This election is more than a choice between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. It is also a choice between two very different views of government. To move the United States toward a kind of government that is best for the nation, it is most important that Donald Trump wins the presidency again, but it is also essential that Republicans win elections to the House and Senate and many state and local offices.
Republican views of government
Most Republicans favor limited government control of our lives, lower taxes, greater individual freedom, and greater personal responsibility for one’s actions. Republicans also believe that the best deterrent for crime is the punishment of criminals.
On foreign policy, Republicans generally believe that superior American military power is the best deterrent against war.
Republicans also believe that the best economic system is one that allows everyone to keep most of what they have honestly and legally earned, one that effectively cares for the poor, and one that does not seek to bring about more equality of income among people.
Democratic views of government
Most Democrats favor greater government control of our lives, higher taxes (especially for higher income brackets), less individual freedom, and less personal responsibility for one’s actions. Democrats also believe that the best deterrent against crime is education.
On foreign policy, Democrats generally believe that diplomacy and foreign aid are the best deterrent against war.
Democrats also believe that an ideal economic system leads to greater equality between the rich and the poor. With respect to levels of taxation, the rich should pay their “fair share” (an amount that is never specified but always assumed to be more than what they currently pay).
My convictions are similar to the “Republican” views mentioned above. Because I have been a professor of theology and Biblical studies for the past 47 years, in the material that follows, I will also explain why these positions seem to me to be consistent with the ethical standards taught in the Bible.
ECONOMIC REASONS TO VOTE FOR REPUBLICANS
1. To stifle inflation
Inflation happens when governments print or borrow too much money and inject it into the economy, as I explained in more detail in an earlier article. For example, if I have ten apples to sell and you have $10 to spend on apples, I will charge you $1 per apple. But if you have $20 to spend on apples, I will charge you $2 per apple. You spend more money, but you don’t get any more apples. That has happened to the cost of groceries, gas, and everything else.
Inflation hit our economy under Biden’s administration because our government injected far too much money into our economy while the amount of things for sale stayed about the same. It was all Democrats and no Republicans who did this.
Joe Biden became president on January 20, 2021, and Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate to pass whatever tax or spending legislation they wanted (because the budget reconciliation process is not subject to the filibuster, it only requires 51 votes in the Senate). Just six weeks after Biden took office, on March 6, 2021, the Senate passed the American Rescue Plan Act by a vote of 50-49 with all Democrats voting for it and all Republicans voting against it (one was absent). It passed the House on March 10 with a vote of 220-211, with all Republicans and one Democrat voting against it. President Biden signed it into law on the next day, March 11.
Republicans warned that this would cause harmful inflation because the bill authorized a whopping $1.9 trillion in additional government spending. (By way of comparison, the entire federal budget for the previous year was $6.55 trillion.)
But that was not the end of the Democrats’ spending. In 2022, they passed the Inflation Reduction Act by 220-207 in the House (all Democrats for it, all Republicans against it) and by 51-50 in the Senate (all Democrats for it, all Republicans against it, and Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote). President Biden signed it on August 16, 2022.
The bill would more accurately be described as the Inflation Multiplying and Green Energy Act because a large portion of the $891 billion was designated for climate change and green energy projects. Together, these two bills added an astounding $2.8 trillion in government spending. By way of comparison, $2.8 trillion is equal to 11% of the total economic output of the entire nation for 2022 (GDP for 2022 was $25.4 trillion).
Why did Democrats authorize such gigantic additional spending? Probably because they thought that when they gave free money to millions of people, many of those people would vote for Democrats.
On top of all that spending, President Biden issued two executive orders that drove up gas prices. One executive order restricted future oil and natural gas extraction, which immediately drove up energy prices, and the other shut down the Keystone XL Pipeline project, which would have safely brought much more US and Canadian oil to our best refineries. These executive orders were inflationary because the price of energy affects the price of everything else.
The result was predictable. According to Forbes magazine, the Consumer Price Index rose by 19% during the first 3 ½ years of Biden’s presidency. But it only rose by 6% during President Trump’s entire four years. (Trump’s average increase was just under 2% per year, and 2% is the Federal Reserve’s target amount.)
For example, think of a family that brought a certain basket of groceries for $100 on the day Biden became president. To buy that same basket of groceries today would cost $119, so they would need to find the additional $19 somewhere – in savings if they have any savings, or perhaps put it on a credit card. In terms of our apples example above, they will be paying more dollars but will just get the same number of apples. We could even say that inflation has “stolen” $19 from that family because that is how much extra money they need to buy the same amount of goods. And if a husband and wife together earned $80,000 last year, they would need to earn an extra 19% (or $15,200) just to stay even with their purchasing power compared to Biden’s first day in office, because that is the amount that inflation has “stolen” from their earnings this year.
I would also note that, in words of wisdom written over 3000 years ago, the Bible has something very clear to say about stealing: “You shall not steal” (Exodus 20:15). This is commandment 8 of the Ten Commandments, and it serves as the moral foundation for all protection of any individual’s property.
