Today’s guest post is authored by Bri Schrader, also known to fans of Allie Beth Stuckey’s Relatable show as “Producer Bri.” Producer Bri and I have known each other for her entire life. (She’s my daughter.)
By Bri Schrader
In 2016, the night before the presidential election, I posted a few paragraphs on how I was feeling. I was in an environment where I was the only conservative-leaning person, and I felt immense pressure not to voice what I really thought. So instead, I posted that I was exhausted by the divisive rhetoric and that, while I believed Hillary Clinton would win, it didn’t matter as much as we made it seem and we would all ultimately move on. I got a barrage of comments from both sides saying, “Wow, this is exactly how I feel!” I felt validated. I felt like I had pleased everyone. The problem was that I didn’t actually say anything. In an effort to be winsome and relatable to everyone, I ignored the glaring siren in front of me: It DID matter who won this election, and Christians had no business voting for Hillary Clinton despite Donald Trump’s many flaws.
It was true then, and it’s even more true now. In 2016, we didn’t have a clue how Donald Trump would actually lead or what policies he’d truly care about. Now, we do. We also have three years (and an entire abysmal career before that) of record on our other candidate, current Vice President Kamala Harris.
Yet I don’t blame the Christian for being confused. We’re being bombarded with media lies claiming that Kamala Harris is the empathetic choice. She’s the choice that will be “compassionate” to the foreigner and to the woman with an unwanted pregnancy (ignoring the fact that her border policies have encouraged unprecedented crime and that abortion is the opposite of empathetic to the baby who is being murdered). A few weeks ago, Pastor Ray Ortlund, president of Renewal Ministries and founder of Immanuel Church in Nashville, posted on Instagram Threads, “Never Trump. This time Harris. Always Jesus.” Last week, Glennon Doyle, lesbian self-love guru (who still has a large Christian female following), posted a series of slides on Instagram claiming that if Donald Trump is elected, “we lose birth control, IVF, abortion, insurance coverage, and LGBTQ+ rights” (note that quite literally none of that is even remotely true).
In the past few weeks, I’ve seen other pastors contribute to the irresponsible lie that “both sides are just as bad,” or, even worse, that “both sides are valid options.” From a Christian standpoint, not only is that untrue, it’s unbiblical and dangerous.
If you find yourself confused about whom to vote for as a Christian, convinced by progressive Christians that it would be “unloving” to vote for Donald Trump, or that, like these pastors indicate, it doesn’t matter as long as you “vote your conscience,” I urge you to look a little deeper at what your vote actually means. As Christians, we have a higher authority than our feelings, and if we weigh what the Bible says about the most important topics with what each candidate is proposing, the answer as to which one should earn your vote isn’t so confusing after all.
Clips from Pastor Jonny Ardavanis of Stonebridge Bible Church and Pastor Josh Howerton of Lakepointe Church were making the rounds on X last week after both pastors preached excellent sermons on how Christians should view the election this year. (View a clip from Pastor Jonny’s sermon here, and Pastor Josh’s sermon here). The clips went viral because the church is starved for good Christian teaching that speaks to how the Christian should apply the Bible to the ballot box. These are two of the pastors who actually care to answer.
As much as some Christians like to pretend that politics and culture are outside of the church, they’re not. Here are some policies the Christian needs to care about in this election.
Abortion
Proverbs 6:17: “The Lord hates …hands that shed innocent blood.”
Kamala Harris is the most radically pro-abortion candidate in history. It’s true that we do not have a consistently pro-life candidate in this election, with Donald Trump refusing to support a federal abortion ban and openly and consistently supporting abortion exceptions and term limits, but the Democrats are undeniably, radically worse. While Republicans now think abortion should be rare, Democrats celebrate it and flaunt it.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz signed the Protect Reproductive Options Act in January 2023, which repealed the state's Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, codifying a “fundamental right to reproductive freedom” and essentially prohibited any restrictions on abortion, including gestational age limits. The bill also removed the requirement for abortion providers to report cases in which infants survive abortion attempts, a measure that had been in place since 2015.
In 2019, Kamala Harris voted to block a bill that would have required medical care for babies born alive in botched abortions.
Eight states and Washington, D.C. impose no term restrictions on abortion, and more will follow under Kamala Harris, who will not name a single abortion restriction that she supports.
While Trump is not standing strong against abortion like he should, he would inevitably surround himself with many who do. He will be surrounded by people who have the potential to change his mind. Kamala will not.
Immigration
Acts 17:26: And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place.
Perhaps no issue is as divisive as illegal immigration among Christians right now. While most of us can agree that abortion is wrong, it’s easy to be swayed into believing that “loving our neighbor” means allowing those in worse countries into ours for a “better life.” But is it really loving to open our borders and put our own citizens at risk?
How were we loving our neighbor Laken Riley, a Georgia nursing student brutally murdered by an unvetted illegal immigrant, by allowing her murderer into the country? Were we loving Mollie Tibbets, Kate Steinle and Lizbeth Medina when they died at the hands of illegal immigrants? Are we loving our neighbors in Colorado as we allow apartment complexes to be overrun by Venezuelan gangs?
