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Evangelicals will have to do some soul searching now that the election has passed. I’m not talking about a vote for Donald Trump (or the few who voted for Hillary Clinton). I know for many their vote was a vote against Hillary Clinton and the agenda that she was sure to bring to the White House. I get that even though I made a different decision.
He won, we now have President-Elect Donald Trump. My role as a follower of Christ is to respect and pray for him. The voice of critique will be silenced because I want to give him a chance to govern. I want him to succeed in good governance. Our nation needs him to be a good president, so I will pray to that end.
I will support him where I can, and I will oppose him where I must.
My fear, going back to evangelicals, is that we’ve come to a place where we’ve lost our moral authority to hold President-Elect Trump accountable if need be.
Again I’m not talking about voting for him. I am talking about those who white washed his record while he was a candidate, will we do the same for him as President since he is our guy?
Some may think I am for concerned for no reason, but there is hard data that backs up my concern. See this graph below from a PRRI survey taken in October.
Yes we should believe in grace and second chances. Past sin should not define us for the rest of our life. That isn’t what the question asked however. It wasn’t even talking about past transgressions per se. White evangelicals are more accepting of this than even those who are secular. All show an increase from 2011, but evangelicals show a 42 percent increase of those who think this is ok.
What has taken place over the last five years to cause such a dramatic shift? Donald Trump. People actually changed their belief in order to accommodate Donald Trump because “he’s our guy.”
Look leave a particular candidate out of this discussion. Is it healthy for evangelicals to do this for any candidate? You can make a hard choice without giving up what you believe. This is just disturbing.
We can not and should not be defined by who we vote for. We have to be known for something more than a loyal voting bloc of the Republican Party.
I hope we can have a conversation over the next four years to discuss what the role of the Church should be in the political realm and see if we can’t do some course correcting.