After looking at the voting and spending patterns of the past eight years, I conclude that Republicans are much more likely than Democrats to keep inflation under control.
2. To preserve lower tax rates and promote greater national prosperity and economic freedom
President Trump signed into law the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act on December 22, 2017. This bill was the largest revision of the US tax code in several decades. It substantially reduced tax rates for individuals and for corporations. For example, a married couple filing jointly who earned $100,000 per year moved from a marginal tax rate of 25% to a marginal rate of 22%. A high-income individual earning over $500,000 per year would move from a marginal tax rate of 39.6% down to 37%. (Many small businesses are taxed as if they were individual persons and they fall in this maximum tax bracket). And the top corporate tax rate moved from 39% down to 21%.
Most of these changes went into effect on January 1, 2018, and the result was a remarkable increase in the prosperity of the nation as a whole. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the United States grew from $18.8 trillion in 2016 to $19.6 trillion in 2017 to $20.6 trillion in 2018, to $21.5 trillion in 2019, to $21.2 trillion in 2020 (a slight decline due to Covid).
However, these Trump tax cuts are set to expire on January 1, 2025. If Donald Trump is elected president and if Republicans win control of both the House and the Senate, they plan to make these tax cuts permanent. But Democrats will keep the tax cuts from being extended if they win the presidency or control of either the House or the Senate. In fact, Kamala Harris has promised to raise the maximum corporate tax rate back to 39% of income, and to significantly increase tax rates for higher income individuals.
This would lead to a substantial economic downturn for the entire nation. Just as lowering taxes led to more investment and more productivity in the private sector, so higher taxes will lead to less investment and less productivity in the private sector, with ever more control of the entire private economy given to the federal government. This is not a desirable outcome, because the government does not produce goods and services as quickly, cheaply, and with the same quality as the private sector. But Democrats still favor giving more power and control of the economy to the government.
I will discuss biblical teachings about the proper role of government at the end of the next section.
3. To protect free-market capitalism and prevent creeping socialism
Free-market capitalism is the most amazingly productive economic system ever devised by man. Economic decisions about what products to produce, what jobs people will work at, and what items to buy and sell, are all made by millions of individuals acting in their own self-interest and not by any government agency or committee. Every person is able to own private property, and property rights are protected. The role of the government in the economy is limited and consists primarily of enforcing the fulfillment of contracts and enforcing regulations about weights and measures and health and safety procedures.
Socialism, by contrast, is an idealistic economic system that has never worked out well in practice but becomes more and more oppressive. Under socialism, the “means of production” (farms, mines, factories, and businesses) are owned by the government and managed by the government. Decisions about quality, and number of products to produce, the type of jobs people have, and what goods can be bought and sold, are all made by government agencies.
Socialism leads to excess supplies of unwanted goods and shortages of other goods. Highly gifted, ambitious, and hard-working people receive the same pay as less gifted and lethargic workers, and soon the ambitious workers decide not to work as hard and they become less productive because the work is not rewarded fairly.
Countries can become socialist gradually as their government takes over one segment of the economy after another. When Kamala Harris was asked what she would do to bring down prices, she replied that grocery stores were “gouging” people with higher prices and that if she became president the government would monitor those prices and penalize grocery stores that set their prices “too high.” That is a recipe for socialism in the grocery industry, because a government that controls all prices on groceries in effect controls that segment of the economy.
Harris’s response reveals three things: (1) She is ignorant of the fact that the higher prices were caused by excessive government spending of money. (2) She wrongly assumes that the problem was caused by the “greed” of “millionaires and billionaires” who own the grocery stores. (This is disturbingly similar to the communist doctrine that wealthy property owners -- the bourgeoisie -- are evil and must be overthrown and removed from power.) (3) She then proposes a new government program (control of grocery prices) that will further restrict our freedom and damage our economy.
In short, she represents, as a Democrat, a traditional liberal mind that thinks, “More government spending and regulation is always the solution and is never the cause of the problem.” Her spontaneous response reveals that her economic instinct is to drive us bit by bit toward socialism.
Nowhere in the Bible is there support for the socialist idea that the government should control the entire economic life of a nation. There is a striking warning about a king who will take and take and take until the people are reduced to slavery:
So Samuel told all the Lord's words to the people asking for a king from him. He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. . . . . . He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.” (1 Samuel 8:10–18)
The Bible is clear on the fact that civil government has the responsibility to punish those who do evil and praise or reward those who do good. Peter says that “governors” are “sent by [God] to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good” (1 Peter 2:14; see also Romans 13:3-4).
But nowhere does the Bible assign to civil government the authority to control all buying and selling of food and other goods. That would be concentrating too much power in the hands of governmental rulers.
4. To preserve our ability to choose our own doctors and healthcare plans
Kamala Harris wants to move America to a “single-payer” healthcare system. That means that the US government will be the single-payer for healthcare. That implies the U.S. government will decide what doctor you can have and what medical procedures you can. This is just another form of socialized medicine.
