Pastoral Counsel for the 2024 Election

(This piece was originally published by Clear Truth Media on Monday, October 14th.)

Pastoral Counsel for the 2024 Election

As a pastor, I’ve noticed many of my fellow pastors are hesitant to get too specific about issues during election season. Perhaps they fear speaking out on political issues will create division in the church. But if the church has significant constituencies of both Republicans and Democrats, the division is already there. It’s just being swept under the rug. In my view, therefore, pastors cannot afford to avoid the subject.

This essay contains my pastoral counsel for the 2024 election. I’ve also recorded this essay as a podcast which can be found at the links below.

[ Spotify | Apple Podcasts ]

“This is the most important election of our lifetimes!” 

I’m not a political analyst nor do I try to be. I’m a pastor, which means a number of Christians look to me for some guidance and perspective about how to best to honor Christ with their vote. Thus, I offer my sober-minded assessment of what’s at stake and how I plan to steward my vote. I pray this is helpful to you.

Every election year, everyone says, “this is the most important election of our lifetimes.” That’s true, and it will continue to be true for the foreseeable future. As the left gets more radical, the stakes get higher. Why? 

It’s because our elections have become proxy wars between irreconcilable worldviews. These worldviews cannot simply “coexist,” they are truly irreconcilable, and the chasm widens as the left grows increasingly unhinged and radical. This pattern will not stop until a clear victor emerges with a mandate to govern.

Pastor James White recently posted this on X: “We are literally in the last days of the American experiment with a constitutional republic. We are facing the election of full-blown, out of the closet, ready to throw you in jail tomorrow Marxists…” He goes on to say, “No, I don't like Trump, I don't like where he is going, I think his worldview is decrepit, but Harris/Walz is absolutely nothing less than voting for Xi (Jinping, CCP) and the swift and violent end of the US. It is that stark a choice.” That’s just one example of many prominent Christian and secular leaders who have come to similar conclusions. I agree with them.

Two Basic Duties of Government

1 Peter 2:13-14 says, “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.” Peter tells us the two basic duties of governments and rulers: they must uphold the good and punish evil. In Romans 13, Paul says that all governments have been instituted by God and are under his authority. In America, we do not have emperors or kings, we are self-governed through a democratic process. We choose our leaders and they are accountable to us. So you are not electing a king to rule over you, you are electing leaders to represent you. This November 5th, we will elect a President whose basic job duty under God’s authority is to (1) promote the good and (2) punish evil.

That doesn’t mean we are electing a pastor in chief who will lead us in prayer from the Oval Office. We are electing a leader who will promote the conditions of freedom that allows good people to do good things and will punish bad people who do bad things. Psalm 97:10 says, “O you who love the Lord, hate evil!” Proverbs 8:13 says, “The fear of the Lord is hatred of evil.” This is always an underlying principle in every election, but in this election, it’s all the more clear. This election is about stopping the high-handed wickedness that is threatening the potential for goodness and virtue to thrive in our society. That great evil is represented by Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, and the Democrat Party. Thus, I plan to vote for DJT on November 5th.

Now, let me share five points about how I arrived at this conclusion.

#1: Donald Trump is a better candidate than we’ve been told.

This does not mean Christians should overlook or whitewash Trump’s flaws. In John 7:24, Jesus said, “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.” We should honestly and fairly assess the candidates, their parties, and their party platforms to see which better aligns with our values. I’ll begin by addressing Trump’s flaws.

Trump is not conservative about social issues. Regarding abortion, he is not fully pro-life, which is very frustrating. Nevertheless, he’s the only candidate that will even listen to us, and that’s what we’ve got to work with. Regarding the LGBTQ revolution, Trump is a progressive in slow motion. He’s OK with the milder versions of the sexual revolution and would only oppose the most extreme elements. This might help him get elected, but LGBTQ activists are always normalizing the extreme, so the Republican party will be pulled to the left of LGBTQ issues. Here’s the unpleasant fact. There hasn’t been a true social conservative on the Republican ticket for a very long time. Not McCain, not Romney, not Bush, not the other Bush, not even Reagan. Changes in our culture have made social conservatism less of a priority for Republican candidates. For me, social issues are a big liability for Trump. And for these reasons alone, I can understand why Christians in good conscience would choose not to vote for him. That's what I did in 2016, though I voted for him in 2020.

