Voting by Faith

The clarity of knowing who our True Leader is.

Tomorrow is the big day, not just for America, but for every nation whose economy and security is influenced by American leadership. It feels as though the whole world is holding its collective breath.

I’ll be very honest with you.

I don’t like either candidate.

But don’t worry! I’m not about to pitch you a third party candidate you’ve never heard of. Rather, my hope and prayer is to help you think clearly about key issues and frame your own ideas in a biblical perspective.

On the one hand, we have Donald Trump. I didn’t vote for him in 2016 for several reasons. Firstly, I didn’t believe that he was genuinely pro-life, and that’s an extremely important issue to me. Secondly, I live in Texas, which I knew would lean conservative no matter how I voted, so I felt free to use my vote to make a statement. I supported a pro-life third party candidate, who had no chance of winning, but who accurately represented my views at the time. More than anything, Trump’s crass remarks about women leant credence to the numerous abuse accusations against him. As an abuse survivor myself, this made it impossible for me to trust him.

On the other hand, we have Kamala Harris. She used to support a mandatory buyback of guns. Now she says she owns a gun and is pro-gun. She used to sympathize with those who want to defund the police. Now she is against defunding the police. She used to believe that healthcare was a basic human right. Now she supports privatized healthcare. She used to be in favor of a more open border. Now she wants to enforce border laws. And while she may claim to have adapted and changed, it is her very changeableness that makes me distrust her. 

I agree with Bernie Sanders when he said on NBC, “I don’t think she’s abandoning her [progressive] ideals. I think she’s trying to be pragmatic and doing what she thinks is right in order to win the election.” I disagree with Sanders that this type of political maneuvering is in any way ethical or reassuring.

Recently, Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff, admitted to having an affair during his first marriage. The fact that he is now accused of domestic violence is also of great concern to me. Emhoff’s sins and alleged crimes are not Harris’s fault. However, like Hillary Clinton, Harris seems ready to support her husband no matter how badly he treats other women. This does not scream bold feminist advocate to me.

I once knew a woman whose husband cheated on her with a much younger woman. Through the whole ordeal, her concern was for that young woman. Though the wife did not have an established career like Harris or wealth like Clinton, she had integrity. She stood up to her husband and divorced him, making herself a single mom. This is what moral courage looks like. We rarely see it among American politicians. We see it more frequently among our poor, our undervalued, our veterans, and our betrayed.

And so, I do not find either candidate to be trustworthy or ideal. Despite Harris being a woman, I do not think she signals any kind of shift in how our culture values women, children, or abuse victims. I do not think either are morally superior or guaranteed to unite our fractured nation. 

So, what to do? How does one choose between two such flawed individuals? Here are a few verses which gave me clarity:

“Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” Ephesians 6:11-13

“… Thus says the LORD to you, ‘Do not be afraid and do not be dismayed … for the battle is not yours but God’s.’” 2 Chronicles 20:15

What I have concluded is that I will not vote for any one person. The name of Trump or Harris may be on my ballot, but they are not my True Leader, let alone my Savior.

Christ alone rules my heart, mind, and soul.

I will vote for moral principles.

I will vote for ethical ideals.

I will vote for what I believe is best for our children and country.

For me, personally, this means voting conservative, and I will tell you why. As a former “Never Trumper,” it was initially a bitter pill to swallow. I was dismayed when he was named as the RNC candidate. However, I feel that God in his mercy has enabled me to thread a spiritual needle by standing against Trump’s sins while also standing up for what I believe is true and right. The following are a few of the issues that matter most to me.

Moral Issues

Abortion.
As the mother of three beautiful daughters whose kicks and wiggles I felt early in pregnancy, I know without a shadow of a doubt that unborn babies are alive, fully human, and wonderfully made by God. While Trump is not pro-life, he has done more for the pro-life movement than any other politician in recent history by overturning Roe v. Wade. That’s more to the shame of past conservative presidents than a credit to Trump, but it’s a fact nonetheless. I feel confident that he will not hinder the pro-life movement, whereas Harris has promised to crush it.

The Bible clearly teaches that life begins at conception. In Psalm 51:5-7, David writes:

“Surely I was sinful at birth,
sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb;
you taught me wisdom in that secret place.
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.”

