I am a conservative Christian. I am for life. I spent my childhood at harvest festivals instead of Halloween parties and I haven’t had a sip of alcohol for years.
I believe in being fiscally conservative and a limited government. I voted for John McCain. My husband is a pastor, and I have personally read the front page of the Bible ten times. My faith is the foundation of my whole being, and for that reason I will not vote for Donald Trump.
This election is not just about politics. You want to know how I know that? Because a month ago I was walking downtown Boulder with two other minority women when a guy in a pickup truck passed us, rolled down his window and shouted, “TRUMP!!!”.
Interesting, isn’t it? That someone wanted to call out the name of the president to three brown girls he didn’t know. The message was clear: be afraid. He wanted to stir up fear, and the best way to do this was to call out the name “Trump”. I find that… problematic.
President Trump used the terms “foreigners”, “animals” and “rapists” to refer to immigrants. And when he became president, traffic to the white nationalist website Stormfront increased by about 3.5 million visitors. This is interesting to me as a Christian, because the whole history of Scripture depends on the preservation of Israel, a group that God had specifically commanded to welcome immigrants … to wait … immigrants. “If a stranger is in your land with you, you shall not wrong him. You shall treat the stranger who is with you as a native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in Egypt: I am the Lord your God. Leviticus 19:33-34
A friend of mine who is Muslim no longer feels safe wearing her hijab after being threatened with a knife and told to return to her country (she is an American citizen.) I am a Christian and I am so grateful to live in a country that grants me religious freedom – which of course does not only mean religious freedom. I want my girlfriend to be able to live out her faith in her country as well. Because I believe in charity, and I will choose in such a way that her faith will be protected as well as mine.
When Jesus is asked to give signs of the end in Luke 21:10, he says: “Nation will rise against nation”. By the way, the word he uses here is ethnos. So what Jesus is actually saying is that a sign of the end is that “ethnicity will rise against ethnicity” or race against race. Interestingly, according to a survey by the University of Monmouth, more than 60 percent of Americans say that racial relations in the United States are “generally bad. I would hope that Christians would help to speak into this division with the timeless truths of the Gospel, “to love one’s neighbor as oneself.
I would also like to remind my fellow Christians, as they enter the polling booth today, that they of all people should beware of bringing the Church into harmony with the State. In Luke 21:12 Jesus says: “They will seize you and persecute you. They will hand you over in synagogues and throw you into prison, and you will be brought before kings and governors, and all this for my name’s sake”.
It is interesting that what Jesus seems to describe here is an alignment of church and state. It seems that if you believe in the Bible, that Jesus is warning the Christians, when the church tries to ally with the government to take over power over its citizens, the end is near.
So no, I will not vote for Donald Trump. I will not seek Supreme Court power or political power at the expense of my commitment to a life focused on Christ. I am obligated to love my neighbor, including immigrants. I am committed to religious freedom, not only for myself but also for my Muslim friend who wants to wear her hijab. I will reject the idea that political power for the church is my goal. Because this is neither the Gospel nor is it “good news”.
People are hurt. Marginalized groups are targets. A team from the University of North Texas published a study that found that countries that held a Trump Campaign rally in 2016 had a 225 percent increase in reported hate incidents compared to counties that did not hold a rally.
If you are wondering how to vote as a Christian, here is my advice: Go to the most marginalized