Trump is not a man of high moral character. He’s been married three times, he’s had multiple affairs, not to mention other accusations that have not been proven. He can be petty and immature. His ego is legend. He’s crude and insulting towards his political opponents. Some complain that he’s unpredictable and disruptive, but in my view, that’s not a liability, it’s an asset. I don’t want a president to manage our nation’s decline. I want a president to disrupt the corrupt political establishment that’s driving the decline. How many election cycles have gone by with politicians promising to “drain the swamp?” It’s great campaign rhetoric, but it’s never happened before, because the swamp doesn’t want to be drained. The snakes in the swamp are powerful, wealthy, and have made themselves fat and rich off of taxpayer dollars. They don’t want to give up their power. They will do whatever they can to eliminate the threat.

Trump is a “convicted felon.” In my opinion, this is not a serious objection, because Trump was clearly targeted by his political opponents in a naked attempt to eliminate a rival. The charges were unprecedented, the judge was a known Democrat operative, and the trial was a career builder for ambitious people trying to make a name for themselves prosecuting Trump. His convictions reveal more about the lengths democrats will go to maintain power than anything it reveals about Trump. You’d have to believe that our justice system is free of political influence or corruption for this objection to be persuasive. This conviction exposes the corruption of the system rather than the guilt of the accused.

Trump led an “insurrection” on January 6th. My response is this: No he didn’t. J6 was not an insurrection attempt. Trump himself called for civility and peace that day. J6 was a media narrative created by Trump’s political opponents so they could hang it around his neck and ensure he could never seek public office again. Anyone who still thinks J6 was a true insurrection has been watching too much MSNBC. Seriously, what sort of insurrection is led by mostly unarmed, middle aged people? They weren’t trying to take down our government, they were trying to restore it. They were carrying American flags and copies of the constitution in their pockets. Yeah, they were angry, and with good reason. 2020 was a huge eye-opener for a lot of people. COVID locked people up for months. Churches were shut down. People in other countries were being arrested simply for going to church, and it was starting to happen here. Parents noticed for the first time that their kids were being taught sexual perversion and critical race theory in schools because they were home doing online learning. And COVID prompted unprecedented changes to our election system that undermined its integrity. People had every right to be upset and to protest. Some people did get out of hand and cross the line, but the only person who died was Ashley Babbitt, who was an unarmed woman who was killed by police. All this after we’d just spent the summer watching American cities set ablaze by BLM activists without consequence. Anyone who questioned official narratives favorable to the left had their social media and youtube accounts demonetized, locked, or deleted entirely.

The Verdict: Despite Trump’s obvious flaws, he’s a much better candidate for the office of President than we’ve been told. The apocalyptic warnings of what Trump might do did not come true in his first term as president. And for the past nine years, his deficiencies have been constantly in the unforgiving spotlight of media scrutiny, while Kamala Harris’ flaws have been thrown down the memory hole. Trump has overcome a massive media operation that was committed to tearing him down. Trump’s rare strength and courage were on display mere seconds after his ear was grazed by an assassin’s bullet. Many of the accusations against Trump have been found to be exaggerations or outright fabrications. He’s been vindicated time and time again. Although Christians should not overlook his serious flaws, we also can’t blindly accept the media narrative about him. He’s not the moral monster the media has portrayed him to be. I’ll get to Trump’s positives at the end. 

Now let’s take a look at Kamala Harris. 

#2: Kamala Harris is a worse candidate than we’ve been told (and she’s been protected by a compliant media)

She is not a woman of high moral character. She got her start in politics through an adulterous affair with Willie Brown, a married man who was mayor of San Francisco. 

She represents the most radical and extreme wing of the leftist movement. Regarding abortion, she’s made this her #1 campaign issue. Tim Walz repealed a MN law that promised medical care for infants that survived botched abortions, allowing babies that were born alive to die without trying to save them. This is utterly barbaric and extreme. 

She is fully on board with the LGBTQ revolution. During a Pride month event a couple of years ago, the Biden administration allowed people to frolick around naked on the White House lawn. And the White House itself was lit up with the colors of the pride flag at nighttime. Last year, the White House published a statement celebrating “Trans Day of Visibility” which happened to fall on Easter.  When questioned about whether or not so-called “transgender” people in prison should receive state funded sex change operations, Kamala Harris responded by saying, “we should have that discussion.” These are just a few of the numerous, well-documented instances of the Harris regime’s extreme positions on sexual immorality. 

