Christians in the Age of Trump: A Contrasting View
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Donald Trump rose to power amid controversy. Two and a half years into his administration, there is no sign that’s ever going to change. No doubt, he’ll continue to be a controversial figure long after his administration has moved into the history books.
I agree with much of what Greg Barkman had to say on the topic yesterday, particularly the negative assessments of President Trump’s character and behavior. I agree also that some of the President’s policies have been helpful to the nation and sensible in the eyes of conservatives. I concede, too, that in an election, deciding what candidate to support can be difficult—especially if we only consider those who have a chance of winning. If we accept that constriction, we’re stuck with what the parties decide to offer us.
Those are the primary points of agreement. Philosophically, I’m sure we agree on much as well. Most of the controversy among conservative Christians has to do with how to apply principles we share. Still, these principles are often not articulated in the more Trump-friendly perspectives I hear from fellow-Christians. I believe that if these truths are more front-of-mind, they’ll have more influence on how we evaluate presidents and make electoral choices.
1. Christian perspective is long and deep.
I’m using the word “Christian” in this post in a particular sense: not “the way Christians actually are,” but rather, “the way Christians ought to be,” that is, the way we are when we’re true to what Christianity is.
When I say the Christian perspective is long, I mean that Christian thought always puts now in the context of the whole story of humanity—which is God’s story. So our analysis of consequences should be quite different form the analysis that is normal in our culture. Rather than, “If we do X today, what will happen tomorrow?” Christians should think, “If we do X today, where does that fit into eternity?” From there, we work backward to the present: “What’s the consequence generations into the future? What’s the consequence in twenty years?” Admittedly, we often can’t answer those questions. But it gets easier when we get down to, “What impact does this have in a decade? Or in eight years?”
But I think we rarely start our analysis of consequences with the question of eternity. How will my choices in this moment matter when all this is over? (and they will matter—Matt. 12:36, 2 Cor. 5:10). When it comes to public policy and elected officials, we just about as rarely consider political outcomes a couple of election cycles down the road. This is a failure to look through the Christian lens.
The Christian perspective is long. It’s also deep. When we’re looking at things Christianly, we’re not only driven by our relationship to the God who sees the end from the beginning, but also to the God who sees and knows the real essences of things and is never fooled by mere appearances (Heb. 4:13, among many others).
The deep perspective takes some work. “Man looks on the outward appearance” (1 Sam 16:7), and by default, surface realities are what’s most real to us. But at the current political moment, we’re called to look past both the bashing of left-leaning punditry and the cheerleading of right-leaning (or right-off-the-edge!) punditry to sift out what’s really factual and wise. We’re called to tune out the noise and dazzle and hype, and read thoughtful, reflective considerations of the issues we face in our times.
2. Christian ethics looks beyond results.
Genuinely Christian ethics does include results when evaluating the rightness or wrongness of actions. “Love does no harm to a neighbor” (NIV, Rom. 13:10). “It is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that causes your brother to stumble” (ESV, Rom. 14:21).
But outcomes are not the only consideration, or even the primary consideration. This is because everything a Christian does is personal. Worshipful service of our Creator is supposed to be an ever-present motivational layer in all we do (Rom. 12:2). The apostle Paul points out in 1 Corinthians 6:16 that Christian sexual ethics is not only driven by the goal of holiness but by the fact that Christ Himself is joined in some way to everything we do. Elsewhere Paul describes his own motivations in life as a drive to “please” a real person—Jesus Christ, whom we call Lord (2 Cor. 5:9).
Whatever else we might say about Christian ethics, we have to acknowledge that what ultimately determines right and wrong from our perspective is how Somebody feels about it. This shatters the popular utilitarian reasoning that whatever brings about the greatest good for the greatest number is the morally right thing to do.
Because Christian thought takes the long and deep view, we know that discerning what really brings about the greatest good for the greatest number in the long run is often impossible to know. Because we evaluate our choices through a personal grid—the good pleasure of our God—human good isn’t even mainly what interests us.
It’s possible to accept all that and still believe that a Christian should (a) vote only for a candidate that can win, and (b) vote for the least objectionable candidate that can win. But there’s a lot of thinking and evaluating that should happen before we even get to that point. In the long, deep, and Personal analysis, what really constitutes “winning”?
3. Christian values emphasize persuasion over coercion, understanding over compliance.
If we managed to put the ideal candidate in office—one who lacks all the character and conduct negatives of a man like Donald Trump—there’s still only so much he could get done, and only so much that would survive the next swing of the electoral pendulum. There’s only so much external constraints can accomplish.
