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We have not experienced a civil war this year, but we are still in the midst of an extremely polarizing, drawn-out national election that marks the culmination of the most divisive presidency of modern times.\u00a0 Evangelical Christians have been at the center of that division.\u00a0 On one side are the 75 percent of more of white evangelical Christians (along with millions of conservative Catholics) who are convinced that a vote for the Democratic ticket is a vote for abortion and the loss of religious liberty.\u00a0 On the other side are the 90 percent of Black Protestant Christians, joined by several million progressive white evangelicals and millions more mainline Protestants, Hispanic Catholics, and white progressive Catholics, who believe that a vote for Donald Trump is a vote for racism, xenophobia, environmental destruction, and misogyny.\u00a0 For four years, each side has read the same Bible and has invoked God\u2019s aid against the other.\u00a0 Unfortunately, this will continue long after the balloting is over.\u00a0 Until this election is finally decided, we will continue to hear prayers for God to intervene on one side or the other of our national political conflict.\u00a0 And even after the election is finally resolved, the political polarization rending both the nation and the nation\u2019s churches will continue.<\/span><\/p>\n So, perhaps while we wait for the last ballots to be counted, it would be appropriate at this moment to consider how we might bind up the political and emotional wounds of the American Christian churches that have been casualties of our nation\u2019s cultural divisions this year.\u00a0 To do that, I\u2019d like to consider how Christians on both sides of our political divide can think about this election as a redemptive moment, regardless of whether we\u2019re pleased with the particular results.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n While no one enjoys watching their party lose an election, election defeats are wonderful opportunities for a party to reinvent itself in the next round.\u00a0 Christians who voted Republican this year because of abortion but nevertheless were concerned about President Trump\u2019s character should rejoice at this prospect if President Trump loses this election.\u00a0 A defeat for Republicans (if it happens) will not destroy evangelical conservatism any more than the victory of Bill Clinton in 1992 or Barack Obama in 2008 did so.\u00a0 In each case, the Christian Right quickly reemerged as a stronger force, and Republicans swept the next midterm elections.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n But I hope that this time, Christians who are Republican will not simply hope to win more votes in the next round.\u00a0 Instead, I hope that they will pray that their favored party will use its moment of reinvention to shed its platform positions that are antithetical to Christian values and rediscover a form of conservatism that is more consistently biblical.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n One area where they could pray for this to happen would be immigration policy.\u00a0 In 2010, the Republican Party, in response to Tea Party pressure, made opposition to undocumented immigration a central campaign platform.\u00a0 This increased the party\u2019s appeal to many rural whites and paved the way for Donald Trump\u2019s candidacy, but it also eventually caused the party to lose the suburban vote.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n From a Christian perspective, some aspects of this policy should be troubling.\u00a0 It set the party against any meaningful ticket to the future for young people who came to the United States without documentation in early childhood, and it put the party on a path toward approving the separation of children from parents at the border.\u00a0 For many Christians \u2013 even those who might be pro-life conservative Republicans \u2013 these stances are difficult to square with biblical values.\u00a0 Wouldn\u2019t it be wonderful if the Republican Party\u2019s reinvention of itself as a party that can once again become competitive in the suburbs prompted it to abandon these stances and once again embrace the more tolerant immigration policies that Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and John McCain once championed?\u00a0 A conservative Republican Christian should welcome the prospect that a 2020 election defeat could prepare the party for a return to issue positions that are more compassionate and, one might even say, consistently conservative.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And what about a Christian who is a progressive Democrat?\u00a0 If, against all predictions, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris lose, and the Democratic Party is in the political wilderness for several more years, how should a progressive Democratic Christian react?\u00a0 What sort of Democratic Party reorientation should Christians who are Democrats hope for?\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n If Biden loses this election, it will almost certainly be because Pennsylvania or another rust belt state did not vote for him.\u00a0 And the reason for this will likely be, at least in part, that he encountered more opposition from white Catholics than pollsters had expected.<\/span><\/p>\n For a pro-life Christian who is also a Democrat, this should raise hopes that the Democratic Party would become more concerned not only about the economic needs of the white working class, but also about their values \u2013 including the value that many Catholics place on the lives of the unborn.\u00a0 Perhaps it would be too much to hope that the Democratic Party would substantially change its position on abortion, but if it becomes clear that this played a larger role in voters\u2019 thinking than any pollster had predicted, wouldn\u2019t that be a welcome development?<\/span><\/p>\n Such exercises in hypothetical thinking indicate something that is too easily forgotten in the heat of an election:<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n No Party That Wins an Election Consistently Stands for Godly Principles<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n If this is the case, every election victory for our favored party needs to be tempered with the realization that long with the policies we might favor, the party will seek to advance some initiatives that are inconsistent with Christian values.\u00a0 This is not confined only to the most obvious issues of controversy, such as abortion.\u00a0 It\u2019s also true of policies that don\u2019t get as much press.\u00a0 Many Democratic Christians who support a consistent life ethic, for instance, have had to face the unfortunate reality that Democratic presidents have often proved to be nearly as likely as Republicans to engage in international military ventures that have at times killed not only foreign combatants but also civilians.\u00a0 Many Republican Christians who view the accrual of large amounts of government debt as a moral issue have had to confront the reality that their supposedly fiscally conservative party has often proved just as likely as Democrats to run up high deficits.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 Both political parties will engage in behavior that many Christians decry.\u00a0 And if that\u2019s the case, Christians cannot treat any election as a victory (or defeat) for the cause of righteousness.\u00a0 This does not mean that an election doesn\u2019t matter or that the two parties are always morally equivalent.\u00a0 But it does mean that we need to avoid idolizing our particular political party.\u00a0 If we think that our chosen party is the only way to deliver victories for the cause of righteousness, we need to remember that:\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In 1980, millions of evangelical Christians supported Ronald Reagan in the belief that he would rescue the nation from the effects of the sexual revolution, abortion, and moral decay.\u00a0 But Reagan could not deliver on this promise.\u00a0 The constitutional amendments that Reagan promised on abortion and school prayer were never adopted, and by some measures, the sexual revolution continued unabated.\u00a0 The year that Reagan took office, 18 percent of all children born in the United States were born to unmarried mothers, but by the time that Reagan left office, more than a quarter of the women giving birth were unmarried<\/a>, with most of that increase occurring among white women, a demographic group likely to support Reagan and the Republican Party.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\nLost Elections Are Opportunities to Remake a Party<\/span><\/b><\/h2>\n
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Political Victories Cannot Deliver Culture-War Victories<\/span><\/b><\/h2>\n