David French’s Reasons for Voting for Kamala Harris Should not be Blown Off
Aug 22, 2024 by David Fowler
Last week, David French, a professor of the orthodox tenants of the Christian religion, penned an editorial for the New York Times titled, “To Save Conservatism From Itself, I Am Voting for Harris.” I think conservatives, especially Christian pastors and other professing Christians, should pay close attention to what French said. He speaks very loudly about the meaning of the words “conservative” and “Christian.”
David French Offers Two Observations I Think Are Telling and Valuable to All
The Tennessean article noted two salient observations by Mr. French. The first is this:
“I’m often asked by Trump voters if I’m ‘still conservative,’ and I respond that I can’t vote for Trump precisely because I am conservative. I loathe sex abuse, pornography and adultery,” French said in the [New York Times] column. “Trump has brought those vices into the mainstream of the Republican Party.”
Here is the second:
“It is difficult to overstate the viciousness and intolerance of MAGA Christians against their political foes,” said French in the [New York Times] column. “There are many churches and Christian leaders who are now more culturally Trumpian than culturally Christian. Trump is changing the church.”
Putting French’s Observations in a Big Picture Context
I hope mere conservatives will continue reading, but I appreciate they will not care about Christ’s exhortation to those who the Triune God has “rescued from the kingdom of darkness” and “transferred to the Kingdom of His beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13): “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness.”
The latter group believe God is good and “a rewarder of them that diligently seek him,” (Hebrews 11:6 KJV). And, thus, they know that, in the end, they will “inherit all things” (Revelation 21:7 KJV) because “all the promises of God in Him [Christ] are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us” (2 Corinthians 1:20 NKJV).
However, as I will explain, I can appreciate why those who don’t believe this and are mere conservatives would be concerned about “saving conservatism.” I define mere conservatism as humanistic and Enlightenment-based, having no room even for any talk about Jesus Christ or the Triune nature of God, which happens to be a pretty fair description of the preamble to the Republican Party’s new platform and the work of leading Republican conservatives to quash all discussion of the new platform’s contents. I have written on this previously.
What follows is not only why I don’t share French’s concerns, but what I think will become of the saving efforts of mere conservatives.
The Reason I Do Not Share French’s First Concern
The reason why death of mere conservatism is okay by me is also the reason I am not anxious about who wins the presidency and controls Congress come next January.
I am “fully persuaded that, what [God] had promised” to Adam and Eve after they turned away from God, to Abraham, to King David, and more importantly, to “His Son” (see Psalm 2:6-8), “he was able also to perform” (Romans 4:21 KJV).
Therefore, “I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, [including the things of federal and state governments], nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38-39 KJV).
People who don’t believe that have every reason to be very afraid and get very anxious. They would want to save “conservatism” or, alternatively, “democracy” because everything depends on what happens in elections.
I’d be busy about saving things, too, if I didn’t know that the whole cosmos has already been saved because “God was in Christ, reconciling the world (literally, “cosmos”) unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:19 NKJV).
Why is the latter part about not counting my sins against me and against others who are “in Christ” so important?
Because those in whom Christ, as the image of God, is renewing the image of God are busy doing the task given the first Adam, namely, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” (Genesis 1:28 KJV; see 1 Corinthians 15:23-28).
Why am I persuaded of this and their eventual success? Because there “is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” in “the Father” (James 1:17, KJV). In sum, I expect God to keep His word—"For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven” (Psalm 119:89 KJV)—which must include His word regarding Adam’s calling, or God is a liar.
French: “Many churches and Christian Leaders are culturally Trumpian”
French said “[t]here are many churches and Christian leaders who are now more culturally Trumpian than culturally Christian. Trump is changing the church.”
I believe it is true that many Christian leaders are more “cultural Christians” and more Trumpian than Christian but it’s not because “Trump is changing the church.” It’s because those churches and Christian leaders have already changed. And the change is from how righteousness was understood during the Protestant Reformation to a growing practical sense that righteousness is external to us.
What I mean by this is that the righteousness acceptable to God is found in His work of restoring in Christians the image of God that was originally in Adam before his transgression. That is, the new covenant is the final revelation that God must “put [His] law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts.” This alone is where true righteousness—"the righteousness of God”—can be found (Romans 3:22).