Christian thought understands that faith in God-revealed truth is eternally transforming (Rom. 10:9-10, 17). There isn’t anything on earth more mighty than genuine Christian faith, because that faith is a heart-soul-mind surrender that permanently entwines us with the Creator God.
No law, or set of rules, or series of court decisions can do that.
And even on the time-bound plane of social concerns and public policy, only winning hearts and minds—genuinely persuading people of enduring truths—can produce changes that endure through election cycles.
A president who can get some policies enacted but who does it in a way—and from an ethos—that closes minds to important ideas and values may well do more harm than good. On the other hand, a president who is opposed to Christian views of society and justice (as those on the left are) but who provides a clear and sharp contrast with the ideas at the core of both conservatism and Christianity, may unwittingly persuade many to reject leftist beliefs.
To sum up, none of us really knows beforehand what the long and deep outcomes of a presidential election are going to be. We often don’t even know that years afterwards, with much confidence. What Christians should do then, in the electoral ethics department, is ask ourselves what pleases our God. And though that also doesn’t make the decision obvious, it does change the equation. We know that our Lord is at least as interested in how we get somewhere as He is in where we arrive.
“…for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light” (Eph 5:8).
Aaron Blumer 2016 Bio
Aaron Blumer is a Michigan native and graduate of Bob Jones University and Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). He and his family live in small-town western Wisconsin, not far from where he pastored for thirteen years. In his full time job, he is content manager for a law-enforcement digital library service. (Views expressed are the author's own and not his employer's, church's, etc.)
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“Saying that you support a team of leaders to enact policy without endorsing their beliefs and values…is more than an oxymoron. It’s utterly divorced from reality.”
It is NOT endorsing. Everyone has their personal list of issues organized in terms of importance and severity. You look at the two parties, and the policy platform the parties presented (often done at the party’s convention), and you vote based on which of the two options better accomplishes positive progress against your list. It doesn’t mean you have to endorse any specific candidate, that candidates’ values, or anything like that. You don’t have to support a candidate with money. You might find yourself in agreement with only 6 out of 10 proposed policy issues in one of the two parties, but only 1 out of 10 policy issues in the other. There is NEVER going to be a perfect fit between you and any political party. So you don’t have to endorse a person singularly, or a political party in general to vote for that party’s POTUS candidate.
You don’t live this way in other areas of life. You don’t have to endorse Home Depot to buy a 2x4 from them.
endorse
verb (used with object), en·dorsed, en·dors·ing.
to approve, support, or sustain: to endorse a political candidate.
vote
verb (used without object), vot·ed, vot·ing.
to express or signify will or choice in a matter, as by casting a ballot: to vote for president.
I did not approve of Trump. I did not support Trump, and I didn’t sustain him. But I did express or signify my will or choice in the matter of who I would rather have as my president, given the two options.
“Jesus mentions that it is out of the heart that a man speaks (Luke 6:43-45). It’s our sinful hearts and natures that propel us to be who we are. You can no more divorce a person’s behavior from that person than you can divorce white from white rice.”
No one here is arguing that Trump is a man of character with a clean heart and good behavior. Character, clean heart and good behavior was not an option on the 2016 ballot for president. Either Trump or Clinton would be the president. Your only options were to pick one of these two if you wished to have any say in the outcome, or decline to participate, allowing others to choose which one of these two would be your president.
“To choose to support a presidential candidate - to vote for him/her - is to say “this person is the best candidate to lead the nation”
Not at all. There were only two options, Clinton or Trump. To vote for Trump or Clinton is to say of these two, I would prefer it be this one, and not the other. I could think of several names that could be the best candidate to lead the nation, but they were not on the ballot. And I did not support as in endorse Trump, but I did vote for him. And he was far from being the best candidate to lead the nation. Scott Walker, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and others would have been much better, but they were not options after the primary.
I’m not seeing a ton of difference between the two definitions that you linked to, Darrell. They are:
endorse - verb (used with object), en·dorsed, en·dors·ing.
to approve, support, or sustain: to endorse a political candidate.
vote - verb (used without object), vot·ed, vot·ing.
to express or signify will or choice in a matter, as by casting a ballot: to vote for president.
If by these definitions a person ‘expresses or signifies their choice in a matter” by “approving or supporting” a particular candidate (which is the exact example that they use, no less!), then how can you argue that there is a difference between the two terms? It seems like you’re trying to split protons to make an artificial distinction.
Sure it holds ups. If you want to vote so that good legislative policy is to be upheld by the SCOTUS, you vote for the POTUS that gives you a good SCOTUS. if you want to vote so that bad legislative policy is to be overturned by the SCOTUS, you vote for the POTUS. If don’t want liberal activist judges on the SCOTUS, you vote for the POTUS.
