The Two Criteria I Will Hereafter Apply to Presidential (Federal) Elections
Sep 6, 2024 by David Fowler
A person reached out to me last week struggling with how to vote, saying, “It is becoming increasingly difficult to find someone I can vote for.” I can empathize. Simply to vote for the lesser of two evils is to vote for an evil, and Christians should never affirmatively “do evil that good may come” (Romans 3:8). So, here are my thoughts on how I will vote for president with a clean conscience before God.
I, like my reader, want to vote for someone based on a positive good I think fundamentally important which would, in turn, allow me to vote with clean conscience before God. What might that be in the case of Trump-Harris?
My Initial Evaluation of Trump and Harris
I know the average person will think this a strange way to sum up the choice between Harris and Trump, and it may sound strange to many Christians.
In these candidates, I believe we have a choice between two people that would be described in biblical theology as persons who live before God in breach of the covenant relationship He established with mankind.
Put another way, I find no consistent demonstration of the fruit of the Spirit, as distinguished from mere character traits or decent ethics on this or that issue, by which I would personally consider them persons living under a new covenant relationship with God made in and through the person of Jesus Christ.[1]
Why That Latter Characterization is Important to Me
As a Christian who has faith in the covenant promises of God “ordained before the ages for our glory” (1 Corinthians 2:7, NKJV), I increasingly delight in being an instrument to further His covenant purposes for the restoration and eternal flourishing of all He created in a state of glory.
This, to me, is what Jesus intended when He told his disciples to “seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness” (Matthew 6:33 NKJV). Those who are Christ’s disciples find that their increasing knowledge of His love for and beneficence toward them produces in them a love for Him that engenders in them this priority.
Thus, I believe my foremost criterion for evaluating a presidential candidate and what his or her administration might be like should be which candidate with his or her administration will give the greatest latitude for pursuing God’s covenant purposes.
Scriptural Reasons for My Foremost General Criterion
To my way of thinking, God’s overarching covenant purpose, which includes many tributaries, is most easily pursued when the freedom to speak publicly and the freedom to worship are protected.
Thoughts About the Importance of Speech. Robust speech protections allow the covenant purposes of God (and His kingdom) to be proclaimed. This protection corresponds to the importance of words and speech in the Bible—God created and recreates by the power inhering in His words/speech.
Moreover, Paul urges Christians in Thessalonica to “pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course” (2 Thessalonians 3:1, emphasis supplied). He also said those who forbade them from “speak[ing] to” others “that they may be saved” were being “contrary to [hostile, against] all men,” not a good thing if Christians are to love others out of the primary love relationship they have with Christ (1 Thessalonians 2:15-16 NKJV, emphasis supplied).
Thoughts About the Importance of Worship. Worship is how the truth about the Triune God, Christ, and the covenant promises we have in Christ are increasingly inculcated and ingenerated in God’s people so that the original image of God in Adam and Eve is increasingly restored in Christ “who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4).
By nature and creation, we are worshipping beings, and to tread on the worship of the Triune God is to deny and attack what it means to be fully human and human flourishing.
Application of My Criterion to Trump-Harris
It seems to me that if I keep in mind the things most conducive to pursuing God’s covenant promises for my life and this world, then I do not have to spend as much time jockeying between candidates based on how they treat the issues most important to me: abortion, marriage, and human sexuality (anthropology in general). Feel free to make your own list.
But when it comes to speech and a federal administration that will respect Christ-centered and driven worship without government telling us I need to change what I believe, particularly about matters of anthropology such as human sexuality,[i] I will go with Donald Trump.
On these two points, I believe the Body of Christ, as a worshiping and proclaiming community, will be freer under Trump and those under him who will administer the federal government than with Kamala Harris and those who will serve under her.
The Trickle-Down Value of These Two Criteria
But what I would expect to find is that those who are strongest on these two criteria will most likely be better on issues like abortion, the structure and ordering of marriage and the family, and other issues of human sexuality that rank high on the issues list I would make.
The reason for my expectation is that worship and words are fundamental to the nature of being—to matters of anthropology—and a biblically sound position on these other issues is also grounded in the anthropology Christians hold to.
Consistent with my expectation, if we compare the treatment given to the issues on my list under Trump’s administration to that under the Biden-Harris administration, Trump will be an improvement over the current administration and the one promised by Harris.
Why I Can Vote for Trump with a Clean Conscience
I will not have to “hold my nose and vote for Trump,” as once was the case.
The reason for the change is I no longer have a false view of righteousness, whether it be Trump’s, Harris’s, or, most importantly, the one I used to ascribe to.
On the personal level, I now know that I do not have the life of the wholly righteous God in me if I think my righteousness is based on who I vote for or on what legalistic Pharisees (in or out of the church) think about my vote.
I have come to understand “the purpose [telos] of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith” (1Timothy 1:5 NKJV, emphasis). My analysis allows at least me to meet that three-pronged test.