Republicans want to preserve our freedom to choose among many healthcare providers, all competing to gain more satisfied customers. Republicans recognize that there are still many shortcomings in our healthcare system. Still, it remains the best system in the world (as is evident from the fact that high-ranking government officials and wealthy individuals from other countries come to the United States to treat serious diseases).
FOREIGN POLICY REASONS TO VOTE FOR REPUBLICANS
5. To secure the border
President Trump brought the flood of illegal immigrants down to a trickle, but because Democrats refused to fund Trump’s border wall and opposed it in the courts, only about 450 miles of a new, highly effective border wall were installed. Another 250 miles of this wall still needs to be built.
The six-inch square bollards are hollow pipes that are mostly 30 feet tall (18 feet in a few places). They are placed 4 inches apart, which allows border patrol agents to see what is happening on the other side. They are made of 3/16-inch steel, and in the bottom 10 feet of each bollard they are filled with concrete and rebar. They have a foundation that extends between six and 10 feet underground, and fiber-optic cable is planted in the ground to detect digging.
Opponents say the bollards can be cut through with modern power equipment, which I do not deny, but cutting through steel, concrete, and rebar is difficult, noisy, and time-consuming. Border patrol agents can arrest the intruder for the crime of damaging government property, and any damage can be quickly repaired.
Then what about individuals who use a ladder to climb over the wall? First, a 30-foot-high wall is a significant obstacle, and getting down on the other side would be both difficult and dangerous. In addition, whether someone enters by climbing over the wall or by squeezing through a 14-inch breach in the wall, they can only come one at a time, not 500-1000 at a time as they could across an open field. The ladder can be quickly confiscated by border agents and the individual wall climbers can be immediately deported.
The idea of a wall as a protection against evildoers is found several times in the Bible. The people of Israel long ago recognized that a strong city wall gave people a sense of peace and security, a feeling that they were being protected from those who would harm them. One prayer of blessing for Jerusalem was, “Peace be within your walls and security within your towers!” (Psalm 122:7). In addition, rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem is a major theme of the entire book of Nehemiah. In fact, Nehemiah himself calls building the wall a “great work” (Neh. 6:3).
6 . To help Israel win its war
After the horrendous attacks by Hamas on Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023, the world was shocked to learn that they had intentionally targeted civilians, not military installations, and they brutally tortured and murdered women, teenagers, and even tiny babies. They had been secretly planning such an attack for years.
The first response from President Biden was an excellent statement in support of our ally Israel, in which he said that Israel is our ally and it certainly has a right to defend itself from such attacks. But in his subsequent actions, Biden has backtracked, refusing to give some kinds of weapons and bombs that Israel said it needed, slow-walking deliveries of other ammunition and weapons, and sometimes refusing to share information from our intelligence gathering services. He has attempted to micro-manage Israel’s response to Hamas and Hezbollah, telling Israel which targets they could attack and which they could not attack if they wanted to continue to receive American arms and other aid in the war effort.
In the first barrage of hundreds of missiles that Iran launched toward Israel, the Israeli defense system known as Iron Dome, together with help from some American aircraft, shot down all or almost all the Iranian missiles. President Biden’s response was to say that Israel should “take the win,” implying that they should not retaliate against Iran.
President Biden does not understand that shooting down enemy missiles does not end the conflict because, unless there is retaliation, Iran will attack Israel with more missiles week after week. The approach of Biden and other Democrats would mean that Israel could only play defense, not offense. It would result in national suicide because, eventually, Israel will run out of anti-missile ammunition for its Iron Dome system. Over the past year, Biden has shown the United States to be an unreliable ally for Israel at the time of its most profound need for an ally on which it could depend.
President Trump would be a much more reliable ally for Israel. The people of Israel follow American politics quite closely, and 88% who support Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu are hoping that Donald Trump will once again become president of the United States. Overall, 58% of Israelis believe Donald Trump would be better for Israel’s security, and 54%-24% prefer Trump over Harris for president. They know that he will stand firmly with them until they have won a decisive victory over the members of Hamas, Hezbollah, and other hostile forces that surround them and want to drive all Jewish people out of the Middle East entirely, and even off the face of the earth.
The comments from Kamala Harris have been more disturbing. She has what seems to be a memorized answer in which she says (1) we need a cease-fire, (2) we need a “deal,” and (3) we need to establish a two-state solution. (This means allowing Israel to exist as a nation but giving up some of its territory to create a separate Palestinian nation.)
She does not seem to realize that a separate Palestinian nation next to Israel would just become a staging ground for a similar surprise attack on Israel, whether five or seven or 10 years from now. Israel had no choice but to seek a total victory over Hamas, Hezbollah, and many similar organizations, just as the United States and its allies fought until there was a total victory over Hitler and Japan in World War II. I do not think that Israel has any other choice but to pursue the war until all of the members of those organizations have either been killed or else captured and imprisoned.