She’s a disaster regarding immigration. President Biden tasked Kamala Harris with securing the southern border, only for the border to become exponentially more porous. There are widespread reports of people from other countries being illegally flown into our country, given government money, and overwhelming the social services of the communities where they are placed. Some of these people are known criminals, including murderers and rapists. Laken Riley was a 22YO nursing student out for a jog who was bludgeoned to death by an illegal immigrant. The only explanation for why this continues to happen is that she’s either hopelessly incompetent or she wants it to happen. And if that’s the case, which I think it is, then she is using her position of power to inflict harm on the very people she represents. That’s evil. 

She is incompetent on vital issues related to our survival as a nation. Regarding the economy, at present, 75% of our current GDP goes to payments on the national debt. This is insane! She says nothing about addressing this in her public statements, other than to promise finding new ways to tax people’s hard earned dollars. She hasn’t proposed anything that would bring down inflation, either. She’s proposed a tax on “unrealized gains,” which is a way of taxing earnings that people haven’t even earned, inviting sharp criticism even from her supporters.  

She is not respected or feared by our enemies abroad. They see her as a naive, weak woman they can manipulate and take advantage of.

She rarely speaks to the press. She only does softball interviews that do not ask tough questions. When she does interviews, it’s often in highly choreographed and scripted environments. For example, in a recent interview with Oprah Winfrey, an audience member took a cell phone video from an angle that showed she was using a teleprompter. I’ve never heard her answer these basic questions: (1) Who’s president right now? (2) What did she know about Biden’s mental decline? (3) If she knew about it, why didn’t she disclose it? (4) If Biden was too incapacitated to run for reelection, then how can he be competent to function as president now? She cannot speak or articulate ideas of her own, which makes you wonder, does she have her own ideas? Or is she merely a puppet that is controlled by someone we don’t know about?

She has no accomplishments. Seriously, what has she accomplished? Not much. Joe Biden picked her as his running mate for VP for one reason: he’d promised to nominate a “woman of color.” That was her only qualification. She’d dropped out of the 2020 race before the primaries began, so she had not won a single primary delegate.

She’s animated by hatred. Kamala Harris’ biggest electoral asset for the left is her hatred for Donald Trump. Hatred for Trump animates her whole campaign. But hatred for Trump is not a vision for our future. She has the “diversity” points as a woman of color, but being a “woman of color” won’t bring down inflation, fix our economy, secure our border, or protect our nation. In other words, she’s fake. She’s a chameleon. She will say anything to get elected. Since she’s the Democrat nominee, she’s the head of the democrat party, which is a powerful machine to promote evil. 

So let’s talk about the Democrat party machine.

#3: The Democrat Party is Evil.

They are the party of radical secularists. There is only one mention of God in the published Dem Party platform. They are opposed to any form of traditional Christianity.

They are the anti-family party. There is not a single “pro life” democrat in national politics. They will tolerate no opposition to abortion, which is their chief sacrament. At the DNC convention, there were mobile units outside the convention center offering free abortions and vasectomies.

They are the anti-free speech party. Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, and Barack Obama have all called for a Brazil-style censorship of free speech. Recent comments by John Kerry and Hillary Clinton are chilling. They’ve gone on record calling for suppression of what they deem “misinformation.” Who gets to define what that is? They do, of course. Mark Zuckerberg confessed earlier this year to manipulating the 2020 election by suppressing stories about Hunter Biden laptop, calling them “misinformation,” only later found to be true. Hillary Clinton recently said, if social media companies “don’t moderate and monitor the content, we lose total control.” As though our speech should be under her control. That’s why we call it “free speech.” There’s a reason why freedom of speech is the first amendment. It’s that important. This is how our system works. RFK Jr has said that any government that can silence its critics has the license to commit any atrocity.

They are the party of arrogance and envy. The left views us as an ATM from whom they can extract wealth. They know if they told you what they are actually doing, you’d never vote for it. So they create unsolvable problems and make un-keepable promises to fix them but you have to keep voting for them to do so. And you’re supposed to trust they’re doing it for a good purpose because they use the right buzzwords like “compassion,” “tolerance,” and “equity.” They take your money, and in exchange, they promise peace, food, entertainment, and a more “just” society. They give us stimulus checks and demand gratitude for giving us back our own money. They use labels like “democracy” and “freedom” to describe taking away our freedoms. For every dollar they take, they spend a small fraction on the problem they’re supposed to be fixing and the rest of it goes to funding their pet projects, enriching themselves and their friends, and solidifying their own power. Those who vote for it are either too blind or see or too heartless to care that doing so has devastating consequences.

