While Kamala Harris’s numbers are starting to come back to earth after a disastrous vice presidential debate, things have never looked better for the Californian’s campaign. As much as people have come to rely on the ebbs and flows of public opinion, longtime strategists know that there’s a better predictor of how Democrats will do — and that’s the evangelical vote. Or, as the 2024 numbers warn, the lack thereof.
According to some truly shocking statistics from George Barna at Arizona Christian University (ACU), as many as 41 million Christians plan to sit this election out — more than enough to hand the country’s keys to the eager and radical Left. For Donald Trump’s opponent, the news that one of the Dems’ biggest obstacles to victory is voluntarily shirking their civic duty is cause for premature celebration.
Incredibly, the research, conducted between August and September, suggests that 41 million self-described born-again Christians are “unlikely” to vote in the November election. To Len Munsil, president of ACU, that spells disaster. “I see two huge takeaways from this blockbuster report,” he explained. “First, that Christians could be the deciding factor in a bunch of federal and state races — and are choosing not to be. And second,” he continued, “that they are longing for their local church to instruct them on how to think biblically about policy and politics. They don’t want to be told how to vote,” Munsil added, “but they do want to know why they should vote and how to view political issues from a biblical framework.”
When Christians were asked to explain their complacency, 68% replied that they aren’t interested in politics, followed by 57% who dislike both presidential candidates, and another 52% who believe their vote won’t make a difference. In a sad sign of where we are as a country, 48% also worry that the election results will be manipulated.
Of course, one of the most problematic aspects of this passivity is that November 5 involves a lot more than the White House. In fact, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins argues, many would contend that there are “much more important decisions than the presidency on the state and local ballot. Control of the House and Senate hangs in the balance. Governors, state attorneys general, local school boards, even comptrollers are amassing major victories in protecting children from radical gender ideology, pushing back on corporate America’s woke agenda, fighting the Biden administration’s lawless overreach, and passing sweeping pro-life and pro-parent laws,” he wrote in Decision magazine, “Americans have several other issues to be mindful of as we head to the polls.”
In our hands rest “the hopes of soldiers on foreign battlefields, the persecuted church in faraway lands and the peace of God’s chosen nation Israel (Numbers 24:9),” Perkins warned.
And yet, this church-wide short-sightedness threatens to leave everyone from our global neighbors to our next-door neighbors without help or hope. “Think about what has happened here in America in just the last 35 years,” Cornerstone Chapel Senior Pastor Gary Hamrick told the Pray Vote Stand Summit on Saturday. “Think about some of these things. There’s been gender confusion. There’s been marriage redefinition. There’s been a disregard for life. There’s become environmental worship, the stripping of parental authority, the deterioration of religious liberties, and the list goes on and on.”
How “absurd,” he went on, that in a matter of a generation, “people are now trying to figure out what bathroom to use. Businesses are being sued for not baking cakes or doing graphic designs for same-sex weddings. The nanny state has approved pornographic reading material in many public school systems. … It’s illegal to disturb sea turtles in South Florida, but not illegal to abort babies from a womb. This is complete insanity.”
And frankly, Hamrick declared, “We have no one to blame but ourselves.” “There are 90 million self-identified evangelical Christians eligible to vote in the United States of America,” and according to George Barna a healthy slice of them will refuse to.
“Let me tell you what happens when we are not involved in the political process,” he said somberly. “We open the door for every evil ideology to fill the vacuum. When we decide we’re going to check out, we’re not going to be involved, we’re not going to be politically engaged, all we do is open the door for more of the same evil agenda and ideology. Why is it that so many Christians are sitting out on the sidelines? Why [is there] such political apathy in our world? Because a lot of Christians think that politics is a dirty word that they don’t want to be involved in. ‘We will leave the world of politics up to the rest of the world,’ they would say, and then wonder why every evil has filled the vacuum.” If you thought the last 35 years was disturbing, imagine the next 35. “…We are one generation away from losing what is valuable and precious and sacred,” Hamrick warned.
This trend of political indifference and disgust is in spite of the Scripture’s clear teaching that government — like the family and the church — is an institution created and established by God. “Why is it that when it comes to the family, people are protective of the family, Christians in particular? Why is it when it comes to the church, Christians in particular want to care for the church and defend the church? But then when it comes to this third institution, the second one that God ordained, [and] all of a sudden people say, ‘Well, that one doesn’t need my involvement, that one doesn’t need my participation, that one doesn’t need for me to be engaged.’”
Look, church, Hamrick urged, “God has called us in 2 Corinthians 5:20 to be his ambassadors. An ambassador is one who represents another official or dignitary. Our dignitary that we are representing is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and He calls us to represent him in every facet and aspect of life. That means we represent him in the job. That means we represent Him in the family. That means we represent Him in the church. That means we represent Him in our neighborhood, where we go to school, where we interact on every level with every person. God calls us to be his ambassadors. We don’t stop being ambassadors because we think, ‘Well, government is a dirty word. Politics is a dirty word. We don’t want to be engaged in all that. We’ll just leave that to other people’ — other people who will continue to take it down the progressive path it’s on right now and destroy this nation.”
It’s a point that Calvary Chapel Chino Hills Senior Pastor Jack Hibbs reiterated in his own remarks. “We are citizens of heaven. We are to act like heaven. We are to represent heaven. We are to speak about the things that concern heaven.” Does that mean we have to be excited about the choices before us? Absolutely not. But as God’s people, we should all want a president “that will save more babies’ lives than Kamala Harris,” he argued.
That doesn’t mean Donald Trump can save this country. As Hibbs acknowledged, “There’s no politician, including Trump, that can affect the soul of this nation. You’re the only one. The answer is not in the statehouse. And it’s not going to be in the White House. It’s got to be in your own house. It’s got to be in the [house] of God.” If your response is, “Well, I don’t vote,” then “you need to repent,” Hibbs insisted. “Every opportunity God gives us, we are to use it to the advancement of His kingdom. And voting is the easiest. We fire no bullets,” he pointed out. “We don’t pull out any swords. There [aren’t] tanks in the street. We just get up and go vote.”
And get over trying to find the perfect candidate, Hamrick admonished. “There is no candidate who is the full package because Jesus is not on the ballot. There is no perfect person running,” he pointed out, “and God has used both righteous leaders and unrighteous leaders all through the Bible to accomplish his good purposes.”
But, the Cornerstone leader cautioned, “If we see the rising tide of evil in our land and we decide to do nothing, we are ceding ground to the enemy, and we are being unfaithful to our calling as ambassadors for Christ.”
Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.