Of course, when David says, “sinful from the time my mother conceived me,” he doesn’t mean that he was telling lies or robbing banks in utero. What he means is that as soon as he was conceived he had a fallen human nature. He was prone to sin and needed a Savior. A clump of cells cannot have a fallen nature. The Spirit cannot teach wisdom to someone who doesn’t exist. And yet, David says that even in his mother’s womb – that secret place – God was working faith in his heart.

Children & Progressive Gender Ideology.
I have long followed de-transitioners like Chloe Cole. Diagnosed as autistic and self-described as a tomboy, Chloe began experiencing gender dysphoria at the age of 9. When she was 13, Chloe was given puberty blockers and testosterone injections. At 15, she was given a double mastectomy (a traumatic major surgery, even for grown women). By 17, Chloe’s gender dysphoria had alleviated, and she realized that her body had been permanently mutilated and damaged by unethical doctors in the name of a progressive ideology. Chloe is not an isolated case. As a mother and a child abuse survivor, I cannot support this. I cannot support a political party or cultural movement that justifies or enables such horrors.

Women’s Sports & Progressive Gender Ideology.
You may recall that during the Olympics there was a scandal involving several athletes who identified as female yet had XY chromosomes. Most notably, Algerian boxer Imane Khelif was allowed to compete despite allegations that she was a he. To be clear, Khelif is not trans, but was born with a birth defect. Nevertheless, it was progressive gender ideology that put the health and safety of biological women in danger and violated their rights.

It has now been revealed that Khelif not only has XY chromosomes, but male anatomy. He has no female anatomy. Khelif is biologically male. The Olympic committee and Algerians knew this, but they lied and allowed a man to punch women on live international television.

On the one hand, I pity men born with such intimate birth defects. It must be incredibly hard to process and particularly traumatic when it goes misdiagnosed until puberty. On the other hand, their masculine strength and stamina makes competition against women unfair and dangerous.

As a domestic violence survivor, I know what it feels like to get hit and thrown around by a man. I cannot support biological men in women’s sports, regardless of whether they have a birth defect, are born intersex, or identify as trans. It is immoral that women’s rights are being sacrificed on the altar of a sex-obsessed ideological cult.

Practical Issues

Besides moral issues, I also have practical concerns. The following issues have moral implications and ethical elements, but are more policy related. As conservatives and liberals, we usually agree that something must be done about these issues. We simply disagree about what and how to go about it.

The Border.
I want the border to be secured so that drug dealers, human traffickers, and convicted criminals can’t cross over and harm our loved ones. At the same time, I want legal immigration to be streamlined so that honest, hard-working people who want to give their family a safe home can more easily become Americans. I suspect both candidates would agree with me, at least on camera. Unfortunately, I doubt either candidate will effectively solve the issue. We shall see! I would love to be proven wrong on this one.

The Economy.
I want groceries, housing, and basic necessities to be affordable again, and I want lower taxes across the board. I believe this means conservative spending and economic policies at the state and federal level. Lower prices will benefit immigrants and low-income families who can’t afford this inflation. It will also benefit the middle-class, many of whom are now living paycheck to paycheck. In fact, grocery prices have risen 25% since Biden and Harris took office. While Harris may have ideas for how to bring prices down, as our current Vice President, I can’t understand why she hasn’t already implemented them.

Spiritual Warfare

In conclusion, I have decided to think of our presidential candidates less as leaders and more as mascots for their respective movements. They cannot fix everything. They cannot solve all our issues. They cannot save America. They are a spokesperson for a political worldview; a figurehead representing a broad spectrum of people and ideas.

More than that though, I am repeatedly reminding myself that my fellow Americans are not my enemies. As we read in Ephesians, our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the powers of darkness and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

It would seem our politicians need to be reminded of this as well.

Between Harris calling Trump a Nazi, Trump calling Harris a communist, Trump referencing “the enemy within,” and Biden calling conservatives garbage, it’s easy to get swept up in the vitriol of this contentious election cycle. But all of this name-calling and finger-pointing helps no one. If anything, it only makes it harder to think clearly and love our neighbors well, which is exactly what the devil wants.

As Christians, we are in the world but we are not of the world. What happens on election day is not merely a paper fight between warring cultural tribes, but chess moves on the board of a spiritual war. We must put on that whole armor of God. We must allow Jesus to rule our consciences. We must vote by faith, not out of anger, fear, or any worldly agenda.

I hope this method of thinking helps and encouraged you. I hope you can go to the voting booth with a clear head, a calm heart, and the knowledge that God has all of this under control.

No matter who our next president may be, Jesus Christ is God Almighty.

Much love,

Jenn