America remains on the fast track to wrath and judgment, but through faithful repentance and action, the church can seize this merciful moment to proclaim the gospel and work for true cultural restoration.
The Mercy of God in the 2024 Election
The Lord has shown America and His church in it mercy that we do not deserve. Ιn an answer to the prayers from many of His people, God re-established Donald Trump as President of the United States, and this after four years of increased public sexual rebellion and militant insistence on abortion as a sacred right, now being acknowledged in numerous state constitutions. America continues to ask for judgment by its actions, and in His longsuffering, God continues to delay. More than the mercy of Trump merely winning, God further responded to our prayers by making the victory obvious, confirming it on the night of the election with no pretense of contention, and shifting the balance of power in the House and Senate to the Republicans.
A Call to Action for the Church
Many Christians are breathing a sigh of relief, and no doubt many are eager to step back from the stress of political drama and are looking forward to checking out until 2028. However, to do this would not only be a mistake but would betray profound ingratitude and sinful irresponsibility on the part of the church. Trump and the Republicans are indeed deeply compromised, particularly when it comes to the issue of abortion, and yet Christians once again supported him at the ballot box and before the throne of God in prayer for the sake of having more freedom to pursue true justice and because of the genuinely frightening alternative. Out of thankfulness to God for blessing our efforts and hearing our prayers, the church must maximize the second Trump Administration and endeavor to make serious progress in cultural and political reformation.
A Warning from Scripture
The temptation of the church will be to see these next four years as a respite, as a time for our economy and national security to recover and for us to enjoy the fruits thereof. Yet Scripture gives us a powerful historical object lesson that warns us emphatically against such an attitude. After being miraculously healed of a fatal illness and enjoying peace between Judah and Babylon, King Hezekiah is solemnly warned that there is still a devastating judgment yet to come in his nation. Rather than weep and pray and labor in repentance in order to avert this disaster as he did his deadly sickness, he instead responds in this manner: “‘The word of the LORD that you have spoken is good.’ For he thought, ‘Why not, if there will be peace in my days?'” (2 Kings 20:19). While it may seem that the Trump election means peace and security in our days, America remains on the fast track to wrath and judgment.
If we would avoid the ugly callousness of King Hezekiah, then we must not revert to pre-2020 ease and willful blindness or a pre-election lack of focus and urgency, but we must press and take full advantage of this merciful turn of events. Suppose this election is to actually prove to be a blessing rather than an occasion to accumulate greater guilt. In that case, Christians must be committed to decisive and disciplined action during this four-year window.
Preparing for the Enemy’s Attacks
This must begin with Christians, especially pastors and ministry leaders, anticipating and preparing for the accusations and attacks of the enemy. During Trump’s first term, the evangelical church became severely fractured. In the years between 2017 and 2020, “wokeness,” critical race theory, and intersectionality took hold of many segments of the church, and all of the internal strife came to full flower in 2020 when Covid-19 lockdowns and Black Lives Matter riots further divided the American church.
We know that the enemies of Christ—both inside the church and outside of it, whether human or spiritual—will not retreat from their destructive machinations. With Trump’s re-election, there will be occasion once more for a fresh round of assaults. We must be better prepared to pre-empt and counter these than we were in 2017.
Rejecting Wicked Ideologies
Since 2020, when institutional trust was irreparably shattered, there has been a genuine—albeit tiny—faction of the professing church that has begun to sympathize with Nazism and embrace anti-Semitism. Fringe voices offering a defense for Hitler will no doubt be highlighted and amplified, especially as these views continue to infect the church, and these will provide justification for many to claim that their concerns of racism and white supremacy among Christians were right all along.
The reasonable and biblical majority in the church must be vigilant against all such Nazi apologists and sympathizers; we need to ensure that whatever accusations of actual racism hurled against us be inaccurate and slanderous by refusing to allow such ideas to metastasize in our churches. This is a danger we should already be aware of and prepared for. It is essential to recognize that these wicked ideas have already infected areas of the church and need to be actively opposed; additionally, it is incumbent upon so-called “red-pilled” Christians to resist the genuine temptation to reactionary hyper-skepticism and the full embrace of revisionist history.
The fact that institutions have been weaponized and intentionally misled us does not necessitate embracing the opposite of every conventional narrative. The enemy will use any weapon, however fringe or fanatical, to attack the credibility of Christ’s church and to destroy its unity. This is no time for the church to be fractured with infighting.
Seizing the Opportunity
One of the perpetual complaints against conservatives, which generally proves true, is that when we win, we tend to focus solely on defense, on answering accusations, and on slowing down the progressive agenda. This is a tendency that needs to change. This election will have been a waste if Christians do not strive for meaningful gains in politics and in the culture during this window.
