for America, power, social status, or any other idol aside from God. There is a large generation of young Christians who were brought up on Christian principles, but when it mattered most, they did not see their leaders live them out for one reason or another. And maybe even more insidiously, when these young Christians bring up questions about why certain things don’t look like the Bible they are told there is no room for questioning, and sometimes are even asked to leave the church. All are responsible for their own actions, but the church today is putting up roadblocks in the way of belief for non-believers, and even those within the church!

By our actions Christ has been made to be unappealing, we have degraded his message and life to turn away those that should know his beauty the most! How much more someone who has never heard the true Gospel? As Alistair Begg says, “When my children hear godliness out of my mouth and they see wickedness in my life, then I point them to heaven and I lead them to hell.” (3) These statistics are terrifying, and should be extremely disheartening for all Christians. So should we continue on the same path that has led us to this point? I pray we do not. The Church in America must come to grips with the sins of our past, the idolatry of our present, and repent for our future if we hope to have one. Our young people are leaving, and we are not giving a compelling enough message to the world so the church is dying. It is dying not because our view of God is too high, it is dying not because the culture is losing the Christian morals of our past, it is dying because we the church have turned our back on a right view of God.

Just as the people of Israel in the Old Testament, we are looking at a Church today that craves political victory, while ignoring the higher callings of God. When the Church knowingly, read enthusiastically, supports someone who trashes the name of Christ we inspire rebellion within our own hearts, the hearts of those near us, and in the world around us. When establishing the human political entity that was the ancient nation of Israel, the first set of laws God delivered were the ten commandments (Exodus 20). The first three point to what God expected to be the Israelites' foundation of their interactions with him.

1. “You shall have no other gods before me.”

2. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.”

3. “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.”

All told there can be 613 laws extracted from the Old Testament that were given to the people of Israel. Without going too deep into the weeds of these laws, what we see consistently is that as God is setting up this political entity for his people to live within, his primary concern lies with their hearts. He constantly calls the People of Israel to cleanse their bodies and their hearts, it is not just following the rules that he wants. God desires a total transformation from the way of living that the world around them practices. “You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.” (Leviticus 19:2) (4) As most of you know, however, the people of Israel did not keep the law of the Lord. They consistently turned their hearts to other gods (5) they distrusted the Lord to do what he said he would do and turned away. Eventually, this led to their demands to be like the other nations by having a king, as I wrote about in the last post, but this did not solve their issues, so they continued to rebel. There were times of greater devotion to God, and there were times of greater evil. Which finally led to their political/military defeat and exile to foreign lands. While in this time of decline, defeat, and exile God sent many prophets to his people. All of whom had a consistent message, repent and turn your hearts to the Lord. His answer to them was not a policy prescription, it was a call to get back into right relationship with their God first.

Oftentimes, the call to repentance included a rebuke from the Lord as well. The prophet Isaiah delivered the rebuke below to Judah:

“On a high and lofty mountain you have set your bed, and there you went up to offer sacrifice. Behind the door and the doorpost you have set up your memorial; for, deserting me, you have uncovered your bed, you have gone up to it, you have made it wide; and you have made a covenant for yourself with them, you have loved their bed, you have looked on nakedness. You journeyed to the king with oil and multiplied your perfumes; you sent your envoys far off, and sent down even to Sheol. You were wearied with the length of your way, but you did not say, ‘It is hopeless’; you found new life for your strength, and so you were not faint. Whom did you dread and fear, so that you lied, and did not remember me, did not lay it to heart? Have I not held my peace, even for a long time, and you do not fear me? I will declare your righteousness and your deeds, but they will not profit you. When you cry out, let your collection of idols deliver you! The wind will carry them all off, a breath will take them away. But he who takes refuge in me shall possess the land and shall inherit my holy mountain.” (Isaiah 57:7-13)

