Faith, Voting, and Speaking Up
A couple reflects on the election, their changing political support, and how their understanding of Scripture shapes their views on abortion, gender, parenting, and public responsibility.
Processing the election
It has been over a week since the election, and Donald Trump is the president-elect. After a wild season, Rhoda and I wanted to sit down, decompress, and talk about how we voted and how we arrived at that decision.
This is our perspective. Other people, including people who share our faith, may have landed differently. We want to explain how we approached it and what mattered to us.
The lens we start with
Our worldview is what you might traditionally call a biblical worldview. We try to look at Scripture first, understand what it says, and then consider where we are in our culture and society.
We believe the Word of God is alive and remains applicable across time. It is the filter we try to use when making decisions, taking a position, and voting for a candidate.
Values before party
Our vote is not permanently attached to one party. In another election, we may have to go in a different direction.
We rank the values that matter to us and ask which choice best fits those values at that moment. We know that other people who describe their worldview as biblical reached a different conclusion this election. This conversation explains ours.
Why we supported Republicans this time
When we compare the two viable major parties, we currently see the Republican Party as the only one we can support in good conscience.
We try to engage arguments honestly, consider different angles, and give people a fair hearing. But on the issues we consider most important, we cannot support the Democratic Party in its current form.
That was not always our position
We supported Barack Obama in his first election and remained supporters into his second term. His ability to communicate, his apparent competence, and the historic significance of his presidency all mattered to us.
During his second term, some of his policies changed our support. Because we had been outspoken in supporting him, we also became outspoken about our disagreement. In our view, the Democratic Party has moved further from our values since then.
Where our views on sex and gender begin
One major point of disagreement was the party's approach to gay rights and, later, gender identity. We understand the biblical account of creation to establish male and female.
That understanding shapes why we disagree with claims that a man can become a woman or a woman can become a man, and why we question the expanding language around gender.
A spiritual concern
We see these disagreements as more than political or psychological questions. In our view, they reflect the spiritual health of the culture.
We believe that turning away from what God has established opens the door to confusion. That is why we cannot separate our political decisions from our spiritual convictions.
Why abortion became decisive
Abortion was another defining issue for us. We reject the idea that ending an unborn child's life should be treated simply as a matter of women's rights or health.
We also see a contradiction in a culture that speaks about men becoming pregnant while advocating abortion for women. Our position begins with the conviction that pregnancy involves a human life that should be protected.
Challenge the party you support
We have friends and family who believe other problems outweigh these concerns. We disagree, but our challenge is this: if you support a party, speak against the wrong you see within it.
We believe more Christians publicly challenging policies they oppose could help bring reform. For us, the Democratic Party cannot have our support unless it changes on these issues.
The election did not end the work
A Republican victory does not make these disagreements disappear. We believe cultural reform is still needed, and that the church has a responsibility to speak.
We are concerned that people remain quiet because they fear losing a job, being criticized, or standing apart from their peers. At the same time, we are thankful for Christians who prayed, fasted, interceded, and spoke publicly during the election.
What we hope will change
We hope this election creates room for people in media, entertainment, and public life to question policies they previously felt unable to challenge.
Our concerns include male participation in women's sports, sexual content directed at children, and medical interventions related to children's gender identity. We believe people who disagree with these policies should say so, including when the politicians they otherwise support promote them.
Private protection is not the whole answer
We understand the desire to shield our own children, including through homeschooling. But families still encounter the wider culture in stores, workplaces, media, and public spaces.
Winning an election does not end abortion or remove the practices we oppose. That is why we believe our responsibility extends beyond voting and beyond what happens inside our own homes.
The biblical basis for our position on life
For us, the command against murder is central to the abortion question. We understand unborn life to fall under that protection.
We also look to passages that describe God's knowledge of a person before birth and his work in forming life in the womb.
14 I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are Your works, and I know this very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in secret, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all my days were written in Your book and ordained for me before one of them came to be.
Our disagreement includes Republicans
Supporting Republicans does not mean we agree with every Republican position. We disagree with Donald Trump allowing for abortion or leaving its regulation to the states.
During our conversation, we were not certain of the specific gestational limits he supported. Our point was that any allowance for abortion falls short of our position. We consider his approach preferable to the Democratic position, but not fully consistent with our convictions.
Pregnancy makes this personal
Being pregnant brings this close to home. Before a belly begins to show, the body may already be responding through nausea, exhaustion, food aversions, or other changes.
Those experiences reinforce our conviction that a life is forming within the womb. Calling that life a fetus does not change its value to us.
The language we use matters
We believe people sometimes change the language around an action to quiet their conscience. In our view, describing abortion only as women's health obscures what happens to the unborn child.
We see that language as a way of encouraging women to support something we believe harms their own children, while presenting it as advocacy on their behalf.