Righteousness only by external adherence to God’s law is for those who are “ignorant of God's righteousness, and [are] going about to establish their own righteousness." And they do that because they “have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God (Romans 10:3 KJV). That describes the kind of “Christian” I was most of my life, which means I wasn’t a Christian.
Is This Kind of Thinking Underneath Christian “Never Trumpers”?
If external righteousness is “your thing,” then it would indeed be awful for others to attribute to you or to think you approve of Trump’s past and even present behavior. Such a person can’t even have the appearance of mingling with the Gentiles, so to speak, like the profane Trump because that would make them look unrighteous, and worse yet, it would make God look bad.
They haven’t yet come to appreciate that our transgressions never make “Christ the minister of sin” (Galatians 2:17).
Unfortunately, thinking of righteousness in this external way is what drove the Pharisees nuts. Jesus was “eating with the tax collectors and sinners.” They said, "How is it He eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?" (Mark 2:16 NKJV). For the same reason the Apostle Paul publicly got all over Peter, which we read about in Galatians 2:11-19.
There, Paul described Peter’s external appearance of “righteousness”—not sitting with the Gentiles for dinner after fellow Jews showed up for a visit—as making himself “a transgressor” of grace by “build[ing] again” those laws that Christ had “fulfilled” (Matthew 5:17, Romans 10:4) “in his flesh” (Ephesians 2:15) as the “mediator between God and men” (1Timothy 2:5 KJV).
If we are seeking “to be justified by Christ” in this way (Galatians 2:17 NKJV) and not voting for Trump is part of our justification and our justification in the eyes of others (like the Pharisee praying in the Temple that he wasn’t like the publican), then, as Paul says of Peter, “we ourselves also are found sinners.” In other words, we are demonstrating a lack of understanding about what righteousness is and what pure grace supplies (Galatians 2:17).
My Advice to Christian Voters in Relation to Trump.
Based on the foregoing, I have this advice about voting for Trump or Harris.
If you think Trump, in comparison to Kamala Harris, is more respectful of human life, stronger on the border and immigration, not utterly devoid of any understanding of what male and female are, and is more respectful of Christian ethical values, then vote for him.
But these two questions remain for your prayerful consideration, and they are ones I’ve asked myself:
As to the former question, I have two thoughts. No external law ever saved anything or made anything righteous because it does not have any “power” in itself to do so (Galatians 3:21). That makes law an idol in place of God. Second, and because of the first, God won’t tolerate any competition from Trump for the role of savior—“salvation belongs to the Lord” (Psalm 3:8, Revelation 7:10)— nor does He need Trump to “save” America.
As to the latter question, may I suggest for consideration not only the story above about Peter but what Jesus said about those who think, as was once true of me and was true of a rich young ruler (Luke 18:18-23), that not committing one of the “major sins” is righteousness: We are those who "search the Scriptures, for in them [we] think [we] have eternal life, . . but [we] are not willing to come to Me that they may have life” (John 5:40 NKJV).
No law has been “given . . . which could have given life” (Galatians 3:21 NKJV), and what we all need is new life. As the Apostle Paul said, those who think of law only externally are “alienated from the life of God,” which is what we need to be righteous, and he says not understanding that is because of “the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart” (Ephesians 4:18 NKJV).
Their heart does not tell them that they need God’s life in them because they are “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1 KJV). They think, as I once did, in terms of Miracle Max’s words about Wesley in the movie Princess Bride, they are only “mostly dead” because of sin.
My Advice to Christian Pastors
Now that I am preaching periodically at a new church plant, I am keenly aware of the need to make sure I preach the whole Christ, not a false Christ that only tells us what not to do and would make that the righteousness of God. Christ alone is the righteousness of God whose law was written in His heart and, by the Spirit of Christ—the Holy Spirit—is again written on our hearts.
If those of us who preach don’t preach that, I suspect we will find ourselves among those French described as vicious and intolerant “MAGA Christians.”
I am concerned that the persons French described, and I know some of them, are as I once was and what I must constantly strive by the Holy Spirit who works in me from slipping into: Persons who do not know that it is the pure love of Christ for sinners that can provide in them the love of God and neighbor that is due them. That is why real love, God’s kind of love, is a “fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22).
That’s the kind of Kingdom I want all to be part of. Just being members of a Republican or Trumpian party or the faction called conservatism pales in comparison.