Do Other Issues Not Matter to Me?
No, there are other issues that concern me, but I simply have faith that, in time, God will iron out those “other issues” in righteous and just ways if His kingdom and righteousness advance.
And I have faith in that resolution because faith also tells me that God the Father will accomplish in full His covenant promise to “give” His “Son . . . the uttermost parts of the earth for [His] possession.” (Psalm 2:8 KJV). As that process continues and unfolds, those issues, in God’s timing, will conform to his righteousness.
What if Things Go from Bad to Worse in the Near Term?
In the interim, should things continue their current trend, I will need to remember two things.
First, I will need to remember that God lets the wicked “fill up their sins” (1 Thessalonians 2:16; Romans 2:5, Genesis 15:16).
They do that by choosing self-referential love of themselves as life’s priority over all other relationships they might have over fellowship with God and others in the spirit of the perfect love of God offered in Christ and “shed abroad in [their] hearts by the Holy Spirit” (Romans 5:5 NKJV). (I’ve still got lots of room for improvement here.)
God’s judgment of their repudiation of His love will be just in relation to His perfect righteousness. I pray they will see what is offered and repent of hating the God who is love.
Second, I will also need to be reminded of the heroes of the faith found in Hebrews 11: They “all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (Heb 11:13 KJV).
Such may be true for me regarding the consummation of Christ’s victory, but thankfully, in the revelation of God in Christ I have seen the promise of the Savior come to pass, and that assures me of the future.
Conclusion
So, as one whom God has “transferred into the kingdom of His dear Son” (Colossians 1:13), what I need to “seek first” and foremost is the expansion of “His kingdom and His righteousness,” which was demonstrated in Christ and supplied to those who believe.
And as I see things, I think a Trump administration will preserve the greatest freedom and opportunity for me to do just that.
“Therefore take no thought, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or, ‘What shall we drink?’ or, ‘Wherewithal shall we be clothed?’ . . . for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Matthew 6:31-34 KJV
I, like my reader, want to vote for someone based on a positive good I think fundamentally important which would, in turn, allow me to vote with clean conscience before God. What might that be in the case of Trump-Harris?
My Initial Evaluation of Trump and Harris
I know the average person will think this a strange way to sum up the choice between Harris and Trump, and it may sound strange to many Christians.
In these candidates, I believe we have a choice between two people that would be described in biblical theology as persons who live before God in breach of the covenant relationship He established with mankind.
Put another way, I find no consistent demonstration of the fruit of the Spirit, as distinguished from mere character traits or decent ethics on this or that issue, by which I would personally consider them persons living under a new covenant relationship with God made in and through the person of Jesus Christ.[1]
Why That Latter Characterization is Important to Me
As a Christian who has faith in the covenant promises of God “ordained before the ages for our glory” (1 Corinthians 2:7, NKJV), I increasingly delight in being an instrument to further His covenant purposes for the restoration and eternal flourishing of all He created in a state of glory.
This, to me, is what Jesus intended when He told his disciples to “seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness” (Matthew 6:33 NKJV). Those who are Christ’s disciples find that their increasing knowledge of His love for and beneficence toward them produces in them a love for Him that engenders in them this priority.
Thus, I believe my foremost criterion for evaluating a presidential candidate and what his or her administration might be like should be which candidate with his or her administration will give the greatest latitude for pursuing God’s covenant purposes.
Scriptural Reasons for My Foremost General Criterion
To my way of thinking, God’s overarching covenant purpose, which includes many tributaries, is most easily pursued when the freedom to speak publicly and the freedom to worship are protected.
Thoughts About the Importance of Speech. Robust speech protections allow the covenant purposes of God (and His kingdom) to be proclaimed. This protection corresponds to the importance of words and speech in the Bible—God created and recreates by the power inhering in His words/speech.
Moreover, Paul urges Christians in Thessalonica to “pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course” (2 Thessalonians 3:1, emphasis supplied). He also said those who forbade them from “speak[ing] to” others “that they may be saved” were being “contrary to [hostile, against] all men,” not a good thing if Christians are to love others out of the primary love relationship they have with Christ (1 Thessalonians 2:15-16 NKJV, emphasis supplied).
Thoughts About the Importance of Worship. Worship is how the truth about the Triune God, Christ, and the covenant promises we have in Christ are increasingly inculcated and ingenerated in God’s people so that the original image of God in Adam and Eve is increasingly restored in Christ “who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4).
By nature and creation, we are worshipping beings, and to tread on the worship of the Triune God is to deny and attack what it means to be fully human and human flourishing.
Application of My Criterion to Trump-Harris
It seems to me that if I keep in mind the things most conducive to pursuing God’s covenant promises for my life and this world, then I do not have to spend as much time jockeying between candidates based on how they treat the issues most important to me: abortion, marriage, and human sexuality (anthropology in general). Feel free to make your own list.
