Develop to Deploy

These are tense times. As a pastor serving in a local church in a swing state, the tension is tangible. A quick glance at my social media feed only affirms this. In an anxious world, living in anxious times, election cycles like this one feel particularly charged and consequential.

So, where does this leave us for 2024? As the culture continues to darken, an apathetic, resigned response to the spirit of this age, while understandable, is also untenable. And that leads me to this important reality:

Politics, by nature, is not an aspirational venture. It is a deeply pragmatic one.

Ironically, while politicians campaign on aspirations, all governing takes place in the pragmatic world of deal-making and consensus-building. Lofty aspirations quickly give way to compromises in a nation split down the middle politically. When governance fails in this regard, it becomes wildly dysfunctional, and common-sense solutions are abandoned to appease extremists and activists on the edges of the political spectrum.

Call me cynical, call me realistic—it doesn’t matter to me. My view of government’s role in a human being’s life is limited to what I think it can and should accomplish as an institution under God. Put another way, since government and politics are by nature pragmatic, I interact with them pragmatically, always informed by a biblical worldview.

I encourage all Christians to do this: Consider the Scriptures and then vote for the candidate and/or platform that most closely aligns with a biblical worldview.

Do I consider the character of the candidates? Certainly. And character in leadership matters immensely. In church leadership offices (Elder, Deacon), character is the defining qualification. But in the realm of government, where the moral environment is often more secularly influenced, this conversation becomes tougher and more nuanced. For example, the Bible is clear: lying is a sin—a direct violation of the 9th Commandment. For a Christian, this shouldn’t be controversial and we should not hesitate to call lying a sin. However, what if every candidate on the ballot lies regularly, often to secure my vote? This doesn’t mean lying ceases to be a sin; it simply means that in a fallen world, I have a choice: Vote for a liar (since they all lie) or do not vote at all.

All of this to say, since there is no “Sinless” King (or Queen) on the ballot, I am forced to vote largely based on the policies and platforms that a candidate promotes. Since, in the United States, there are realistically only two choices on the ballot, representing two very different visions for America, I am compelled to evaluate these platforms through the lens of Scripture and vote accordingly.

When I do that, full disclosure: this is not a particularly hard decision for me. The platform of the modern Democratic Party stands in such stark opposition to so many key biblical truths that a vote for that party does not feel biblically justifiable to me in this cultural moment. The party’s presidential candidate supports policies like “no-limit abortions” and a trans agenda that not only denies the biblical and biological realities of God-assigned gender but also promotes the sexual mutilation and drugging of confused children for the sake of the cause. These positions alone completely disqualify a candidate from receiving my vote, though I have many more reasons for not voting for the Harris/Walz ticket.

Any discussion of character must take place within the context of how the candidate would govern and what policies they would support.

If your platform is openly demonic in many of its positions you have already lost the character argument with me.

Since my first and highest allegiance is to Jesus and His Word, I am a Christian who happens to vote Republican. Am I thrilled with the modern Republican Party? I am not. I have concerns about the party’s movement away from biblical principles on issues like abortion and biblical marriage. In some ways, conservatives in my estimation are becoming too pragmatic. Christians in the party should be more vocal when it moves away from a biblical worldview on a position for any reason. Our fear of the other party’s platform becoming the law of the land can easily cause us to give up the biblical and moral high ground for the sake of winning now which, in the long run, only leads to more losing. I am also wary of any movement that is so obviously dependent on the personality of one person, no matter who that person is, as it is simply not a sustainable strategy for the long haul. But, concerns about trajectories being what they are, I voted for the Trump/Vance ticket. Given the satanic insanity of so many key tenets of the Democratic Platform, again, it wasn’t a hard decision to make.

Now, we wait for Tuesday and pray for our nation. We do not place our hope in the idols of politics or politicians. Instead, we vote with a biblical worldview for the candidate and platform that most closely aligns with Scripture. And above all, we rest in the reality that no matter who is elected president on November 5th, Jesus, our King, will continue to rule and reign in power and glory, completely unopposed.

These views represent my personal views and my personal views alone.

Chad Williams