Some of the polls are saying evangelicals voted for Trump at record numbers. As someone who has been urging Christians to apply Christ’s lordship to the political sphere for some time now, I’d like to take this opportunity to urge all those evangelicals who voted for Trump to consider one of the implications of supporting Trump. (For more implications for those who supported Trump, see Dr. McDurmon’s article here.)
One of the objections raised against seeking to honor Christ in the political realm is that Christians should not try to influence the culture or politics based on a Christian worldview. Well, this election season, millions of evangelicals were willing to vote for an ungodly man based on the fact that they thought his platform would do a better job of promoting “Christian principles” than Clinton’s. That’s fine. However, let’s be consistent. If evangelicals were willing to support Donald Trump under the auspices of a Christian worldview, why not seek to support and train up actual Christians to run for local offices and start to make a difference in our communities? Too often, we look to the national elections as being very important. However, even the abortion issue should be tackled locally, not nationally. We need to train up young men to enter the political sphere with a passion to honor Christ in all things. We need to understand and apply the doctrine of interposition, beginning in our local communities.
Perhaps this election season will cause Christians to realize that we cannot be neutral when it comes to politics. Christians were willing to vote for—and even promote—an ungodly man because they realized they could not be neutral. Politics is about the rule of law and justice. These are essentially religious issues. Either Christ will be honored or spurned. I encourage you to listen to Herb Titus’ talk on the path to abolish abortion at the state level. Think about how we need to abandon this idea that Christianity has no place in politics. I did not vote for Trump, but I know many Christians did. (I voted Castle.) However, why don’t we work to put Christians on the ballot, especially in our local communities? The only reason I can think that people would object is because they would say that we shouldn’t be involved in politics as Christians. Well, evangelicals who supported Trump cannot use that excuse anymore. I am hopeful about the future, but not necessarily because Trump was elected. (For some serious consideration of what the Trump presidency may look like, read Gary North’s article here.)
I want to conclude with a quote from the aforementioned speech by Herb Titus. Once again, Christians need to do some serious study on how the lordship of Christ impacts our society. The vestiges of goodness in the Republican platform only remain because of God’s mercy. Christ has long been rejected by the Republican Party (Trump included). The solution is to look to our own home and communities, and seek to apply God’s Law in our own spheres of influence.
We have a responsibility as Christians to begin to pay attention to our local and state elections more than we do. One of the problems I think in the Christian community is we wake up every four years, to vote for a president. Or we pay more attention to who’s elected to congress or the senate than we do to state house and the county commission and so forth. And we really need to begin to think in terms of what happened with Joshua as he took the people into the land of Canaan. What did he do? They had to take it piece by piece by piece…We have a responsibility before God not to just reach a result that we desire, but to do it the right way. To do it honoring our covenant responsibility under God and not outside the responsibility he has given to us. (Herb Titus, Candidate for Vice-President of the United States in the 1996 U.S. presidential election on the Constitution Party ticket)
Reformed Hope 