7. To obtain a lasting peace in the Middle East
In a development unique in modern history, Donald Trump, in his first term as president, was able to broker the Abraham Accords, a set of historic agreements that established normal diplomatic relationships between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Israel and Bahrain, Israel and Sudan, and Israel and Morocco, in August and September of 2020. If he is reelected as president, Trump intends to expand the Abraham accords to include still other Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia.
As these agreements spread to other Arab nations, they hold the promise of finally achieving a peaceful coexistence between Israel and its neighboring countries.
God promised Abraham the entire land Israel now occupies in the Middle East. According to the book of Genesis, God said, “And I will give to you and your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God" (Genesis 17:8). Then the promise is repeated to Abraham’s grandson Jacob: God said, “I will make of you a company of peoples and will give this land to your offspring after you for an everlasting possession” (Genesis 48:4). My only comment is that “everlasting” is a very long period of time.
8. To make our military once again the strongest on earth
The United States is no longer the sole superpower in the world. China’s Navy is now larger than ours, and its ships are newer. (The US Navy has 219 warships and the Chinese Navy has 234 warships.) Moreover, China has 232 times more shipbuilding capacity than the United States. If the present trend continues, China will soon have enough warships to strangle global shipments of goods and essentially shut down the economic system of any nation they wish to coerce.
China’s air force is nearly equal to ours and will soon surpass us. China’s army, military weaponry for outer space, and cyber warfare capabilities are rapidly expanding and will soon rival American power in these areas.`.
But in budget negotiations every year in Congress, Democrats continually oppose any significant increases in defense spending. If defense allocations proposed by the Democrats are corrected for inflation, every budget submitted by President Biden has allocated less money for defense than the previous year.
In addition, Democrats have insisted for many years that they will not support any Republican proposals for increasing defense spending unless Republicans agree to an equal increase in social welfare spending. This is because the more people Democrats can make dependent on government welfare payments, the more votes there will be for Democratic candidates.
This Democratic strategy reflects a callous disregard for our national security, but it also puts Republicans in a terrible position. Suppose they are concerned about the future survival of the United States and our ability to defend ourselves against possible aggression from hostile nations such as China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, and North Korea. In that case, they know that we need more money for defense. But suppose the only way to increase defense spending is also to increase social welfare spending. In that case, this means that Republicans are forced to agree to funding that helps their political opponents and hurts their own chances for reelection. They can gain money for defense only if they decide to allocate money that will hurt or defeat them politically.
At this point someone may object that the United States spends far more on defense than any other nation, and certainly far more than China. But comparing the number of dollars spent does not tell the whole story because China is a totalitarian state that can compel its people to work for a pittance, whereas Americans who work in the defense industry are well-paid and have a much higher standard of living. The fact remains that China’s military forces are increasing in strength far faster than ours, and it is only Republican officeholders who have shown that they are willing to allocate enough money for us to stay ahead of China and other hostile nations.
In the Bible, if the nation of Israel was obedient to God and served him faithfully, he promised to give them military victories over those who would maliciously attack them: “"The LORD will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways”(Deuteronomy 28:7).
CRIME-RELATED REASONS TO VOTE FOR REPUBLICANS
9. To make our cities safe again
Our cities used to be safe. I can remember walking at night -- sometimes alone, sometimes with my wife -- in the downtown areas of several of our great cities – New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Atlanta, Chicago, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco, and probably some others. I felt perfectly safe because the police presence was strong and the streets were peaceful. These cities had reached a condition of “domestic tranquility” (that is, peace and safety). In fact, the first sentence in the U.S. Constitution says that one purpose of government is to “ensure domestic tranquility. ”
Today I wouldn’t walk into the centers of those cities at night. The proliferation of physical assaults, muggings, carjackings, arson, and even murders tells me that “domestic tranquility” no longer exists in those cities. They have become dangerous hotbeds of crime.
All of these cities have one thing in common: they are run by Democrats. They have Democratic mayors and a majority of Democrats on the city council.
This is important because many Democrats favor policies that allow crime to flourish with no effective deterrent. Rather than holding a wrongdoer responsible for his or her actions, they tend to blame “society” in general. For example, (1) the movement to “defund the police” was led almost entirely by Democrats, and it resulted in police departments that were over-regulated and underfunded. It significantly depressed police morale and hindered recruitment. (2) It is Democratic local prosecutors who refuse to bring charges against many criminals, allowing them to be released. (3) It is a state dominated by Democrats (California) that passed a foolish referendum that classifies shoplifting of merchandise under $950 as a misdemeanor, which criminals know will not be prosecuted. (4) It is city governments dominated by Democrats that have ordered police departments not to enforce laws against vagrancy, open drug use, drunkenness, and public urination and defecation, resulting in massive homeless encampments that leave entire neighborhoods filthy and dangerous.
