For most Americans, the results of last week’s presidential elections came
as a shock, even a surprise, and for many, a bit of a
relief.
That feeling of relief is understandable. While there’s no way to be sure
what will happen over the next four years, Christians may very well have gained
a reprieve in areas such as religious freedom and attempts to impose the new
sexual orthodoxy and gender ideology on our schools.
So relief? Yes. But I’d caution against elation, because what happened on
Tuesday was more of a reprieve than a vindication. A close read of Tuesday’s
results, beyond the presidential race, shows that the cultural trends we’ve been
talking about on BreakPoint for years continue unimpeded.
The saddest example is Colorado voters’ approval of doctor-assisted
suicide by a two-to-one margin. I warned on this broadcast that so-called “right
to die” invariably becomes a duty to die. I reminded my fellow Coloradans that
in a state currently in the midst of an epidemic of teen suicide, approving
doctor-assisted suicide sends the wrong message.
But it didn’t matter. The siren song of unlimited personal autonomy and
self-definition proved irresistible to a large majority of
Coloradans.
And a similar dynamic was at work in the various ballot initiatives
concerning marijuana. Voters in California, Massachusetts, and Nevada joined
Colorado and Washington in legalizing marijuana outright. As of this writing,
the result in Maine is too close to call, although supporters of legalization
have already declared victory.
Meanwhile, voters in Florida, Arkansas and North Dakota approved
so-called “medical marijuana” use. I say “so-called” because if history is any
indication, these laws amount to legalization by just another
name.
Only Arizona, thanks largely to the efforts of the Council
for Arizona Policy, bucked the trend for legalized weed.
So, all in all this was a bad night for the idea that human good involves
something other than unlimited personal freedom and
pleasure.
And no matter how much relief we feel over the defeat of what would
certainly have been a radically pro-choice, anti-religious freedom Clinton
administration, the serious moral concerns about the man who was just elected
president remain, as do the serious moral concerns about the nation that elected
him, and those evangelical leaders who went on record saying that character no
longer matters in a leader.
So where does all this leave us today? How will we use this reprieve?
Well first of all, we should, as the Bible instructs us, pray for those in
authority. We should also pray for President-Elect Trump to surround himself
with wise and godly counselors, and to act justly, wisely, and
rightly.
Beyond that we should support any of his policies that promote the common
good. We should urge him to protect the unborn, as well as those who believe in
traditional marriage, and to safeguard religious freedom.
But what we can’t do is fall prey to the political
illusion. As Chuck Colson liked to say, the Kingdom of God never arrives on Air
Force One. Too often Christians lose sight of this basic truth and have allowed
themselves to become court preachers instead of prophets.
But prophets we must be. The church’s duty is to speak truth to power,
especially when the power doesn’t want to hear it. If Jesus is Lord, no one else
is.
Now today on BreakPoint.org, we’ve created a symposium on the Church and
the election. We’ve asked leading Christian thinkers—like Maggie Gallagher, Rod
Dreher, and First Things’ editor R. R. Reno—to answer the question: “What has
the 2016 election revealed about the state of the Church and its place in
American culture, and how ought we (the American Church) move forward from
here?"
You’ll want to read what our contributors have to say. Again, visit
BreakPoint.org to check out our symposium, “The Election and the
Church.”
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