Election Reader: Pro-Joe (and Pro-Abortion) Evangelicals

A fair amount of evangelicals are going Pro-Joe! Or at least declaring they will not vote for President Trump. Here are some excerpts from articles explaining why they are wrong:

Election and the Spirit of this Age: A Response to John Piper – Mark and Timothy Belz

Yet, by God’s providence, there is a team of men and women in Washington today who are doing all that they can, politically speaking, to resist the Democrats’ efforts to take our nation down these roads. That team is the current administration. We may wonder why the Lord has blessed this particular president with such a team; it seems to us to be an unlikely “fellowship.” But there it is: hundreds of Christian men and women of like precious faith both in the administration and on the benches of the federal courts nationwide.

We view this as a startling answer to our prayers over the last 50 years. We would not have expected it, but of course are thankful to God alone that it has happened and is happening. Amy Coney Barrett has just been confirmed by a Republican senate to take Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s place on the Supreme Court. Every Democrat in the Senate voted against this Christian, pro-life woman. Every one of them.

7 Reasons Why It Is Possible for Christians to Vote for Trump in 2020 Without Getting a Defiled Conscience and/or Losing Their Soul – Douglas Wilson

Okay, so here’s the plan. We need to send Biden/Harris packing, and still feel good about ourselves afterwards. Can I get an amen?

For some this might be a really tall order, but my goal in this post is to explain why and how this can be done. The idea is to vote for Trump, without any need for subsequent groveling apologies. So the proposal that follows is intended to enable you to go and vote for Trump, ideally without a mask, and not give way afterward to any temptation to flush red or laugh a little furtive heh heh if asked about it.

You are not a criminal. You are not insane. You are not a fascist. You are not a hazard to the republic. You are not trying to ring in The Handmaid’s Tale. You have good reasons, oh ye easily gaslit evangelicals.

Churchgoing Biden Voters Question the Bible at Alarming Rates – Luke Macias

If a church member or pastor has a fellow church attender proclaim their support for Biden, their first thought should not be: “How do I get this person to vote for Trump?” It might be best that their first thought is to take the conversation away from politics and instead try to talk about biblical truths the congregant is more than likely rejecting or questioning.

Pro-Abortion Evangelicals – Bill Peacock

Just as President Trump is finalizing what might be the first pro-life majority on the court in the last 50 years, David French is trying to convince us it doesn’t matter. Just so he can ignore reality and vote for someone who is pro-baby killer. All this brings us down to this point: if you have already voted for or are going to vote for Joe Biden, you are a pro-abortion voter. The ethics are inescapable. … If you do not want to vote for Donald Trump, ok. But if you have voted for and/or supported candidates like the Bushes or Gov. Abbott in Texas, you cannot credibly base withholding your vote from Trump on the grounds of character.

A Vote for Joe – Ben Zornes

So my dear reader, as you can see, a vote for Joe is not merely a vote for a kinder, gentler sort of politician. Joe, and his party, wants mothers to be able to slaughter their child up to nine months (and even after birth). Joe wants eight year olds to have their genitals mutilated and their natural hormones surpressed to appease the sexual ethic of the left. So no, a vote for Joe is not consistent with a biblical worldview. It is a vote for the madness of guilt-ridden crowds. It is a vote for chains. It is a vote for all the self-centered pride that got us here.

Voting for the Lesser of Evils – Kenneth Gentry

Some Christians refuse to vote for Donald Trump because of his attitude and some past sins. I sympathize with them. However, like it or not, we will be electing only one of two candidates for President: Donald Trump or Joe Biden. This causes us to have to consider Lesser-of-Evils voting. I happen to believe we have the right to vote for a lesser-of-evils candidate. In this and the next few articles I will be summarizing my argument from my book Political Issues Made Easy. I will not be voting so much for Trump, but for his policies. And I will do this on the basis of his policies being far superior to Joe Biden’s. I will be reflecting on our political hopes and strategies for a strong Christian influence on America’s future.

A Second Round on John Piper, Me, and the Cool Shame Election – Douglas Wilson

I grant this point, and do not want conservative Christians to follow in the pathway of Trump’s manners and mannerisms. But the vile people who are burning the country down were vile people quite independently of the gentleman from Queens. They got there all by themselves. The only real evidence presented for thinking this is a matter of Trump’s “influence” is that the behavior of Trump’s enemies followed Trump’s election. In order for John to make his point, I believe that he needs to show previously sweet people becoming nasty, and justifying it because “the president does it.” But virtually all the nasty I have seen has already been going on for years and years, and Trump’s sole contribution has been his uncanny ability to get them to have their conniption fits in public.

“Pro-Life Evangelicals for Biden” Commit Two Major Mistakes in Ethics – Cal Beisner

This use of the term “pro-life” runs directly contrary to standard dictionary definitions, all which define “pro-life” as opposition to abortion—not opposition to hunger, not opposition to poverty, not opposition to practices that lead to poor health—opposition to abortion.

Far worse, the new statement demonstrates serious ethical failures: the failure to distinguish between intentional and accidental harm, and the failure to distinguish between life and death, on the one hand, and better and worse health, on the other.

By so doing, it obscures the meaning of “pro-life” and undermines the pro-life movement. In abortion, every “successful” procedure intentionally kills a human being.

Poverty, lack of health care, and smoking often lead to poor health and sometimes to death, but none of them involves someone intentionally killing another person—and neither does climate change.

Pro-Life Evangelicals For Abortion? – Samuel Sey

If you’re familiar with what God says—or doesn’t say—about poverty, climate change, and health care services in the Bible, then you probably know the draftees of the statement are not merely suggesting Joe Biden is more pro-life than Donald Trump. They’re also insinuating Joe Biden is more pro-life than God. 

If a private healthcare system is a form of injustice—then God’s (healthcare) system for ancient Israel was unjust and anti-life. If the Green New Deal is the pro-life approach to supposed climate change, then the Bible’s words about how we should steward the earth makes God inconsistently pro-life.

 If poverty is intrinsically an injustice, then Jesus Christ is guilty of injustice against poor people (Matthew 26: 6-13). But like Judas, many professing Christians—like the Pro-Life Evangelicals for Biden—use their supposed commitment to helping poor people as an excuse to dishonour Jesus. 

Indeed, God commands Christians to help poor and vulnerable people in our communities. But we’re commanded to voluntarily help others. We’re not instructed to petition our government to use tax-payer money to end poverty. We’re not commanded to pass off the Church’s responsibility to the government. Serving poor and vulnerable people in our communities should be the Church’s responsibility, not the government’s. After all, who can help poor and vulnerable people better than King Jesus and his bride?