They follow the iron law of projection. One of the most effective lies is to accuse your opponents of what you are doing. When your opponent notices that you are the one who’s actually guilty, it confuses people into thinking “both of them are guilty” or “both of them are lying.” But that’s not always true.  It’s textbook gaslighting, and the left uses this tactic masterfully. Here’s some examples.

• Democrats claim to be the party of love but clearly they are filled with hate and disdain for conservatives.

• They claim to be the party of racial justice, but all the literature acknowledges that the most racist people in our country are white liberals.

• They claim to be the party of unity but never miss an opportunity to stoke the fires of division through entitlement, resentment, and envy

• They accuse Trump of using hateful rhetoric, while they constantly use violent rhetoric, comparing him to Hitler and Nazis on the regular, calling him a threat to democracy

• They claim that they are trying to save our democracy while they carried out a palace coup in broad daylight, deposing a sitting President, against his will, and installing a nominee no one actually voted for,

• They claim to be saving our democracy while refusing to support voter ID legislation that would promote election integrity,

• They claim to be saving our democracy, though they blocked RFK Jr.’s candidacy as a Democrat, forcing him to run as an independent and gather millions of signatures to get on every state ballot, and when he withdrew his candidacy, they sued to keep him on the ballot in swing states where they thought it would benefit them,

• They claim a DJT presidency will push us closer to the brink of WW3, when actually Trump’s first term was relatively peaceful and we’ve gotten involved in two new conflicts in Israel and Ukraine under the Biden/Harris regime,

• They say a Trump presidency will lead to civil unrest, when he’s the only one literally being targeted for two assassination attempts by apparent Harris supporters

• They claim to be the people of “peace” and “love,” while gleefully supporting rioters in 2020 who were looting and burning American cities while they were calling to defund the police,

• They say we need to elect Kamala Harris to fix these problems in our country, as though she and Joe Biden haven't been in power the last four years.

All these things are ripped out of the social activist Bible, Saul Alinski’s Rules for Radicals. One of these rules is to keep pressing your negative and unpopular ideas until they eventually break through the other side and become positives. You wear people down and brainwash them until they start accepting your irrational and foolish ideas as some kind of counter-intuitive wisdom.

They are the party that hates us. Right now, the biggest enemy of the American people is not Islamic terrorists or Russians with nukes or the Chinese. The biggest enemy of the American people is the left. They hate us. It’s obvious.

But it’s not just the Democrat party, it’s the Republicans too, which leads me to my next point.

#4: The Political Establishment in DC is Evil.

Up to this point, you might have thought, “both parties are corrupt, not just the Democrats!” Actually, I agree with you. I’m glad you brought that up. Most Americans believe we have a two-party system which provides checks and balances. But what if I told you both parties are controlled by uber-rich mega donors through campaign donations? What if the ruling class has rigged the system to ensure no one can truly oppose them? That’s the way Wash DC operates. 

The ruling class does not want what’s best for our country. They want to placate us enough to keep us from becoming any sort of threat. They control both parties, the news media, the markets, and our currency. They control businesses through back channel deals and corporate tax benefits. 

Have you wondered why congress keeps passing legislation that is universally unpopular? Why is that? It’s because most of these politicians don’t care about their constituents. Even good ones often end up betraying their constituents when they get to DC. When they get to DC, they are told “here’s how things work in this town and you have to play the game.” Quite often, they lose their independence and get absorbed into the system like the Borg.

You might think, “this is all just a conspiracy theory!” No it isn’t. Don’t you think it’s odd that Dick Cheney, Mitt Romney, and the Bush family are all supporting someone as radical as Kamala Harris? Don’t you think it’s odd that Elon Musk, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Tulsi Gabbard are supporting Trump?