These actions are consistent with a liberal (or politically left or progressive) conviction that all human beings are basically good and that people who commit crimes do so because of “society,” which somehow failed them. Therefore, the best solution is not punishment but therapy and compassion.
In contrast to this liberal viewpoint, there is some ancient wisdom in the Bible that says that crime proliferates when evil deeds are not punished:
Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil (Ecclesiastes 8:11).
This implies that prompt punishment of evil deeds is the most effective deterrent against crime, and failure to punish criminal activity actually hurts people’s hearts – they become “fully set to do evil.”
This verse also suggests that the opposite may be true: When “the sentence against an evil deed” is punished “speedily,” the hearts of the people of that society will not be “fully set to do evil.” In other words, prompt and just punishment of criminal acts will have a positive impact on society's moral condition as a whole.
I will vote for Republicans because they have a much better record of making cities peaceful and safe. It is Republicans, not Democrats, who will “ensure domestic tranquility” in America.
“DEEP STATE” REASONS TO VOTE FOR REPUBLICANS
10. To appoint 3,000 conservative Republicans to powerful federal offices instead of 3000 liberal Democrats
Every president has the authority to appoint about 3,000 senior officials to oversee all agencies and smaller departments in our vast federal government. Some of these appointments need Senate approval, but many do not. These 3,000 appointees will run agencies such as the IRS, the FBI, the CIA, the Secret Service, all the branches of our military, the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department, the FDA, the FCC, OSHA, the EEOC, the EPA, and on and on they go. These government agencies have regulatory authority over our lives that is much greater than we realize. Sometimes, people refer to these agencies as the “deep state.”
If Kamala Harris becomes president, she will appoint 3,000 far-left, ultra-liberal officials whose primary goal in life will be to take control over more and more of our daily lives. Some of these appointments are only for the duration of the president’s term (four years), but many of them (such as judges) are permanent until the officeholder retires or dies.
If Donald Trump becomes president, he will appoint 3,000 conservative officials who are convinced that we need a smaller federal government with less control over our lives. As they did during Trump’s first term, they will cancel hundreds of regulations and increase our personal freedoms. In various ways they will reduce the power of the so-called “deep state” over our government and over our lives.
The relevant biblical principles here are (1) the limitation of government authority to punishing those who do evil and rewarding those who do good (1 Peter 2:14), so that the government does not have minute control over people’s everyday activities, and (2) the value of personal freedom as opposed to personal slavery (“Let my people go,” Exodus 7:16; see also Philemon 1:21).
11. To appoint hundreds of additional judges who interpret and apply the laws but do not create new laws
The United States Constitution established a system of government in which the immense powers of government were separated into three branches, the legislative, executive, and judicial. The system wisely separated the power to make laws (given to the legislative branch) from the power to interpret and apply laws (the judicial branch).
If these roles are not separated, the power to make laws would be transferred from the branch of government that is most accountable to the people (because 1/3 of senators and all members of the House are up for election every two years) to the branch of government that is least accountable to the people (because federal judges are appointed for life and never have to stand for reelection).
Leading Democrats have expressed a desire to pack the Supreme Court by adding to the number of its justices several more members who will enact their liberal policies by judicial decrees rather than by majority vote in Congress. The result would be a dangerous weakening of the system of checks and balances that has kept our country so strong for over 200 years.
In his book The Tempting of America, conservative legal scholar Robert Bork wrote in 1990 that
the abandonment of original understanding in modern times means the transportation into the Constitution of the principles of a liberal culture that cannot achieve those results democratically. This difference about the proper role of courts is what the battle over my confirmation was about underneath, but not what it was about in the public campaign.
(Bork had been a professor at Yale law school, the Solicitor General of the United States, and a judge on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. Ronald Reagan nominated him for the Supreme Court in 1987, but Democratic opponents in the Senate succeeded in denying his approval by the Senate.)
President Trump and other Republican candidates will appoint, as they have opportunity at the national and state level, judges who will rule according to the original meaning of the words of the Constitution and the laws that have subsequently been passed but will not create new laws in their rulings.
The biblical principle that is relevant here is the command to be subject to the governing authorities in a nation. “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God” (Romans 13:1).
In the United States, the ultimate governing authority is not a person or an office but a document, the United States Constitution. Elected and appointed officials, on taking their oath of office, promise to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” However, when judges fail to follow the original meaning of the text of the Constitution and claim that today it is a living document that means something else, they are no longer subject to the highest governing authority in our country.
12. To stop powerful government agencies from interfering in American politics
under President Obama and more recently under President Biden (both Democrats), the IRS, the FBI, the CIA, and the Department of Justice have acted in partisan political actions against Republicans and, in particular, Donald Trump. Rather than a contest between two candidates who enjoy the same rights and privileges and protections, several Republicans have found out that they are Candidate A running against Candidate B and government agents C, D, and E.
This would be similar to a basketball game in which the referees constantly issued penalties in favor of team B, claimed that team A had committed fouls when, in fact, they had not, and even used false accusations to eject the top scorer for team A from the game.