One area of focus must be to continue the essential conversations that have sprung up regarding a more robust political theology, mainly as it is applied to the just and biblical response to abortion. Christian Nationalism, Christian Libertarianism, Reconstructionism, General Equity Theonomy, Natural Law Theory, Common Good Conservatism, Abolitionism, Incrementalism, Immediatism, all of these nuanced perspectives that have been sparring over the past several years—tedious as the conversations may be at times—demonstrate the encouraging reality that Christians are taking what the Bible says about politics and the state seriously once again.
A Renewed Focus on Political Theology
The crisis of Covid revealed that the American church had been taking the common grace of the constitution and a particular view of the limitations of government for granted. While no consensus has yet been reached regarding a thoroughly biblical view of the state, reformed Christians appear, by and large, to be moving in the direction of consistency, and there is a great deal of common ground between the varied perspectives. All of this is happening against the backdrop of a conservative mandate in the political sphere and an increasing disillusionment with progressivism among the broader population.
It is incumbent upon the church to seize this moment. The church must be ready and able to disciple those disillusioned in a more biblical understanding of the state, and we must do all that we can to ensure that the newfound conservative mood does not follow in the way of empty Christless conservatism but is instead built on the revelation of who God is and His holy standards. This means, at the very least, the reformed evangelical church must proclaim a consistent message of God’s moral law being the foundational standard of justice (1 Timothy 1:8-11), of the absolute authority of Christ over the state (Romans 13:4), and of the doctrine of sphere sovereignty (Matthew 22:21), all of which provide inherent limitations on and requirements of civil government.
Abortion: A Key Issue for the Church
Chief among the civil concerns of Christians is, of course, legal child sacrifice, which also happens to be the very issue on which Trump and the Republicans are most compromised. With the church itself so divided on abortion—from who is responsible and ought to be held accountable to whether it ought to be met legislatively with full equal protection or incremental regulation—we cannot expect the Republican Party to run candidates who are principled and consistent on the issue. Until the evangelical church is consistent on abortion, the Republicans have no incentive to take a moral stand.
Over the course of the next several years (and the sooner, the better), Christians must make it a priority to come to a united biblical consensus regarding abortion, particularly what the just response of the state must be. As one who is in agreement with abolitionist arguments, I believe that a consensus must insist on full equal protection from fertilization, with all those involved in the murder criminally liable. As more churches and ministries apply God’s word with consistency on this issue and then engage on the local and state levels, the Republicans on the national level will need to either follow their base to the right on abortion or else risk losing a significant portion of it. The church must steer the political conversation surrounding abortion in this direction. Fortunately, the American people have revealed themselves ready to receive simple common sense arguments and solutions.
A National Opportunity for Revival
The most encouraging thing about Trump’s decisive and convincing victory is the resounding implication that a majority of the population craves common sense. Christians must recognize this mandate and courageously present to the population what they evidently want, built on the foundation that they certainly need. The American people are increasingly becoming aware of the bankruptcy of the progressive movement; they desire to return simply to a governing authority that follows basic logic, embraces law and order, and provides stability, safety, and the opportunity for prosperity. In short, they desire to return to a time in which the Christian worldview was generally embraced and its fruits received.
Christians and Common Sense
Christians are, of all people, the only ones who can consistently explain and embrace common sense: we affirm that God created this world to function in a particular way, and when we follow His established order, the consequences generally lead to greater flourishing. Furthermore, this good sense is only common because God made us all alike in His own image, and our very nature as His creatures presents us with His law, as our consciences testify, which we must either embrace or suppress.
Therefore, Christians alone have a foundation for what is considered “common sense,” and we must proclaim this foundation: the Creator God and the resurrected King Jesus Christ.
A Christian Foundation for Politics
The church must no longer be hesitant to build our political convictions on an explicitly Christian worldview and to expose Christless conservatives to the fatal flaw of their belief system. Apart from the resurrected Christ and His authoritative word, we have no basis for law and order, marriage and “biological” sex, borders and national security, fiscal responsibility, and the reduction of the national debt.
The Bible speaks to and is applicable to all these “political” issues. The church must be bold to say so. If people are ready for common sense, the church is the place for that and so much more. This reality cannot be downplayed. Our national religion of secular humanist liberalism is collapsing, and something will fill the void it leaves—and Christianity is far from the only contender to do so.
Revival Through Bold Preaching
Our nation appears to be primed for revival, but this will only happen if the church is actively bold and consistent in preaching the whole counsel of God for every area of life, including political life. This does not mean the church must play the role of moral apologist for the Republican party. Far from it. The Republican party has and will continue to reveal itself as pragmatic, compromised, and insufficient to address the ills that plague our nation.
However, the gospel is sufficient; repentance and faith will bring restoration and healing, not in a vague, spiritual sense, but in specific and tangible areas of our shared cultural life.
Trump is not the savior America needs; that is Jesus. However, the Trump election does afford the church a better opportunity to proclaim and press the claims of this Savior, and it would be a willful example of laziness, sloth, and ingratitude indeed if we fail to take it.