There’s a reason for this. Kamala Harris is supported by the corrupt regime of Cheney, Romney, and Bush. That’s the uniparty system. This election is not about Dems vs. Republicans. That’s the illusion I’ve been under my whole life. But now the system that runs our country is being exposed for what it is. Have you seen the avalanche of reports of deep corruption in the FBI, the CIA, the DHS, and the Secret Service? We still don’t know what happened with Trump’s assassination attempt. No one has been fired. This election is not about Donald Trump vs. Kamala Harris. This election is about Donald Trump vs. the entire corrupt establishment machine in DC.

I can’t say this for certain, but perhaps in God’s strange providence, God raised up a billionaire who didn’t need money from mega-donors, with such a gargantuan ego that he’d take on the whole system by himself. I don’t know if that’s God’s purpose, but that's the way it looks to me. We’ll see. Either way, doesn’t that help explain the political realignment we’re seeing these days? The bloodthirsty warmongers that used to populate the Republican party are now lining up behind Kamala Harris, because she will keep the war machine humming and the money flowing into the military industrial complex, just like Bush, Cheney, Obama, and Biden did. The more reasonable Democrats that used to have a place in the party 30 years ago are now so disillusioned with their party that they’ll line up behind Trump to stop it. Not because they’re all conservative now and agree with him. Trump himself is not a real conservative. They’re doing it because people like Elon Musk and RFK Jr. are high enough up in society and have enough access to the levers of power to see what’s really going on, and they’re tough minded enough to help him fight back against the system.

This is a spiritual war. Of this, I am certain. Human rulers and governments function as proxies for a spiritual war in the unseen realm. Eph 6:10 says, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” The scriptures bear witness that the material realm and the spiritual realm work in tandem, with actions in both realms bearing consequences for the other. No, I do not think that Donald Trump is some kind of savior. He’s just a man, and he’s not even a man of God. But God does raise up rulers of all sorts to accomplish his purposes. Our duty is to fight for justice and righteousness as best we can. 

#5: You’ve Got Four Choices. Choose Wisely.

So, as Christians, how should we approach this election? I don’t presume to bind anyone’s conscience about this, but I’ll share what I think is a sober-minded approach. Basically, we’ve got four options. Let’s walk through them briefly, in the order of worst to best.

#1: Vote for Kamala Harris. This is not an acceptable option. A Christian cannot in good conscience support Kamala Harris for president. A vote for Harris is not a vote for “decency” or “civility.” Harris would no doubt use her political power to punish her enemies, especially Christians, suppress free speech by labeling anything she disagrees with “hate speech” or “misinformation,” continue to allow open borders as a thinly veiled future Democrats voter drive, continue to support the advance of the LGBTQ agenda in every level of society, and continue to advance the holocaust of mothers murdering their own children in the womb. Simply put, it would be wrong for any Christian to vote for Kamala Harris.

#2: Abstain from voting. This is NOT an acceptable choice for Christians. To abstain from voting is choosing to be passive, uninvolved, and surrender your voice to someone else. That’s not a faithful Christian option. Christians have a voice and we need to make it heard. In other words, don’t be a valentine voter. Jesus isn’t on the ballot. You’re not voting for your next pastor, you’re voting for your next president. And the president we need in these times is someone who will fight for us. Don’t overly moralize your vote. Vote for who would do a better job running our country of the options available. I saw recently that approximately 30 million bible believing Christians DID NOT VOTE in the last presidential election. 30 million! Did you know that the election was decided by about 42K votes? Christians, use your voice and vote.

#3: Vote Third Party. This is only slightly better than abstaining, but it has the same practical consequence. No third party candidate will be president. In my view, this IS an acceptable choice for Christians, given Trump’s compromises on social issues. But I do not think it is wise. If both candidates were equally bad, then maybe you could make a case for this. But as I’ve already demonstrated, Harris is much worse than Trump. 

Joe Rigney recently posted this: “one political party is committed to high-handed rebellion against nature and nature’s God, in the form of abortion on demand, the destruction of the natural family, contempt for law and order, and the weaponization of the legal system. On the other hand, for all of its flaws, the other political party retains some grounding in the objective moral order that God has embedded in creation. As a result, you make the decision to support the second party as a vehicle for resisting high-handed wickedness and pursuing justice in civil society. In sum, your reasoning is this: Because you love God supremely, you seek to love your neighbor, which means you pursue justice in your nation, and you view the Republican Party as the imperfect vehicle for pursuing civic justice.” That’s solid advice. 