David French Offers Two Observations I Think Are Telling and Valuable to All
The Tennessean article noted two salient observations by Mr. French. The first is this:
“I’m often asked by Trump voters if I’m ‘still conservative,’ and I respond that I can’t vote for Trump precisely because I am conservative. I loathe sex abuse, pornography and adultery,” French said in the [New York Times] column. “Trump has brought those vices into the mainstream of the Republican Party.”
Here is the second:
“It is difficult to overstate the viciousness and intolerance of MAGA Christians against their political foes,” said French in the [New York Times] column. “There are many churches and Christian leaders who are now more culturally Trumpian than culturally Christian. Trump is changing the church.”
Putting French’s Observations in a Big Picture Context
I hope mere conservatives will continue reading, but I appreciate they will not care about Christ’s exhortation to those who the Triune God has “rescued from the kingdom of darkness” and “transferred to the Kingdom of His beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13): “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness.”
The latter group believe God is good and “a rewarder of them that diligently seek him,” (Hebrews 11:6 KJV). And, thus, they know that, in the end, they will “inherit all things” (Revelation 21:7 KJV) because “all the promises of God in Him [Christ] are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us” (2 Corinthians 1:20 NKJV).
However, as I will explain, I can appreciate why those who don’t believe this and are mere conservatives would be concerned about “saving conservatism.” I define mere conservatism as humanistic and Enlightenment-based, having no room even for any talk about Jesus Christ or the Triune nature of God, which happens to be a pretty fair description of the preamble to the Republican Party’s new platform and the work of leading Republican conservatives to quash all discussion of the new platform’s contents. I have written on this previously.
What follows is not only why I don’t share French’s concerns, but what I think will become of the saving efforts of mere conservatives.
The Reason I Do Not Share French’s First Concern
The reason why death of mere conservatism is okay by me is also the reason I am not anxious about who wins the presidency and controls Congress come next January.
I am “fully persuaded that, what [God] had promised” to Adam and Eve after they turned away from God, to Abraham, to King David, and more importantly, to “His Son” (see Psalm 2:6-8), “he was able also to perform” (Romans 4:21 KJV).
Therefore, “I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, [including the things of federal and state governments], nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38-39 KJV).
People who don’t believe that have every reason to be very afraid and get very anxious. They would want to save “conservatism” or, alternatively, “democracy” because everything depends on what happens in elections.
I’d be busy about saving things, too, if I didn’t know that the whole cosmos has already been saved because “God was in Christ, reconciling the world (literally, “cosmos”) unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:19 NKJV).
Why is the latter part about not counting my sins against me and against others who are “in Christ” so important?
Because those in whom Christ, as the image of God, is renewing the image of God are busy doing the task given the first Adam, namely, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” (Genesis 1:28 KJV; see 1 Corinthians 15:23-28).
Why am I persuaded of this and their eventual success? Because there “is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” in “the Father” (James 1:17, KJV). In sum, I expect God to keep His word—"For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven” (Psalm 119:89 KJV)—which must include His word regarding Adam’s calling, or God is a liar.
French: “Many churches and Christian Leaders are culturally Trumpian”
French said “[t]here are many churches and Christian leaders who are now more culturally Trumpian than culturally Christian. Trump is changing the church.”
I believe it is true that many Christian leaders are more “cultural Christians” and more Trumpian than Christian but it’s not because “Trump is changing the church.” It’s because those churches and Christian leaders have already changed. And the change is from how righteousness was understood during the Protestant Reformation to a growing practical sense that righteousness is external to us.
What I mean by this is that the righteousness acceptable to God is found in His work of restoring in Christians the image of God that was originally in Adam before his transgression. That is, the new covenant is the final revelation that God must “put [His] law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts.” This alone is where true righteousness—"the righteousness of God”—can be found (Romans 3:22).
Righteousness only by external adherence to God’s law is for those who are “ignorant of God's righteousness, and [are] going about to establish their own righteousness." And they do that because they “have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God (Romans 10:3 KJV). That describes the kind of “Christian” I was most of my life, which means I wasn’t a Christian.
Is This Kind of Thinking Underneath Christian “Never Trumpers”?
