What the presidential election reveals about the evangelical church.

***Note: before you begin reading, please recognize that this is not an endorsement of a political party or a slam on the church.  Rather it is a simple exercise that reveals through statistics that the church is in crisis.  The good news is this; the church does not need to be in crisis.  There is hope!

A few weeks ago, CBS news conducted a poll amongst Republicans about the upcoming presidential election.  If you are into that type of thing it was quite interesting and informative.  As I read it, I was immediately concerned.  Sadly, I was not surprised.

The poll had all sorts of great info and asked many great questions of those who would most likely be voting for Trump.  What concerned me was not that people would vote for Trump but rather the why behind it.  Of the likely Trump voters 51% of them stated that the reason they would vote for Trump was because “he makes liberals angry.”  51%!

What we know is this, 82% of white evangelicals supported Trump in the previous election.  Suppose you are part of that type of church.  Suppose that your church consists of 100 white evangelicals who are registered voters.  Simple math tells us that 82% of them would have supported Trump at the last election.  If we break it down further and look at 51% of the 82, we will find that roughly 42 people out of 100 in a white evangelical church support their president of choice because he makes liberals angry.  On a given Sunday, a white evangelical church in America statistically has a congregation where 42% of its congregants support the idea of making liberals angry.

Why this should concern us? Simply put, four out of ten people who are white evangelicals Christians have allowed their identity politics to be more formative in how they interact with the world than the teachings of Jesus. This perspective is seemingly ok with the Let’s Go Brandon and F*** Joe Biden flags that I have to drive by every day on my way to my office at the church I serve in. This flawed thinking is serving as a stumbling block that effectively shuts down one’s ability to reach people for Jesus.

At the end of the day I do not care who one votes for.  Scripture doesn’t give that directive.  As a pastor, that not my job.  But Scripture does tell me how to view people and how to interact with people.  So, whether you label yourself as a liberal or a conservative, how you carry yourself matters. My point is not to convince you on how to vote or what label to wear.  My concern is the label of Jesus follower seems to have been covered up by a label that says Republican or Democrat by a large amount of people.  Being like Jesus has become less important than winning for a large portion of Christendom in American.

When we rejoice when others who are opponents are “put in their place”, we are cheapening their value.  Scripture is pretty clear when it says, “Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when he stumbles, do not let your heart rejoice.” (Proverbs 24.17) When we rejoice over people being put in their place, we don’t just allow ourselves to cheapen the value they possess, we also ignore the teachings of Christ in the sermon on the mount.  Matthew 5 might as well get ripped from the pages of Scripture.  Simply put, you cannot support someone for the purpose of ticking off those who hold different perspectives as you and represent Jesus well. 

This type of perspective will come out and it does.  In the past six years or so I have heard more defamatory comments about political opponents than I have ever heard in my life and most of them are from Christians.  This is very revealing of where one stores up their treasures.  It reveals very clearly what ones view of the kingdom is. 

To the Christian, let me ask you a few questions.  If you fly a flag that says “Let’s Go Brandon” in front of your house, have a “Don’t blame me, I voted for Trump” bumper sticker on your car, and use the word Dumbocrats whenever you talk politics on social media, do you honestly think your neighbor who voted democrat who doesn’t know Jesus will ever want to know your Jesus?  The answer is no.  You are hindering your effectiveness in the kingdom’s work when you operate this way. 

At the end of the day, the call of every believer is to love God and love their neighbor and these loves are inseparable.  Allow me close with a question.  When it come to the whole loving your neighbor thing, how would your neighbor say you are doing?