But when it comes to speech and a federal administration that will respect Christ-centered and driven worship without government telling us I need to change what I believe, particularly about matters of anthropology such as human sexuality,[i] I will go with Donald Trump.
On these two points, I believe the Body of Christ, as a worshiping and proclaiming community, will be freer under Trump and those under him who will administer the federal government than with Kamala Harris and those who will serve under her.
The Trickle-Down Value of These Two Criteria
But what I would expect to find is that those who are strongest on these two criteria will most likely be better on issues like abortion, the structure and ordering of marriage and the family, and other issues of human sexuality that rank high on the issues list I would make.
The reason for my expectation is that worship and words are fundamental to the nature of being—to matters of anthropology—and a biblically sound position on these other issues is also grounded in the anthropology Christians hold to.
Consistent with my expectation, if we compare the treatment given to the issues on my list under Trump’s administration to that under the Biden-Harris administration, Trump will be an improvement over the current administration and the one promised by Harris.
Why I Can Vote for Trump with a Clean Conscience
I will not have to “hold my nose and vote for Trump,” as once was the case.
The reason for the change is I no longer have a false view of righteousness, whether it be Trump’s, Harris’s, or, most importantly, the one I used to ascribe to.
On the personal level, I now know that I do not have the life of the wholly righteous God in me if I think my righteousness is based on who I vote for or on what legalistic Pharisees (in or out of the church) think about my vote.
I have come to understand “the purpose [telos] of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith” (1Timothy 1:5 NKJV, emphasis). My analysis allows at least me to meet that three-pronged test.
Do Other Issues Not Matter to Me?
No, there are other issues that concern me, but I simply have faith that, in time, God will iron out those “other issues” in righteous and just ways if His kingdom and righteousness advance.
And I have faith in that resolution because faith also tells me that God the Father will accomplish in full His covenant promise to “give” His “Son . . . the uttermost parts of the earth for [His] possession.” (Psalm 2:8 KJV). As that process continues and unfolds, those issues, in God’s timing, will conform to his righteousness.
What if Things Go from Bad to Worse in the Near Term?
In the interim, should things continue their current trend, I will need to remember two things.
First, I will need to remember that God lets the wicked “fill up their sins” (1 Thessalonians 2:16; Romans 2:5, Genesis 15:16).
They do that by choosing self-referential love of themselves as life’s priority over all other relationships they might have over fellowship with God and others in the spirit of the perfect love of God offered in Christ and “shed abroad in [their] hearts by the Holy Spirit” (Romans 5:5 NKJV). (I’ve still got lots of room for improvement here.)
God’s judgment of their repudiation of His love will be just in relation to His perfect righteousness. I pray they will see what is offered and repent of hating the God who is love.
Second, I will also need to be reminded of the heroes of the faith found in Hebrews 11: They “all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (Heb 11:13 KJV).
Such may be true for me regarding the consummation of Christ’s victory, but thankfully, in the revelation of God in Christ I have seen the promise of the Savior come to pass, and that assures me of the future.
Conclusion
So, as one whom God has “transferred into the kingdom of His dear Son” (Colossians 1:13), what I need to “seek first” and foremost is the expansion of “His kingdom and His righteousness,” which was demonstrated in Christ and supplied to those who believe.
And as I see things, I think a Trump administration will preserve the greatest freedom and opportunity for me to do just that.
“Therefore take no thought, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or, ‘What shall we drink?’ or, ‘Wherewithal shall we be clothed?’ . . . for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Matthew 6:31-34 KJV
[1] Covenants are native to the kind of cosmos we live in. At a human level, the infinite distinction between God and human beings means that our relationship could never have risen beyond that of absolute Master and slave had not there been some relation of love established by God with Adam, because Adam was in no position as a creature to demand or negotiate for anything from God. As the revelation of God and the nature of His cosmos increases, the concept of covenant increasingly comes into view. See Jeremiah 33:20-21 (NKJV) (regarding the cosmos and those who represent a coming new humanity, "Thus says the LORD: 'If you can break My covenant with the day and My covenant with the night, so that there will not be day and night in their season, then My covenant may also be broken with David My servant, so that he shall not have a son to reign on his throne, and with the Levites, the priests, My ministers.’”). In the New Covenant, this original relation of love is repaired in Christ and, in union with Him; that relationship can no longer be broken. See Romans 8:38-39 (NKJV) (“For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”)
[i] For example, consider the following from Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton: “Speaking to the 2015 Women in the World Summit, Clinton declared that ‘deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.’” “The Denver Post,” September 4, 2024 (emphasis supplied).
[i] For example, consider the following from Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton: “Speaking to the 2015 Women in the World Summit, Clinton declared that ‘deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.’” “The Denver Post,” September 4, 2024 (emphasis supplied).
