Christians: Bring your faith to the voting booth

Much has been made in recent years about “Christian Nationalism.” If you listen to the evangelical left, it’s a movement on the rise, threatening to turn America into a repressive theocracy. We’re told this is the ideology that caused the Jan. 6 riot and that it is the driving force behind political violence in America. If such a movement is tolerated, the warning goes, it will be the demise of democracy.

What are some other examples of this burgeoning political order? The overturning of Roe v. Wade. Legislation that affirms biology and protects women and kids. School choice. Opposition to racially divisive ideologies. Voter I.D. laws. Border security. According to the media and self-identified experts, almost every conservative position is a dangerous form of Christian Nationalism.

This conflation of violence and mainstream conservative positions is deliberate. Its simple purpose is to intimidate Christians who vote Republican and persuade them to instead vote Democrat. If voting according to Biblical values on issues like abortion, gender, or the rights of parents puts a person in the same category as those who stormed the capitol and favor authoritarianism, then maybe, the logic goes, it’s best to abandon these positions altogether.

But Christians should reject this manipulation tactic.

Yes, if Christian Nationalism is the idea that America is a chosen nation—a sort of modern-day Israel—and a special beneficiary of God’s promises and favor, then it’s unbiblical. If Christian Nationalism is the notion that America is to be a theocracy in which its citizens are forced to worship Christ, then it’s unconstitutional. But if Christian Nationalism is interpreted by some detractors as a Christian voting in accordance with Biblical values, if it’s Christians seeking to infuse God’s truth and goodness into every sphere they occupy, if it’s living by the belief that “the earth is the Lord’s,” then to be pejoratively dubbed a “Christian Nationalist” is meaningless (Psalm 24:1). This is simply what it means to be a Christian and an active citizen.

You’ll notice something about those who accuse their enemies of Christian Nationalism: It is exclusively hurled at conservatives. Stacey Abrams hailing the “spirit of Deborah” in a campaign speech, Kamala Harris invoking her faith to support abortion, Gavin Newsom citing Jesus to lure women to California to kill their children, and left-wing pastors using the pulpit to persuade congregants to vote Democrat are never accused of beckoning a theocracy. This is just good, old-fashioned, democratic politics. But as soon as a Christian utters Psalm 139 as a reason to vote against the slaughter of babies, we’re suddenly on the precipice of The Handmaid’s Tale.

Another observation: These progressive critics never have any suggestion for how conservative Christians should engage in the public square in a way that honors their beliefs. The answer seems to be that Christian conservatives alone must check their worldview at the door when they go to work and to vote. Meanwhile, secular progressives are free to shape curriculum, write laws, influence corporate policy, and operate their businesses as they see fit.

Secular progressivism is not a neutral belief system. The idea that a boy who feels like a girl really is a girl is more of a spiritual belief than a scientific one. Likewise, the assertion that a human being is suddenly ascribed value, personhood, and rights in the birth canal is one rooted in superstition, not reality. Why should this worldview get to shape policy, but the Christian worldview shouldn’t?

Christians believe God made the world and everything in it (Genesis 1:1). They believe God is the source of truth, justice, righteousness, and love (Psalm 89:14). Therefore, they believe that His ways are better—better for ourselves, better for our neighbors, and better for our nation. Since God is love, we cannot out-love Him (1 John 4:8). Therefore, the best way for Christians to love their neighbor is to agree with God in how they speak, act, and vote. Believers will never love their neighbors well by voting in a way that opposes God’s order.

While the Bible doesn’t speak explicitly to every political issue, the first chapter of the first book of Scripture is mercifully clear on a few things that are all, in one way or another, on the ballot this November. Genesis 1:27 says God made human beings in His image as male and female. That verse alone tells us what we need to know about human value, the gender binary, and the structure of marriage and the family. To vote against these things is to vote for disorder and chaos, which is both unjust and unloving.

Christians are not only free to vote our values this November, but we are, for the sake of the cities whose welfare we are called to seek, obligated to do so (Jeremiah 29:7). That’s not some scary form of “Christian Nationalism.” That’s just Christianity.