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have repeatedly blamed Trump for rejecting a border bill that they claim would have properly vetted illegals. In reality, the “border security bill” would have allowed 5,000 illegal border crossings per day before closing the border, kept catch-and-release in place, sent hundreds of millions of dollars to NGOs to facilitate illegal immigration and required that any illegal immigrant who claims asylum be released into the country and granted work authorization almost immediately.
The fact is – Kamala has no plan to secure our border. We know because she’s been asked repeatedly and never been able to answer.
Gender and sexuality
Gen 1:27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
If you follow Libs of TikTok on X, you already know what the Democrats advocate for in this department. Books that read like porn being available to young children in schools, gender indoctrination baked into curriculum, and the normalization of drag shows, preferred pronouns and “gender-affirming care” (dangerous hormone “treatments” and experimental genital mutilation surgeries).
I could write a novel on the amount of corruption within the “transgender care” industry, but suffice to say they are creating lifelong slaves to the medical industrial complex by selling experimental surgeries and hormone “treatments” that they know have an absurdly high complication rate.
It’s neglect of responsibility for us to ignore the harm that is not just being done to adults, but to children as well. And the kicker is: we’re paying for it.
In a 2019 interview with the National Center for Transgender Equality, Harris said that as Attorney General of California, she ensured that the state changed its policy "so that every transgender inmate in the prison system would have access to the medical care that they desired and need." When running for president in 2019, she pledged on an ACLU questionnaire that if she became president, she would use "executive authority to ensure that transgender and non-binary people who rely on the state for medical care—including those in prison and immigration detention—will have access to comprehensive treatment associated with gender transition, including all necessary surgical care."
Due to Kamala Harris’ policy, a man who is sitting on death row for gruesomely killing three people, known as the “Yacht Killer,” has received tax-payer funded “sex-change” surgeries and is expected to transfer to a female prison soon.
Compare this to Donald Trump’s pledge to keep men out of women’s sports and to stop child genital mutilation surgeries.
Religious liberty
David Daleidon, project lead at The Center for Medical Progress (CMP), was investigated for criminal activity in 2015 by then-California Attorney General Kamala Harris after he released undercover footage showing Planned Parenthood executives discussing the sale of baby body parts from late term abortions. In 2016, Harris ordered a raid of 11 armed agents along with K-9 dog units to Daleiden’s one-bedroom apartment during which California DOJ agents seized dozens of hours of his unreleased undercover tapes. Harris, upon request from her donors at Planned Parenthood, opened a criminal investigation into Daleiden and the CMP. Eight years later, he still faces charges under California’s never-before-used eavesdropping/recording law.
A few months ago, half a dozen pro-life activists were found guilty of violating a federal law that forbids protesters from blocking the entrances to abortion clinics. Jonathan Darnel, who remained outside the clinic livestreaming the protests, received a nearly three-year sentence. Others in the case received two-year sentences, and one, Jay Smith, the only one who had pleaded guilty, received a 10-month sentence. Kamala Harris has voiced support for efforts to strengthen protections for “reproductive health care providers,” particularly in the context of increasing “threats” to clinics and their staff. In other words, this will only happen more under her watch.
In California, under Assembly Bill 957 (AB 957), a child's gender identity must be considered in custody decisions during divorce or custody disputes (this includes custody disputes involving whether the state should have custody of the child).
In Oregon, the state can refuse Christian couples the opportunity to foster and adopt if they don’t comply with the state’s gender rules indicating that you will go along with and seek treatment for your potential future child’s “gender identity.”
This is religious liberty under Democrat rule, and the Bible gives us the authority and the responsibility to say no to policies that go against biblical principles.
Boiling it down
When comparing the two candidates, it’s really not that complicated, after all. And the same logic applies to local elections. When deciding whom to choose, ask yourself, as Josh Howerton suggests:
Whose policies are most likely to slow societal decay?
Which candidate will best protect our national security?
Which candidate is more likely to protect religious liberty?
Which candidate will oppose the erasure of gender?
Which candidate is more likely to stop the corrosion of the definitions of the family?
Which candidate will best limit the taking of unborn lives?
It may feel uncomfortable to admit when it’s tempting to reject party lines, but I’m more than confident that the answer on whom the Christian should vote for will simply never be “Blue.” It’s not because the Republican Party is right all the time, or that they don’t have their own glaring issues that need to be addressed. It’s that the Democratic Party is a cancer to society that promotes baby murder, child genital mutilation, the destruction of the family and parents’ rights, and the unfettered influx of (sometimes violent) illegal aliens, who are draining taxpayer resources while citizens suffer (been to North Carolina lately?).
There is only one alternative. Christians, we must choose it.
The reality is, it is your duty to vote, because in a Constitutional Republic, you lead by electing representatives. As a Christian, you’re the leader appointing people to represent as close to the Biblical view on these issues as you can get. To neglect to do so is a dereliction of duty. And the answer on whom to vote for isn’t complicated when we crack open a Bible and do a little research. As Josh Howerton said, “personalities are temporary, policies last a long time.” Yes, Donald Trump is uncouth at times, and posts silly little name-calling rants on Twitter, but he also appointed Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. Imagine the numerous lives that were and will be spared because of that decision. THAT is what you’re voting for.
Around 30 million Bible-believing Christians didn't vote in the last Presidential election. That election is argued to have been decided by 42,000 votes. THAT is why your vote matters.
Did you vote yet? Let me know in the comments.
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