There are options beyond two choices
Some people genuinely feel unable to raise a child. We do not dismiss that difficulty. But we reject the idea that the only choices are raising the child yourself or having an abortion.
Adoption is another option. Churches, Catholic organizations, and other nonprofits may also offer pregnancy support, food, practical resources, and help caring for a baby. There are people who want children but cannot have them.
Pressure, circumstances, and responsibility
We recognize that some people have had abortions while uninformed, misled, or pressured by a boyfriend or family member.
Our conviction remains that education, career plans, or difficult circumstances do not justify ending an unborn child's life. We believe both parents should take responsibility, and that carrying a child and arranging an adoption is an alternative when they cannot raise the child themselves.
For those who do not want a pregnancy, abstaining from sexual intercourse is also part of the responsibility we discussed.
Why we do not see the parties as equivalent
We are not claiming Republicans are perfect. But we do not see the parties' problems as equivalent on the issues that decided our vote.
Our strongest objections concern abortion, the protection of children, and the meaning of male and female. We do not have the same objections to many ordinary policy differences. These moral questions are what prevent us from supporting Democrats in their current form.
Protection rather than destruction
We connect our concern for vulnerable children with Jesus' contrast between destruction and life.
In our understanding, attacking a child in the womb or early in life threatens someone before they can grow into their purpose. That is why protecting the vulnerable is so central to this conversation for us.
How seriously Jesus treats children
Jesus' warning about causing little ones to stumble shows us how seriously he regards their protection.
We also understand children to be a heritage from the Lord, described as arrows in the hands of a warrior. What God gives as a blessing is something we believe we must protect.
4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are children born in one’s youth.
5 Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. He will not be put to shame when he confronts the enemies at the gate.
Faithfulness in a troubled world
We also discussed Paul's call for God's children to live blamelessly in a corrupt world, alongside Jesus' words about the little ones and their angels before the Father.
These passages reinforce our belief that children are precious and that believers should not simply accept whatever the surrounding culture approves.
16 as you hold forth the word of life, in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain.
A person's value is not their location
We believe an unborn baby is already a human being. A person's value does not begin when they leave the womb.
Whether someone is in the womb or outside it, in America or Africa, Black, white, or Asian, a human being is a human being. That is the principle behind our position.
We cannot decide another person's story
A child may face a difficult beginning, including poverty or time in the care system. We do not believe that gives someone else the right to decide that the child's life should end.
We see those circumstances as part of a story whose outcome we cannot know. Our responsibility is not to determine in advance that another person's life will not be worth living.
The limits of our understanding
Ecclesiastes reminds us that we do not fully understand how life forms in the womb or all the works of God.
For us, that calls for humility. We do not give life, and we do not believe we have the right to take an innocent life because we predict hardship or question that child's future.
How we try to exercise our political rights
We approach politics unapologetically through a biblical worldview. We are not saying we are perfect or that our understanding of Scripture is complete.
To the best of our ability, we try to read honestly, compare what Scripture teaches with what we see around us, support what we believe is right, and challenge what we believe is wrong.
What our silence teaches
We believe speaking up is part of our responsibility as believers. We also have to consider what our children learn from watching us.
If we stay silent whenever a subject becomes uncomfortable, what are we teaching them? For us, this is a spiritual struggle, and we believe our convictions should be communicated rather than hidden for convenience.
Four convictions behind our vote
- We believe abortion is the taking of an innocent human life.
- We believe men and women are different.
- We believe parents have a right and responsibility to raise and protect their children. Children are not the property of the government.
- We believe children should not be sexualized, exploited, or led into confusion.
Questioning what God has said
We compared today's debates with the serpent questioning God's instruction in the garden. In our view, the temptation begins by casting doubt on what God has established and suggesting that we know better.
That is how we understand the move from accepting male and female to treating that distinction as too limiting. We see a danger in becoming wise in our own eyes.
2 The woman answered the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden,
3 but about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You must not eat of it or touch it, or you will die.’”
4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent told her.
5 “For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eyes, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom, she took the fruit and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it.
A purpose beyond election day
The election is over, but the social issues are not. We believe God has placed each of us here for a purpose in his kingdom.
We spoke about Jesus being entrusted to Mary as an example of a child being given into a parent's care and growing toward his purpose. That conviction informs how we think about the responsibility to welcome and raise children.
Wherever we work, whether in politics, accounting, or corporate life, we believe we should speak from our convictions rather than simply blend in.
Courage needs understanding
Speaking the truth is often inconvenient and unpopular. But zeal by itself is not enough.
We have a responsibility to understand what we are reading, consider its context, and understand what our culture is doing. Once we have done that work and reached a conviction to the best of our ability, we believe we should gather our courage and speak.
Our closing prayer
May God empower us to hear him, understand his Word, have conviction, and obey with courage.
This is our stance and how we approached voting. We want to be bold, faithful, and willing to say what we believe is right, even when it is uncomfortable.
