Christianity Today Refuses To Endorse Kamala Harris, Encourages Christians Not To Vote

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Posted on 10/30/2024 11:53:20 PM PDT by Morgana

Christianity Today is one of the most liberal outlets posing as Christian. It has a particularly egregious history of recognizing the faith of Democrats, including Pete Buttigieg the homosexual, and Kamala Harris back in August. Several members of the organization Evangelicals For Harris are connected to Christianity Today. Evangelicals For Harris was founded to subvert the Evangelical voting bloc and has a lot of money backing it. However, it has been markedly unconvincing, compared to liberal Evangelicals like Tim Keller, Ed Stetzer, and Rick Warren. Evangelicals For Harris does not pretend to be pro-life, unlike its predecessor Evangelicals For Biden.

Christianity Today recently published an article “Voting Is Important to Me. That’s Why, This Year, I Won’t Vote” in an apparent attempt at suppressing the Evangelical bloc.

I’m sympathetic. All my life, I’ve attended evangelical churches and called them home. I grew up with a message of “God, country, and family.” And I’ve always been conservative in both my theology and my politics. In most elections, I vote straight-ticket Republican, and voting is extremely important to me.

It’s precisely because voting is so important that I believe we need to thoughtfully evaluate calls to vote biblically and consider everything that can mean. Sometimes, given short-term political dynamics or the candidates available, declining to vote can be the best way to reflect our values and acknowledge the importance of an election. Sometimes, the right choice—and one way to conform our politics to Scripture—may be not voting, as new research suggests millions of American Christians are planning this fall.

The author is Robert Postic, an academic who dubiously claims to be a theologically orthodox Evangelical. Despite claiming to be conservative, Postic had no problem voting for overtly leftwing nominees, but Trump Derangement Syndrome set in.

The way we talk about voting in many predominantly white evangelical churches sends more than one message. In recent history, it has often been a thinly veiled encouragement to vote Republican. But it also sends the message that you must vote, that voting is an American duty and possibly even a Christian duty. Here I want to focus on that second claim about voting itself.

There is no biblical mandate to vote. That’s not to suggest that voting is somehow inconsistent with biblical teaching. God forbid! Choosing to vote in democratic elections and, more generally, to engage in peaceful civic participation is in alignment with virtually any reading of the Bible.

The problem is that many voters feel cross‑pressured. It’s not always obvious how we should vote. Sometimes, none of the viable candidates align with our core values—or even come close. This year, the Democratic presidential candidate holds positions I believe to be inconsistent with Scripture. But I also believe the Republican candidate lacks the requisite character to be president.

It’s interesting how Kamala’s character is not disqualifying. However, it is effeminate to weigh personality equally to policy, being irrational. Nevertheless, for Christians to not vote in the system of government that we have is to cede power to the pagans. Although I don’t see it quite as a sin to not vote, I do not see the wisdom in this strategy, particularly because there is no real strategy.

Some Christians in this position choose to vote for a third-party candidate. I respect that choice and agree that it’s much more important to vote for the candidate who best represents our values than it is to vote for someone who can win. Issues and character matter. But I also understand the political and legal realities in America that make it functionally impossible for third-party candidates to succeed. So rather than vote third party, I choose not to vote.

Postic’s repeated emphasis on “character” contains no positive examples of what good character looks like. So the reader is left to think that Kamala Harris has good character but terrible policy, while Trump has decent policy and untenable character. This is a laughable notion, as Harris’s policies are a direct reflection of her character. People are what they do. But even Trump’s worst character vice, incompetence, pales in comparison to bungling that Kamala is capable of.

But I believe how we get there is as important as where we arrive. “Winning the presidential election is vitally important,” James Dobson wrote in 2007, “but not at the expense of what we hold most dear.” I’m convinced character is a core value too. It’s equally part of what I “hold most dear” in politics—and not nearly so divisible from policy as many suggest. Without good character, the candidates we support may not even try to deliver the policy results they promise in exchange for our votes.

I understand the arguments for voting even when the viable choices are bad. I understand why some Christians believe it’s better to pick a side and push it to improve insofar as they can. My goal here is not to argue that all Christians should decide against voting. It is the more modest claim that in a binary election with choices like these, not voting may be the best way for many Christians to heed their consciences and the promptings of the Holy Spirit—even to “vote biblically.”

This article amounts to an attempt at voter suppression that won’t reach its intended target because Christianity Today caters to an audience far more liberal than most people who pretend to not be.

As for Kamala Harris, it does signal that in addition to not receiving the endorsement of the Washington Post, the banner of Russell Moore’s Christianity Today will neglect to support her cause. This is a sign of how badly Kamala Harris is campaigning as an attempt to coopt the Evangelical vote is failing, so they are resorting to suppression.

1 posted on 10/30/2024 11:53:20 PM PDT by Morgana

To: Morgana

2 posted on 10/30/2024 11:55:05 PM PDT by frank ballenger (There's a battle outside and it's raging. It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls. )

To: frank ballenger

3 posted on 10/30/2024 11:58:47 PM PDT by Morgana ( “Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women.” — Alice Paul )

To: Morgana

4 posted on 10/30/2024 11:59:54 PM PDT by Fai Mao (The US government is run by pedophiles and Perverts for pedophiles and perverts.)

To: Fai Mao

5 posted on 10/31/2024 12:04:04 AM PDT by Morgana ( “Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women.” — Alice Paul )

To: Morgana

6 posted on 10/31/2024 12:06:39 AM PDT by Bullish (Socialism is a weed that blooms into communism, the tyranny that strangles liberty.)

To: Morgana

7 posted on 10/31/2024 12:11:34 AM PDT by DesertRhino (2016 Star Wars, 2020 The Empire Strikes Back, 2024... RETURN OF THE JEDI..)

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