This was a question I was asked the other day by a family member, who is a big lefty, and likes to start political arguments. It's a question I'm sure many Christians have had to deal with, especially throughout the last seven years. We have to remember that we are not voting for a Pastor-In-Chief. We are not voting for someone to lead us spiritually, although we most certainly should vote for someone whose character and goals for the nation most closely reflect our own. Sometimes we're not given a lot of choices. In fact, most of the time we're not given good choices.
I don't know what it is about people that makes them think that if you vote for Trump, you're on board with every single thing he's ever done or said. I'm not on board with anybody's every word or deed. In the case of Donald Trump, certainly he's a sinner, just as we all are. Sometimes I cringe at the things Donald Trump says. I don't mind him being blunt, but I get annoyed when he feels as if he's got to respond to every criticism. He's often too thin-skinned, and seems to have derogatory names for everybody that I don't necessarily agree with. Some of his sins have become very public, and some we may never hear about. Hey, that applies to us, too, btw. But at the end of the day we are voting for President and this year our choices are Biden/Obama/Harris/The culture of Death/Mutilating kids/Human Trafficking through uncontrolled borders, and every other terrible thing THEY stand for, or another term of Trump.
It's very easy for me to vote for anybody on the right, when you compare their policies to those of the left. Honestly, there are some national Republicans I can't stand. I don't think Marjorie Taylor Green does the Republicans any good with her antics. I'm not a big fan of the Congresswoman from South Carolina, Nancy Mace, who actually showed up at a prayer breakfast making jokes about being in bed with her boyfriend right before the breakfast. I think that's despicable and she's certainly not somebody who represents Christianity as I think they should. But if I had a choice between voting for her or a Democrat, I would have to vote for her because those votes make a difference in larger body of Congress. Democrats today don't even distantly resemble the Democrats of my youth.
In 2016 Donald Trump was not my first choice, or my second, or my 14th, (well, maybe he was above Romney), but he was not my first choice. I was more of a Ted Cruz person. I consider Ted Cruz stronger when it comes to constitutional issues, social issues and some other other things that really matter to me. His father, Raphael Cruz, is a pastor and was on my radio show a couple of times during the 2016 campaign. (So was Senator Cruz) I respect their spiritual values and I would love to have seen Cruz as our next president. But it didn't work out that way and I wasn't about to sit home and pout and give Hillary Clinton a free vote.
Donald Trump is not a social conservative, which is something that really bothers me. I would've preferred somebody like Ron DeSantis from that perspective. It bothers me that a lot of Christians don't seem to care where Trump stands on social issues. As you know if you listen to my podcast or hear me on the air, social issues are far more important to me than political issues because culture reflects our spiritual state.
If you're upset about Trump's flaws, do some reading on our Founding Fathers. They had plenty of issues and personality quirks like the rest of us. They were flawed people, but they were put in place at a certain time, I believe divinely, to accomplish what needed to be accomplished for our fledgling nation. I would not have been wanted to be married to most of them, nor would I have wanted to have had most of them as my father. Many of our founding father spent years away from their children and wives.
But as I mentioned in my book, "Don't pat me on the Head!", (which is now available on audio by the way), everything you've ever learned in your life you've learned from a sinner. Your parents, your coaches, teachers, bosses, every book you've ever read was written by a sinner. Even the Bible is written by people who were sinners. It's the divinely inspired Word of God, but it's written by people who were flawed like the rest of us. Should we throw out the book of Proverbs because Solomon got distracted with all the women he was sleeping with? I don't think so.
Should you throw out every textbook you've ever read because you find out your professor may have done something that you don't appreciate or you don't respect? Does that mean a flawed person has no wisdom whatsoever to impart? Of course not. Although we prefer people who have character, integrity and have the best interests of America at heart when they run for office, we don't always get that. Rarely, to tell you the truth. But as Christians we also understand who are dealing with: People! And we don't expect them to solve the problems of this nation.
Christians see things from a different perspective. We're supposed to. We are a "peculiar people". We don't put our trust in human beings of any kind. Psalm 146: 3 makes that very clear, advising us not to "put our trust in princes". That being said, someone has to run the country according to our system of government, and we are tasked with a very important duty to vote for the person we believe is going to do the best job for the nation. We should never take it for granted.
At the end of the day, Christians should realize that the fate of our nation, the fate of our personal lives, the fate of the world rest in the hands of God, not in the hands of any politician. I have been very discouraged by some of the Christians I have seen who act as if Donald Trump is going to "save us". When I hear that, I remind them that if he had the power to save us, he would also have the power to destroy us. Luckily, no human being does.
So the next time somebody asks you how you as a Christian could vote for a flawed person like Donald Trump, remind them that who you're voting for is a person who's going to support the policies that you believe will do the best for this nation, and the people who live in it, and you will leave the rest to God.
Heidi Harris
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