If external righteousness is “your thing,” then it would indeed be awful for others to attribute to you or to think you approve of Trump’s past and even present behavior. Such a person can’t even have the appearance of mingling with the Gentiles, so to speak, like the profane Trump because that would make them look unrighteous, and worse yet, it would make God look bad.
They haven’t yet come to appreciate that our transgressions never make “Christ the minister of sin” (Galatians 2:17).
Unfortunately, thinking of righteousness in this external way is what drove the Pharisees nuts. Jesus was “eating with the tax collectors and sinners.” They said, "How is it He eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?" (Mark 2:16 NKJV). For the same reason the Apostle Paul publicly got all over Peter, which we read about in Galatians 2:11-19.
There, Paul described Peter’s external appearance of “righteousness”—not sitting with the Gentiles for dinner after fellow Jews showed up for a visit—as making himself “a transgressor” of grace by “build[ing] again” those laws that Christ had “fulfilled” (Matthew 5:17, Romans 10:4) “in his flesh” (Ephesians 2:15) as the “mediator between God and men” (1Timothy 2:5 KJV).
If we are seeking “to be justified by Christ” in this way (Galatians 2:17 NKJV) and not voting for Trump is part of our justification and our justification in the eyes of others (like the Pharisee praying in the Temple that he wasn’t like the publican), then, as Paul says of Peter, “we ourselves also are found sinners.” In other words, we are demonstrating a lack of understanding about what righteousness is and what pure grace supplies (Galatians 2:17).
My Advice to Christian Voters in Relation to Trump.
Based on the foregoing, I have this advice about voting for Trump or Harris.
If you think Trump, in comparison to Kamala Harris, is more respectful of human life, stronger on the border and immigration, not utterly devoid of any understanding of what male and female are, and is more respectful of Christian ethical values, then vote for him.
But these two questions remain for your prayerful consideration, and they are ones I’ve asked myself:
- Are you voting for Trump on these issues because you believe good laws on these subjects will “save” America or because you believe Trump can or will “save” America?
- Are you not voting for Trump because there remains in you any trace of thinking of righteousness as “apart from” a law” that is “written on the heart,” and is grounded, at least in part, by external conformity to most of God’s commands most of the time?
As to the former question, I have two thoughts. No external law ever saved anything or made anything righteous because it does not have any “power” in itself to do so (Galatians 3:21). That makes law an idol in place of God. Second, and because of the first, God won’t tolerate any competition from Trump for the role of savior—“salvation belongs to the Lord” (Psalm 3:8, Revelation 7:10)— nor does He need Trump to “save” America.
As to the latter question, may I suggest for consideration not only the story above about Peter but what Jesus said about those who think, as was once true of me and was true of a rich young ruler (Luke 18:18-23), that not committing one of the “major sins” is righteousness: We are those who "search the Scriptures, for in them [we] think [we] have eternal life, . . but [we] are not willing to come to Me that they may have life” (John 5:40 NKJV).
No law has been “given . . . which could have given life” (Galatians 3:21 NKJV), and what we all need is new life. As the Apostle Paul said, those who think of law only externally are “alienated from the life of God,” which is what we need to be righteous, and he says not understanding that is because of “the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart” (Ephesians 4:18 NKJV).
Their heart does not tell them that they need God’s life in them because they are “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1 KJV). They think, as I once did, in terms of Miracle Max’s words about Wesley in the movie Princess Bride, they are only “mostly dead” because of sin.
My Advice to Christian Pastors
Now that I am preaching periodically at a new church plant, I am keenly aware of the need to make sure I preach the whole Christ, not a false Christ that only tells us what not to do and would make that the righteousness of God. Christ alone is the righteousness of God whose law was written in His heart and, by the Spirit of Christ—the Holy Spirit—is again written on our hearts.
If those of us who preach don’t preach that, I suspect we will find ourselves among those French described as vicious and intolerant “MAGA Christians.”
I am concerned that the persons French described, and I know some of them, are as I once was and what I must constantly strive by the Holy Spirit who works in me from slipping into: Persons who do not know that it is the pure love of Christ for sinners that can provide in them the love of God and neighbor that is due them. That is why real love, God’s kind of love, is a “fruit of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:22).
That’s the kind of Kingdom I want all to be part of. Just being members of a Republican or Trumpian party or the faction called conservatism pales in comparison.