Yes, the POTUS is responsible for appointing members to SCOTUS, but that doesn’t always work out as expected - see Anthony Kennedy, appointed by Ronald Reagan, or even John Roberts, who was appointed by George W. Bush. Furthermore, if you’re voting for a President because you want good legislative policy to be upheld, you’re doing it wrong. You need to be focused on the House and Senate. That’s their appropriate jurisdiction. It is better to write good laws and get them passed than it is to brute-force SCOTUS into re-writing law. That’s what the liberals and progressives do with the courts, and we rightly hate that.
The President isn’t all-powerful, nor should he be. He can (and does) serve as a check on the legislatures, which is a good thing. But he isn’t singlehandedly responsible for ramrodding good legislation and policy through government, and if you’re looking at him as the ‘savior’ of the United States because he appoints SCOTUS judges, you’re looking at our government wrong. That’s not the way our Constitution is designed to work.
"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells
“The President isn’t all-powerful, nor should he be….That’s not the way our Constitution is designed to work.”
I wholeheartedly agree with this statement. The office of president has become far more powerful than it was back at the beginning. I do not view Trump as any sort of Savior at all. But the fact is judges at the supreme court level and the lower courts are very important as the country is currently operating. It is not currently operating the way it was designed to. Throwing away my vote won’t help fix that. Clinton would have put in there more judges like Obama’s appointments, and the courts would have been lost for the rest of my life. And that’s the point, yes, Reagan and the Bushes had some clunkers on the high court, but voting for them was the ONLY way to have a possible chance at conservative judges. Please provide me a list of all the federal judges appointed by a liberal president, where the judge unexpectedly turned out to be a conservative who believes in the authorial intent of the constitution. Trump came out late in the campaign and announced he would appoint conservative judges. Up to that point, I feared he might get his list of ideas from Chuck Schumer. But it was a promise, and a chance at good judges, and I am very thankful he kept his word on this.
“It seems like you’re trying to split protons to make an artificial distinction. “
And it seems like you’re trying to join two distinct concepts represented by two different English words because you see endorsing the same as voting, while common usage as recorded by the dictionary says otherwise.
Falwell endorsed and supported Trump. Many chose to sustain Trump through a variety of ways. Many gave money to his campaign. Many approved of Trump and stated so without any reservation.
I did none of those things. I didn’t endorse Trump. He was 17th on my list of GOP candidates in the GOP primary. I did not support him and I did not want him to be the GOP nominee for president. I even spoke out against him. I even went to a rally for Rubio, and spoke out against a Trump supporter standing there holding a sign.
Even after Trump won the GOP nomination, I did not send him any money, I didn’t recruit others to vote for him, and I didn’t put his sign in my yard, even though I have done that for other candidates in the past. But I did show up and choose between Clinton and Trump and decided that of the two I would rather have Trump. There is a huge difference between endorsing and voting.
Who would have ever thought we would have come to a point where a pastor that speaks against Trump is going to face big opposition if not people leaving the church over it?
It seems more disturbing that there are pastors who would speak out about Trump. That, in and of itself, should be a reason for serious consideration of leaving a church. When a pastor gets into politics, it is almost certain he has left the Scriptures.
I’m not sure it’s that simple. We would all agree, wouldn’t we, that—at times—applying biblical principles to influential people involves naming names. Plenty of us talked about Billy Graham.
It’s not obvious to me that “politics” is a sphere of life we should rope off and not talk about in a specific way.
That said, I don’t think I ever found it necessary to endorse or denounce senators, congressmen, judges, presidents, etc. from the pulpit when I was a pastor. I usually felt that, when teaching principles that related to those things, the application was clear enough. I’m not really sure that’s the case, though.
… and that was before the apparent majority of Christians went as low as they did in 2016. If I were pastoring now, I would definitely do some teaching on the topic and name him specifically. But I would handle it very carefully. I would not denounce him in a sermon, but I would teach the principles that compelled me not to vote for him and probably do the application in the form of a series of pointed questions aimed at stimulating thought about the ethics involved.
I would also affirm the principles that require us to “honor the king” and “obey … the powers that be” in the ways those principles apply in a democratic republic.
As for voting vs. endorsing…
As I’ve probably already said, a vote is, under our Constitution, an act of authorizing/empowering an individual to be the Executive. It’s never an expression of approval of all he thinks, says, or does. But, whether we mean it to be or not, it is always, objectively, a statement that he meets the minimum qualifications for office. That’s just, legally, what the vote is.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
First off, as I said before, the article was written on a personal blog after the pastor retired. It was hardly Trump-bashing from the pulpit.