I find it disappointing that we have not seen dozens of Democratic leaders speak out against this kind of “lawfare” (using the legal system to attack one’s political opponents). For example, Alvin Bragg, the Democratic District Attorney for Manhattan, campaigned on a promise that he would pursue Trump if he became District Attorney before he even knew of any specific way Trump had broken the law. The New York Attorney General, Letitia James, has also made going after Donald Trump a priority of her office. The process was to pick out the victim first and then look for some crime second.
In my opinion, every American citizen, both Democrats and Republicans, should clearly renounce such use of the judicial system as a political weapon. This practice is characteristic of many Third World countries but has not been seen before in the United States. One way to express disapproval of this practice would be to vote against Democrats at every level in the next election.
The relevant biblical principle here is the moral wrong involved in deciding that someone is guilty before there is any evidence that the person has broken the law. “He who justifies the wicked and he who condemns the righteous are both alike an abomination to the LORD” (Proverbs 17:15).
OTHER REASONS TO VOTE FOR REPUBLICANS
13. To give unborn children some degree of legal protection
The positions of Democrats and Republicans are very different on the question of abortion. Many pro-life voters within the Republican Party believe that the unborn child should be protected as a distinct person from the moment of conception. Therefore, an abortion should only be legal if necessary to save the life of the mother. That is my own view, based on Psalm 51:5, where King David looks back on his early life and says he was sinful from the moment his mother conceived him. However, having an attribute of sinfulness is a human quality characteristic only of individual human beings.
I realize, however, from the voting patterns and discussions in state legislatures that there is not enough political support among voters to successfully pass legislation prohibiting abortion from the moment of conception. Therefore, I would personally support any proposed law that would give some protection to the unborn child. Several states have adopted a ban on abortion after the 15th week of pregnancy, except to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest. I do not consider this a perfect law, but it is far better than no protection on the unborn baby’s life right up until birth.
The position of Democrats, at least those in recognized leadership positions among Democrats, is that no restriction should be placed on abortion at any point until the baby is born, and sometimes not even then. Democrats often will say they agree that abortion should be prohibited by law after 15 weeks of pregnancy (or some other period) except when necessary “to protect the life or health of the mother.” But then “health” is defined to include mental and emotional health, which can mean simply that the mother believes she will be happier after the abortion.
So, the two positions can be briefly summarized. Republicans want some protection on the life of the unborn child and Democrats want no protection on the life of the unborn child. I believe that the Republican position is closer to the teachings of the Bible.
Finally, I realize that there are strong differences over the issue of abortion, and I respect the right of American citizens to express their views and to give reasons why they support them. Still, it causes me to doubt the ability of any political party to make trustworthy ethical decisions on political issues when that party makes the primary emphasis of its advertising to be not the economy, immigration, national defense, crime, education, China, Israel, or climate and energy policy, but rather giving legal protection to the act of putting unborn children to death.
14. To protect religious freedom
The world’s major religions contain teachings about morally right and wrong conduct. Therefore, true freedom of religion cannot be restricted to cover only activities carried out within a church building (“freedom of worship”), but must include freedom to live according to the teachings of one’s religious community in everyday life.
In the United States today, it is Democrats who have shown a troubling pattern of attempting to deny people their religious freedom. It is not Republicans but Democrats who try to require pro-life doctors and nurses to perform or assist at an abortion or issue Education Department regulations that require schools to allow men who claim to be transgender to compete in women’s sports and enter women’s bathrooms and locker rooms. It is Democratic administrators in schools who insist that teachers address men who claim to be women as “she” and “her.” It is Democratic lawyers and civil rights commissioners who demand that artistic professionals such as wedding cake designers create a cake celebrating a same-sex marriage or a transgender surgery. All of these are attempts to compel committed Christians to violate their consciences or put their jobs and careers in jeopardy.
By contrast, Republicans have been defenders of religious freedom in all these areas.
The biblical principle involved is a requirement throughout the entire Bible to obey God even when a governmental authority commands disobedience to some of God’s laws. For example, when the Jewish authorities prohibited the early apostles from preaching about Jesus, Peter and the other apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).
15. To protect freedom of speech
It is Democrats who have repeatedly censored conservative political viewpoints by denying them access to media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter (now known as X). The most egregious example occurred when Twitter shut down President Donald Trump’s Twitter account on January 9, 2021 (he was still president until January 20). Facebook recently silenced any positive comments about the movie “Reagan” (a sympathetic biography of Ronald Reagan) and in October, 2020, one month before the presidential election, Facebook silenced any coverage of the legitimacy of Hunter Biden’s laptop and the information found on it.
But a democracy cannot function effectively unless freedom of speech is protected for both liberal and conservative political views. About platforms as pervasive as Facebook and Twitter, silencing certain messages or persons through content discrimination would be similar to a TV network not allowing one of our two political parties to buy advertising time on their network. Freedom of speech must include equal access to the major means of communication.
