With the election mere weeks away, California Pastor Jack Hibbs did something rarely seen behind most pulpits in 2024โhe issued an urgent call for Christians to vote.
Hibbs’ message on Sunday, titled “When Christians Fail to Vote,” sought to be a wake-up call to the ramifications of the church sitting out the electionโchallenging both the pulpits and the pews.
Equipped with dozens of verses from the Bible, as well as quotes from America’s Founding Fathers and some troubling statistics, Hibbs underscored the personal and societal consequences of Believers neglecting the stewardship of their nation.
“Christians can never sit anything out that has an impact or influence,” Hibbs, who serves as the senior pastor of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, insisted.
Christians in America have been given the profound privilege of being able to impact laws and elections through their votes. Hibbs took issue with many Christians who commonly use God’s sovereignty as an excuse not to get involved. The pastor emphasized that this thinking fails to recognize something critical: “In God’s sovereignty, He involved us!”
Evangelicals Sitting Out The Election… Again?
Despite the sanctity of life, the rule of law, the support of Israel, the safeguarding of children, and their own religious freedom hanging in the balance, scores of evangelicals have deemed it unnecessary to cast their vote.
Pointing to numbers that emerged from the last presidential election, Hibbs highlighted that “America is in the condition she’s in because Christians have sat it out.”
“In the 2020 presidential election, Biden won Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Victories in those states helped him secure 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232, thereby exceeding the 270 electoral votes required to clinch the presidency,” he detailed in his notes. “The post-election data revealed that in the State of Arizona, 730,624 Evangelicals did not vote in the 2020 presidential election. Joe Biden became the President with 10,457 votes. In 2020, Georgia had 1,349,454 Evangelicals who did not vote. Biden carried the state by 11,779 votes.”
“In Michigan, in the 2020 presidential election, 1,338,126 Evangelicals did not vote. Biden won Michigan by 154,188 votes,” he continued. “In Pennsylvania, 1,494,611 Evangelicals did not vote. Biden won Pennsylvania by 80,555 votes. In Wisconsin, 873,854 Evangelicals did not vote in the 2020 election. Biden won the state by 20,682 votes.”
“In North Carolina, the one swing state that Trump won in both 2016 and 2020, was won even though the state’s Evangelicals did not vote,” Hibbs stated. “It has been calculated that for Trump to win in North Carolina in the 2024 election, there will have to be an Evangelical turnout of more than 74,500 out of the state’s 1,195,729 Christians.”
In the current election, Hibbs further pointed to a recent study by the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, which indicated that only half of American evangelicals are planning to cast their vote in 2024.
A Mark On American Pulpits
George Barna, discussing the study’s findings, revealed that “an estimated five million regular churchgoers would be likely to vote as a result of [a] simple exhortation [from their churches and pastors].”
“That, in itself, could change the outcome of the election by simply doing their job and getting congregants to fulfill one of their chief duties as an American citizen,” Barna stressed. “The 32 million Christians sitting in the pews each week who refuse to vote are a gamechanger. It’s low hanging fruit for pastors as they try to motivate those congregants to carry out their civic duty and honor God through their influence for things that matter in our culture.”
Pastor Hibbs, who displayed the findings of the two studies to his congregation, warned that the inaction of evangelicals is a mark of shame on America’s pulpits.
“There’s no separation between what God says and what God wants from you as an American,” he explained. “Voting in a constitutional republic is a privilege. It is an honor, ladies and gentlemen, for you and I to carry out this great responsibility. It’s not something that we ‘maybe’ exercise as a believer. The believer must take this very seriously.”
“The church is failing. Why? Because it’s being led by failures,” he lamented, adding that every pastor will be judged more harshly and held accountable to God for how they instructed their flocks.
Are You Standing Up Or Standing Down?
Hibbs pointed to a quote from political researcher Craig Huey, which warned that the church has surrendered its role as the “conscience of the community.”
“That is true,” Hibbs affirmed, adding that many church pastors “will never bring up the issues that will determine what your kids deal with in school, the definition of marriage, abortion, or who to vote for to preserve a Judeo-Christian worldview.”
Failure to vote for candidates who, for example, are more committed to defending children in the womb is equivalent to casting your vote for candidates eager to snuff it out, Hibbs further underscored. “When you don’t vote, the void is filled by the bad guy.”
“Sometimes, we act like this is our home, we settle down, and put our feet upโthis is a battlefield, and it’s never been more clear than now,” the pastor implored. “We cannot, and we must not, decide ‘not to get involved’ in our culture. We do not have the option or the luxury of staying out of the fight that’s before us. I tell you, there are more things to fight for than there ever has been in my lifetime. It’s a very, very critical time.”
“Voting is a Christian responsibility,” Hibbs urged. “It’s an opportunity to do good. The Bible says, ‘To him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin’ (James 4:17). Am I saying that if you don’t vote, it’s a sin? That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