One particular instance this prophecy could be referencing is the refusal of Ahaz to listen to the Lord. In Isaiah 7 (6) we see the nation of Judah surrounded by enemies, God calls Isaiah to go and minister to Ahaz. Instead of turning his heart to the Lord and trusting in him, Ahaz sent a message to the king of Assyria for help. Much in the way a Christian would support a false Christian today, Ahaz did not believe the promises of God so he looked for help from temporal political victory. And Ahaz did achieve victory, momentarily, until the Assyrians turned to attack him. Ahaz had made an idol out of his own political power, his nation, and the power of his allies. Verse 12 shows us what happens when an idol is placed in God’s position, even though the people of Judah had a semblance of righteousness and good deeds, this did not profit them. Though the people of Israel still did some of the “right” things for God, they did not trust him. Their hearts were turned from God, and a mere breath of wind carried away what they put their trust in. Isaiah 58 then goes on to more directly state that it is not the outward appearance that God wants.

Elsewhere the prophets called the Israelites to repent of: speaking lies (Isaiah 59:3); promoting child sacrifices (Isaiah 57:5); fear and conspiracy (Isaiah 8:12-13); corruption (Isaiah 10:1); neglecting the poor and needy (Isaiah 10:2); oppression of immigrants (Jeremiah 7:6); neglecting the sabbath (Jeremiah 17:21-22); among many others. God does not care for works that only are outward shows of goodness. He wanted their hearts to be different, and since Jesus is the fulfillment of the law we should seek all these things in our own hearts first. God does not want the Christians of today to be so laser focused on one policy objective that we totally neglect our hearts. If this foundational call of repentance and turning to God was given to the Israelites who actually had the promise of a temporal kingdom, how much more so to Christians? We are not promised political power, riches, safety, comfort. In fact, we are promised persecutions. Therefore it is of even greater importance that we look on the whole word of God as “profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that we may be complete and useful” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Too often today young people and non-Christians see the church support a candidate because there is one objective that is aligned. Such as abortion. And we see above that God wanted his people to eradicate the practice of child sacrifice from Israel, which is good and true that we have to respect life and defend the helpless. At the same time, many of those other calls of God, and the fruits of the spirit, are completely ignored. So how do we square support for a candidate that wants to restrict abortion, but also wants to limit funding for refugee and immigrant programs, or defund medicare and medicaid?

These are waters fraught with danger. But I believe when reading the Bible as a whole, it shows us that we cannot neglect some areas of God’s call. We simply are not allowed to have a “win at all cost” attitude. We would be no better than the white-washed tombs of the Pharisees. The church cannot support enmity and strife even if it will achieve abortion restriction, or any other political victory. The Isrealites of the prophet’s day rejected this call to repent and turn their whole hearts to God, they lost their kingdom. Their idolatrous hearts gave way to all sorts of abominable practices. They were not fulfilling their purpose on this earth, to be a people set apart, and so they were destroyed. This is in part what we are seeing in the evangelical church today. We see a people who have devoted themselves to political victory at all costs, they have worshiped at the altar of political power and now the reckoning is here. People are not coming to know Jesus, and those within are fleeing because they can see the ship rotting from the inside out. The evangelical church today is too similar to the Pharisees. We have an outward appearance of righteousness, we love to fight against abortion, the LGBTQ community, and anything else our chosen party demands, all the while our hearts are far from God. It cannot be that we focus on one issue yet deny the whole host of what God has called us to. The call to total holiness was lost on the Isrealites and it is lost on the Church today.

Because I don’t want each post to be too long, I’m going to close this one here for now, but this same line of thought will be picked up on the next post. I hope that as I am wrestling with these questions you are as well. As I’ve said before, I don’t have all the answers, but I am trying to think through some of the difficulties we face in this life while trusting in God and trying to stay true to who he has called me to be.

1) Tozer, A. W. (1978). The Knowledge of the Holy. HarperOne. Pg. 41

2) Earls, A. & Lifeway Research. (2020, December 22). Most Teenagers Drop Out of Church When They Become Young Adults. Lifeway Research. https://research.lifeway.com/201

3) Begg, A. (n.d.). Teach Your Children Well — Part Two [Video]. Archive - Truth for Life. https://www.truthforlife.org/resources/sermon/teach-your-children-well-pt2/#top

4) See also: Deuteronomy 10:12-22

5) For example: Numbers 25

6) Also II Chronicles 28:1-15