For instance, Facebook staffers had sought to delete Donald Trump’s posts calling for restrictions on Muslim immigration as violating the company’s hate speech. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stated that he “caved into” pressure from the Biden-Harris White House and suppressed content that was critical of the administration’s policies regarding COVID-19. Donald Trump was banned from both Twitter (before Elon Musk purchased it) and Facebook. Other conservative outlets such as the Western Journal and Independent Journal Review were recently banned from Facebook as well.
In the Bible, the narrative history repeatedly shows the evil of attempts to silence God’s servants and keep others from hearing what they are saying, as when Jeremiah was put in a cistern (Jeremiah 38:6), or Herod put John the Baptist in prison (Luke 3:19-20), or Paul’s enemies chased him out of city after city (many places in Acts). The ability to speak to others in an attempt to persuade them is an essential part of human liberty, which the Bible values highly (see Exodus 20:2; Leviticus 25:10; Deuteronomy 30:19; Isaiah 61:1).
16. To keep men from competing in women’s sports.
It is Democrats who have demanded that males who claim to be transgender females must be allowed to compete as females in women’s sports competitions.
This has resulted in some colleges choosing to forfeit girls’ volleyball games to protect their athletes from harm from physically stronger males who claim to be females,
In 2023, the high school girls’ basketball team at Mid Vermont Christian School forfeited a game against a team with a male player. As a result, the Vermont Principals’ Association (VPA) responded by expelling the school from all VPA sports and activities.
In addition, several other female track athletes have filed lawsuits after they lost races and scholarship opportunities to male track athletes claiming to be female.
The Biden administration also wants to make rule changes that would redefine “sex” in Title IX to include “gender identity,” resulting in even fewer opportunities for women in sports by allowing men who identify as women to take their places.
The Bible states clearly that God created human beings with two genders, male and female, and that men and women are equal in value before God but still very different from each other. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (Genesis 1:27).
17. To respond to climate change/global warming with realistic solutions
Democrats are convinced that when people produce energy by burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas, we are filling the earth’s atmosphere with more carbon dioxide, and this is a “greenhouse gas” that will soon cause catastrophic global warming in which polar ice will melt and cause the oceans to rise to intolerably destructive levels. Therefore they insist that we must substantially reduce or eliminate entirely our use of fossil fuels.
But this approach's fatal flaw is that it fails to compare costs and benefits. The costs of reducing or eliminating our reliance on fossil fuels are astronomical. Coal, oil, and natural gas are the most plentiful, portable, reliable, and economical sources of power in the entire world. The plans of those Democrats who warn us of catastrophic climate change would require us to abandon these cheap and reliable energy sources for more expensive sources (wind and solar) that are unreliable because they cannot produce energy when the wind stops blowing and the sun stops shining. Reliance on these power sources will lead to intolerably higher energy costs and frequent electrical blackouts such as those commonly experienced in Third World countries and now more recently in Texas and California.
The climate change “remedies” supported by Democrats are being promoted at the very time when economists are predicting massive increases in our demand for electrical power, in large measure because of the advent of Artificial Intelligence with its astounding power consumption, but also because of increasing demand from electronic vehicles.
They plan for the federal government to force us to abandon our cheapest and most reliable energy sources and replace them with expensive and unreliable ones. They would have us shutter the costly and reliable power plants that we already have and build new wind and solar plants that are much less reliable and expensive.
Consistent with the Democratic desire to expand the federal government until it runs more and more of our personal lives, various Democratic leaders have called for, and in some states enacted, a ban on gas stoves, gas clothes dryers, gas water heaters, and other similar appliances. They want to require that in a few years, half of all cars sold in the United States be electric vehicles, regardless of the fact that many consumers just don’t want to give up their gas-powered vehicles.
The benefits are also doubtful. The earth’s temperature variations are not the result of carbon dioxide alone but are caused by multiple factors, including other greenhouse gases; variable amounts of water vapor in the air; variable size, composition, location, and altitude of clouds; variable strength and precise location and timing of deep ocean currents; variations in solar activity; and slight variations in the elliptical orbit of the earth around the sun.
But human beings cannot successfully predict, much less change, the locations and composition of clouds, the location, timing, and size of ocean currents, and changes in solar activity. Further complexity arises when some of these factors interact with others in ways not yet fully understood. In any case, the slight warming of the earth that we have seen in the last decades has not been caused by the use of fossil fuels alone but has happened due to changes in all of these factors.
In addition, even if the United States were to cut its carbon dioxide emissions to zero, this would have almost no effect on global warming because India, China, and many of the world’s poorer nations continue to build electrical plants that burn coal, oil, and natural gas—often in ways that pollute the atmosphere far more than any American power plants.
In short, the campaign to reduce our use of fossil fuels will impose intolerably high costs (several trillions of dollars) with almost no measurable benefit.
