Should Christians Have Voted For Joe Biden?
By: Dave Richards
Tags: Elections, Politics, Christianity, Trump, Choices

Does Joe deserve the same grace given to Trump?

Photo by Maria Oswalt on Unsplash

If you listen to Christian leaders like Pat Robertson and Franklin Graham, Joe Biden is a liberal Socialist who is going to lead the country into Communism.

And aren’t the policies of the Democrats far less friendly to the church and Christian values than the Trump Republicans have ever been?

From the time of Obama, wasn’t it obvious that the country was headed down the wrong moral path? That’s why Hilary Clinton with those far-left liberal views was soundly rejected in 2016. And, was it not Donald Trump that made it OK again to say “Merry Christmas”?

This country was founded on traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs, that in recent decades have been pushed mainly by the Republican party. The Democrats, on the other hand, historically have pushed for total liberation from everything that even smells like a rule or restriction.

But those who write off Biden as an unrighteous proposition for the church assume you will ignore and dismiss all the chinks in the “armor of uprightness” they claim Donald Trump wears.

The Righteousness of Donald Trump

President Trump is reputed by many of the Christian community to be pro-Life, and anti-same-sex marriage, as well as supportive of Israel. These are the 3 points the church has used in recent years to determine if a President meets their approval. Issues like the economy, health care, and immigration tend to take a back seat to these issues. They don’t evoke the same level of passion or visceral reaction.

Trump’s proclaiming of those church-friendly positions in 2016 made him a more palatable candidate than Mrs. Clinton. She seemed more inclined to pursue the agenda of more looseness when it came to morality. A battle the church thinks it is losing big time. Trump was the proverbial straw at which a drowning man (or society) clutches.

But the Christian community got a lot more than it bargained for. On the subject of Trump’s lack of moral character, they say, “I voted for a president, not a priest.” One pastor said, “I don’t have to live with the man, but I have to live with his policies.”

Their support of his proper position on these “moral” issues was intended to be a goodwill gesture to the President of the freedom to govern at his discretion. But Trump has taken reckless advantage of the power of the office and has shattered every norm, defied every ethical standard, and destroyed every boundary of decency and decorum that his predecessors have held sacrosanct for centuries.

If Trump were an honorable man, he would have regarded that predetermined status as a sacred trust. He would have made even a modest attempt to justify the grace he was granted. Instead, he proves repeatedly that he is incapable of that humility and does not even want to try.

Before the election, he predicted that the only way he could lose the election was if the Democrats cheat. After the election that he clearly lost, he insanely insisted that the election had been stolen from him. He keeps trying to make the point that he is somehow entitled to remain in power.

Every Republican in the country with even a milligram of courage has said that Trump is unfit to hold the office of President. The majority of voters in the country heeded their wisdom and ironically, handed Trump the exact margin of defeat in the electoral college that he boasted about giving his opponent in 2016. Along with an even greater loss of the popular vote.

But it is this predetermination, this conference of “immunity from ever doing anything wrong” that was granted by some to Trump, that simultaneously renders Biden and Democrats as the wrong or bad choice.

Many of the 70 million+ people who voted for the president have no logical reason that they can articulate for their constant support. Except that they decided to hold their nose (again) and vote for him. That leaves no room for arguing or even asking anything concerning this president. The decision is purely emotional and not related to any facts.

Still, these people dare to advance logical arguments why there is something morally wrong to vote for Biden.

No Logic Just Irony

Amazingly, the logic does not work both ways. And when you point that out, the response you get is, How dare you bring logic into this?

Isn’t it ironic that they treat like a god the man who is the most ungodly human being, with the largest god-complex, to ever act in the political arena?

Some Christians want to claim the righteousness of their vote for Trump, while they deny any implied endorsement of his corrupt practices and lies. At the same time, they condemn those who vote for Biden saying that their vote was a clear endorsement of Biden’s liberal (unrighteous) policies, with no relation to Biden’s more upstanding character.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer the great German pastor, theologian, martyr, a spy was asked in 1943 how the Church could sit back and let Hitler seize absolute power. His firm answer: “It was the teaching of cheap grace.” Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ living and incarnate.” -Dietrich Bonhoeffer (The Cost of Discipleship)

If there was ever a person who abused cheap grace, that person is Donald Trump. He said he has never done anything for which he needs to repent.

But do not be fooled. A person’s vote for president brings him or her neither salvation nor damnation.

Because how can you prove that the other person did the same thing you did with the same motive or for the same reason you have?

We Christians have been brutal in our tendency to want to force others to give no other meaning to anything apart from the meaning we ascribe. We erroneously conclude that whatever is not right for me is not right for anyone and everyone else.

This self-centeredness is the main cause of much of the division and confusion in the Church, the Body of Christ, and within (and, the cause of) the many denominations of the Christian religion.

Those who voted for Biden certainly had different things in mind, or maybe just one issue, in the moment when their vote was cast. If they had shared your meanings and thoughts about similar issues as you, they would no doubt have done the same thing as you.

But that is only a probability. There are more than a dozen factors to consider when choosing a president. And each person has but one vote.

To suggest that someone else’s action that’s different from yours is inherently wrong because it is different is a violation of that person’s free will. And not even the Almighty God takes that freedom from any individual. Neither should Christians.

There has never been another president in American history who has been as deliberately divisive as President Trump. When Christian leaders take his extremist position on issues of national importance, and reject Joe Biden out of hand, that raises a bigger question about the integrity of these men than whatever popularity contest they might win from supporting Trump.

God the Creator endows every citizen with the inalienable right to choose. Even the right to be wrong.