The Immoral Majority: Why Evangelicals Chose Political Power Over Christian Values

by Ben Howe

In other words, almost anything these days that you would expect Christians to condemn or oppose is not condemned or opposed because, as they see it, there is a greater moral consideration that takes precedence.

Coming around to the idea that many Christians weren’t self-aware sinners who were striving to be Christ-like was something that I obviously took a long time to acknowledge. Recognizing that evangelicals had gone a step further, into the realm of self-delusion and moral superiority, took even longer.

For a great many evangelicals, the word power was exactly what they wanted to hear. The idea of having it, and wielding it, was more than intoxicating. It was a lifeline. And in the end, it’s what many absolutely believe Trump as president has given them.

Jerry Falwell Jr., the head of the university founded to pass on Christian values to its students, to pass them on specifically so they can spread out into the population and culture, was emphatically and explicitly stating that it is not the responsibility, or even a matter of any particular interest, for Christians to support or follow or vote for someone who shares those values, or at least does not openly defy them.

This is a moral view, and a political view, but it is also, obviously, a supremely logical one. To expect that flow of philosophical influence to work in the reverse, with the government elected to mandate Christian values as law, would not serve to foster a Christian culture. It would incite rebellion and cultural decline. And I’d argue that in many ways it has.

The Bible goes to great lengths to make clear that while a Christian is to submit to earthly authority, it is obedience to God that is the motivation, not devotion to those leaders. And if those authorities require you to defy God’s ultimate authority, you are to consistently place your faith and allegiance in Him, even in defiance of that government.

The government did not change Daniel, though it tried. Daniel changed the government. Not through law. But through enduring faith.

If God’s kingdom were dependent upon the actions, words, and pathologies of Donald J. Trump, then, frankly, we have a pretty weak God, and I’m kind of counting on the idea that God is in control.

There simply is no pulling of a lever in a voting booth that will deny God His purpose when He pursues it, nor is there any pulling of the lever that will earn His allegiance to your “side.”

God would have accomplished (and will accomplish) His ends regardless of whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump is president. His victory is not our victory. His victory is all Christians voting in accordance with their conscience and in obedience to His values.

Far from being a judgment targeted specifically at evangelicals—despite the fact that in these pages I have singled that group out for criticism—the Immoral Majority is a group in which we can all claim membership. Every flawed human born in all of history. We all fall short, we all fail, and we are all guilty.

The important choice was never between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton—the important choice was between self-interest and the idolization of “winning” versus loving God and one another. And as I’ve demonstrated throughout these pages, far too many evangelicals have chosen the former over the latter.