It seems more disturbing that there are pastors who would speak out about Trump. That, in and of itself, should be a reason for serious consideration of leaving a church.
So let me get this right…you would consider leaving a church over concerns about the moral integrity of the leadership of the United States? Does that apply to pro-abortion and pro-LGBT issues as well? Did you have this position when Bill Clinton or Barack Obama were President? Or when Hillary was running in 2016 for that matter?
I mean, part of the argument that I have made against Trump since this thread got going is the selective moral outrage we manifest.
So much for speaking the truth boldly and without fear on moral issues of the day. Jesus needs straight shooters and truth tellers more than he needs Americans or Republicans.
"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells
I didn’t vote for Trump. I found him morally unacceptable. I liked Scott Walker, but he was destroyed in the early stages of the primary. I personally liked Rubio and Fiorina, but didn’t invest time in actually researching their policies. I was waiting to see who the nominee was left standing when the primaries ended. I would have taken Cruz, but it was clear he wouldn’t last against Trump. When Trump was the only one left, I didn’t bother voting because:
- I didn’t like him
- WA’s electoral votes were going to Clinton anyway
- I thought Clinton would destroy him in the general election. I thought it’d be a slaughter.
I was wrong!
Two “I’ll never forget it” political moments in my life so far:
- Tim Russert with his white board during the 2000 election, describing the Florida madness on election night, thoroughly enjoying himself
- Watching with a combination of horror and malicious glee as Trump beat Clinton in the electoral college in November 2016 - and the anguished reactions from the Left.
I’m interested in what Nikki Haley will do in 2024.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
So let me get this right…you would consider leaving a church over concerns about the moral integrity of the leadership of the United States? Does that apply to pro-abortion and pro-LGBT issues as well? Did you have this position when Bill Clinton or Barack Obama were President? Or when Hillary was running in 2016 for that matter?
Yes, please get it right. I said nothing about leaving a church over concerns about the moral integrity of the leadership of the United States. Pro-abortion and pro-LGBT issues are moral issues not political ones. I did have this position when Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton were running and/or president.
Remember, I am not a supporter of Trump by and large. So this isn’t about him. It is the same position I have had for 25 years since I began in vocational ministry.
I mean, part of the argument that I have made against Trump since this thread got going is the selective moral outrage we manifest.
I have said nothing about selective moral outrage. I happen to agree that far too many show selective moral outrage, though I can’t help but think that the anti-Trumpers here don’t see it in themselves.
So much for speaking the truth boldly and without fear on moral issues of the day. Jesus needs straight shooters and truth tellers more than he needs Americans or Republicans.
I agree.
The issue that you have missed seems to be the biblical mandate for churches and pastors. Pastors are to preach the word and to make disciples. They are not to use the pulpit to involve themselves in politics of any stripe. They are to stick to the text of Scripture. The absence of Trump (or any other politician) from Scripture should mean the absence of Trump (or any other politician) from the pulpit.
The issue that you have missed seems to be the biblical mandate for churches and pastors. Pastors are to preach the word and to make disciples. They are not to use the pulpit to involve themselves in politics of any stripe. They are to stick to the text of Scripture. The absence of Trump (or any other politician) from Scripture should mean the absence of Trump (or any other politician) from the pulpit.
So then what, exactly, is your objection to what the retired pastor did? As I mentioned, it wasn’t in a pulpit or church service - it was a personal blog by someone who had retired. And you responded to that by saying:
It seems more disturbing that there are pastors who would speak out about Trump. That, in and of itself, should be a reason for serious consideration of leaving a church. When a pastor gets into politics, it is almost certain he has left the Scriptures.
Am I missing something here?
"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells
Am I missing something here?
Two things:
- I didn’t know this was a retired pastor on a personal blog. I missed that.
- I don’t think that matters much since as a pastor, we cannot separate our personal views from our public calling. It’s not worth it.
Imagine the number of people who hear a pastor say something about a politician, and refuse to listen to them about anything else. And about 50% of the people are on “the other side” whatever side that is. Why in the world would a pastor want to take a chance that someone would not listen to the gospel because he vented or praised a politician?
It would indeed be foolish to go out on a limb and endorse or bash a political figure if the text one is preaching doesn’t demand it. But I think it’s important to clarify that there is no area of life and no public figure that is outside the scope of biblical principle… or, therefore, outside the scope of application and preaching. If 50% of people are put off by doing that, that isn’t the preacher’s responsibility. His job is to tell the truth.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
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