#4: Vote for Donald Trump. I’ve already acknowledged that Donald Trump is a flawed man. He can be boorish and insufferable. But I’m convinced that he genuinely loves his country and will do everything he can as president to work to make us more prosperous and secure. That’s the key difference, and that’s why I plan to vote for Trump. He’s the one man with the courage and will to fight this great evil. Here’s the thing. Trump’s strengths and virtues are rarely acknowledged. 

Four Reasons to Vote for Donald Trump

In my view, there are four simple reasons why Trump is the better choice in this election.

#1: He’s got the courage to bring down the system. He’s a wrecking ball, and I mean that in a good way. If you’ve ever felt like your government hates you, that’s because they do. The swamp doesn’t want to get drained, that’s why the DC political establishment has opposed him so fiercely. And he’s more motivated now than ever to finish the job. He’s promised to authorize Elon Musk to streamline government and make it more efficient in a Trump presidency. He’s promised to put RFK Jr. in charge of cleaning up corruption in the health department, because Americans are sicker and fatter than ever. These sound like common sense promises to the American public, but the entrenched powers in DC do not want that to happen. That’s why we need a man with guts. Trump’s got it. And this time around, he’s got a stronger base of support, four years of reflection while he’s wandered in the political wilderness, and the urgency to get it done in the one remaining term he’ll have. 

#2: He’s honest. His most maddening and endearing quality is that he speaks his mind. He’s not controlled by anyone. He’ll tell you what he really thinks if you ask him. 

#3: He’s made the right enemies. If you don’t have enemies, you’re not a leader. This is where Trump’s obnoxiousness is actually an asset. It is obvious that Donald Trump is public enemy #1 of the DC political establishment that is entrenched in both parties. Now, he’s more motivated than ever to dismantle it. When they tried to assassinate him in Butler, PA in July, his legacy as a fighter spirit was solidified. That’s who this man is. Trump’s list of enemies makes me more confident that my analysis is correct. The Democrats can have the Romneys, Cheneys, and the Bushes. They are the problem, not the solution. The IRS has endorsed Kamala Harris! Think about that. The news media hates Trump. Of course they do, they’re all owned by media conglomerates that control the flow of information that would hold them accountable. 

#4: He will put America first. Democrats are globalists who believe America is a racist nation that doesn’t have a right to exist. Have you noticed they are often on the side of our enemies? We need a real leader that will put America first. A leader that our enemies will fear. Can you imagine Kamala Harris sitting across from president Putin or the leader of Hamas? They won’t respect her. Americans can be bullied into showing respect for an incompetent person since she’s a “woman of color.” That won’t happen with strong world leaders. He’s been consistent about this since 2016. Trump wants to Make America Great Again. America was doing well in his first term. COVID derailed his momentum, and now, four years later, you have to wonder if it was intentional. But in the last four years, the American economy, American manufacturing, American currency, and the American military have all suffered. Trump wants to make them great again. The Democrats say that’s a racist dog whistle. Obviously, that’s not true. More blacks and hispanics are flocking to his side. They’re not falling for that line this time around. So, the best thing that could happen in this election is for Trump to win by such a wide and fraud-proof margin, that it sends a clear message to Washington that gives Trump a clear mandate to govern.

Conclusion

Let me conclude with this text from 1 Timothy 2. It says, “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” 

If we’re commanded to pray this way, then certainly we should vote this way. A Harris presidency would seriously hinder our ability to preach the gospel and do the work of Christian ministry. I care about this for the sake of my family, my church, and my community, and for their futures. We should pray and vote that we would live under conditions that give us maximal opportunity to spread the gospel. 

This is because Christ is the hope of the world. Christianity is a worldview of hope. Jesus is the center of our faith, and Jesus promised the ultimate renewal of all things. This hope is as certain as the sun in the sky and the air in my lungs. This hope does not change every election cycle, because this hope is anchored in something transcendent and eternal. Jesus Christ is king and he has all authority. So we should pray and vote that God will be merciful to us and work through a deeply flawed man to sustain conditions of freedom long enough for us to repent and turn to him. Our hope is not in this election, but this election matters because God works through these means.

So that’s my pastoral counsel. Do not vote for the woman who is committed to destroying our nation and our way of life. Rather, vote for a flawed but effective candidate that will resist this destruction so we can live in peace and the hope of the gospel can more freely advance in our society.