A better solution is to make plans to adapt to a slightly warmer earth, recognizing that throughout history Earth has experienced long cycles of warming and cooling, and we are in the warming part of one of those cycles. In past centuries, there have always been self-correcting mechanisms within the vast complexities of the Earth’s weather, so that the Earth has never become unbearably hot or unbearably cold, but has gone from average temperatures about 3.6°F below the historical average to average temperatures about 3.6°F above the historical average in cycles that repeat over and over again through the centuries.
There is also a theological argument that we should not fear catastrophic man-made global warming. Do we think God set up the earth so that we would destroy it by obeying God’s commands to develop the earth’s resources (see Genesis 1:28) and use them for our benefit? Do we really think that he set up the earth so that when we burn coal to produce electricity to cook food; when we burn gasoline to drive to work, school, or church; when we use diesel fuel to transport food, clothing, and household goods from farm or factory to market; or when we burn oil, coal, or natural gas to produce electricity to heat or cool our homes, or to provide light, that the more we do these morally right things, the more we will destroy the earth?
I do not think God made the earth to work that way—so that we would inevitably destroy it by obeying his commands. Rather, I think that God put wood on the earth, and coal, oil, and natural gas in the earth, so that we could have abundant, easily transportable sources of fuel for use in various applications.
The Bible also says that God controls the level of the seas. Psalm 104:9 says, regarding the waters of the seas, “You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth.” And in Jeremiah, God says:
I placed the sand as the boundary for the sea,
a perpetual barrier that it cannot pass;
though the waves toss, they cannot prevail;
though they roar, they cannot pass over it. (Jer. 5:22)
Instead of agreeing with Democratic demands that we continually reduce our use of fossil fuels, Republican candidates generally have taken a much wiser “all of the above” approaches to sources of energy, approving the use of wind or solar power where it is economically beneficial but also favoring the continued use of fossil fuels so that the United States can become not only energy independent but energy dominant in the world. Republicans point out that we have more “liquid gold” (oil and natural gas) under our feet than any other nation, and we should use it wisely. And Republicans generally favor increasing our use of nuclear power.
18. To begin to pay down our national debt
Unfortunately, neither Democrats nor Republicans have paid much attention to the growing crisis of our massive national debt, which now stands at $35.8 trillion (this equals $106,000 per person in the United States). We now spend more paying interest on the national debt than we do on defense spending every year. And hardly anyone is paying attention.
But a few Republicans, such as my own Congressman David Schweikert, have continued to speak bluntly and honestly about this problem. I hope they will persuade others within the Republican Party. Suppose Republicans win a majority in both the House and Senate, plus the presidency. In that case, they will be able to propose a budget that shows they take this threat seriously and that starts paying down this debt rather than leaving it for our grandchildren.
“The wicked borrows but does not pay back” (Psalm 37:21).
19. To see a rebirth of patriotism
There are no doubt many patriotic individuals in both the Democrat and Republican parties, but it is also true that patriotism is more evident and celebrated more extensively at Republican political rallies. This is evident from an abundance of American flags, from the repeated chants of “USA! USA!”, and from the frequent renditions of Lee Greenwood’s song “God Bless the USA.”
Peter commands his readers to “Honor the emperor” (1 Peter 2:17). And while I never want to put pressure on anyone to affirm something that he or she does not believe, I also appreciate the freedom to sing songs like “God Bless the USA” and “God Bless America.” We read in the psalms, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD!” (Psalm 33:12).
To vote for Republican candidates is to encourage a culture in which public celebrations of patriotism are not mocked but are respected and appreciated.
20. To stop Kamala Harris from becoming president
Since Kamala Harris became the Democratic nominee for president on August 7, 2024, she has made few specific announcements about policy issues and she has been both evasive and vague about policy preferences, so nobody really knows exactly what kind of policies she would follow. But her evasiveness suggests that she is hiding her deep beliefs.
In previous years, Harris has spoken or voted against fracking, against the border wall, and against drilling for oil in a tiny corner of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. Other policies that she has supported and that place her to the far left of American political figures include the following:
1. She once vowed to eliminate the filibuster to pass the far-left “Green New Deal.”
2. She has a 100% approval rating from Planned Parenthood for her support of unlimited abortion. The organization, Reproductive Freedom for All, says that “Nobody … has fought as hard [as Harris] for abortion rights and access"
3. She supported the decision of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to cut the Los Angeles police budget by $150 million as part of the more significant “Defund the Police” movement.
4. She would extend federal discrimination laws to include gender identity.
5. She previously supported significant reductions to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency) operations, including drastic cuts in funding and an open-ended pledge to "end" immigration detention.
6. She has written that she supports government funding for gender transition surgery for detained immigrants and federal prisoners.
Conclusion
Voting for Republican candidates at the national and state and local levels is the best way of supporting policies that will be best for the nation, the most consistent with our Constitution, and the most consistent with biblical values.
Wayne Grudem is a Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus of Theology and Biblical Studies at Phoenix Seminary in Arizona. The opinions expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and should not be understood to represent the opinions of Phoenix Seminary.