The Problem With Voting for Candidates With Biblical Values

[PAF]

By Laurence M. Vance
October 29, 2024


If you attend, or have attended, a conservative, evangelical, or fundamentalist church, you have probably been told how important it is to vote for candidates with family values, moral values, traditional values, or biblical values.

Now, I certainly support family values, moral values, traditional values, and biblical values, but I don’t partake of the sacrament of the American civil religion called voting. I have already made known my view of politics and given twenty reasons why I don’t vote so I won’t get into that here.

So, even though I support family values, moral values, traditional values, and biblical values, there is more often than not a problem with voting for candidates who claim to have, seem to have, or are said to have these values.

In a general election, where voters only have the choice between the blue team or the red team, socialist A or fascist B, the welfare statist or the warfare statist, or Tweedledumb or Tweedledee, voting for biblical values always means simply voting for the Republican candidate. Conservative, evangelical, and fundamentalist churches never come out and say that, but that is exactly what they want all of their church members to do. To avoid simply saying “vote Republican,” they preach, sometimes literally, voting for biblical values. Sometimes this is supplemented by publishing or promoting “voter guides” that make Democratic candidates look bad (not that that is hard to do) and Republican candidates look good—leaving the reader no doubt whom he should vote for.

In a primary election, where Christian voters are expected to choose between two or more Republican candidates (it would be a grave sin to be a registered Democrat and vote in the Democratic primary), they are told to vote for the candidate who best embodies or expresses biblical values.

But just what are these biblical values? Never mentioned are things like honesty, integrity, love, generosity, compassion, humility, charity, patience, and temperance. First and foremost is opposition to abortion. Then follows, not in any particular order, opposition to gay marriage, the transgender agenda, and marijuana legalization. Sometimes these “values” are supplemented by promises to fix public education by restoring prayer and Bible reading in public schools, posting the 10 Commandments in public schools, and removing objectionable books from school libraries.

Now, there is certainly nothing wrong with being opposed to abortion, gay marriage, and the transgender agenda—I vehemently oppose all three. Although I am personally opposed to the recreational use of marijuana, this has nothing to do with the question of whether marijuana should be legal (it should). I am an advocate of prayer, Bible reading, the 10 Commandments, and wholesome books, but I am also an advocate of abolishing public education and not trying to fix it by giving it a shot of religion.


So, what is the problem with voting for candidates with biblical values?

Nothing, if that is not all you focus on. The problem is that is all anyone ever focuses on. What a candidate thinks about economic freedom, individual liberty, personal freedom, peace, property rights, and limited government is never even considered.


The typical Republican candidate with biblical values may have no problem with the United States fighting foreign wars, having hundreds of overseas military bases, and stationing hundreds of thousands of troops all over the world.

The typical Republican candidate with biblical values may have no problem with anti-discrimination laws that violate freedom of association, freedom of contract, freedom of assembly, property rights, and freedom of thought.

The typical Republican candidate with biblical values may have no problem with the actions of the NSA, TSA, CIA, FBI, and the various intelligence agencies as long as they are keeping Americans safe from “terrorists.”

The typical Republican candidate with biblical values may have no problem with the government locking people in cages for possessing too much of a plant that the government disapproves of.

The typical Republican candidate with biblical values may have no problem with a militarized local police force that seizes people’s assets in the name of fighting the war on drugs.

The typical Republican candidate with biblical values may have no problem with socialized medicine like Medicare or Medicaid as long as it is not called Obamacare.

The typical Republican candidate with biblical values may have no problem with a reckless, belligerent, and meddling U.S. foreign policy.

The typical Republican candidate with biblical values may have no problem with the vast welfare state in the United States that transfers income and redistributes wealth as long as there are welfare work requirements and time limits for receiving benefits.

The typical Republican candidate with biblical values may have no problem with the U.S. government giving away billions of Americans’ tax dollars in the form of foreign aid, as long as Israel gets the most.

The typical Republican candidate with biblical values talks about the Second Amendment but may have no problem with some federal gun-control laws and supports the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).


If I voted, I would rather vote for a pro-choice, q-u-eer atheist—who opposed foreign wars, militarism, foreign aid, and welfare and championed economic freedom, individual liberty, personal freedom, peace, property rights, and limited government as long as he left me alone and did not try to impose his unbiblical values on me or the country—than the typical Republican candidate with biblical values.

Biblical values include much more than being pro-life, believing that a marriage is only between a man and a woman, and accepting that there are only two unchangeable genders.



https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/10...h-voting-for-candidates-with-biblical-values/


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[CCTelander]

”Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” - C.S. Lewis

 

[Invisible Man]

The problem with Christians thinking that they're voting for candidates with biblical values is that they practically never really are. They have been subjected to a lifetime of indoctrination of partisan propaganda disguised as theology that cherry picks and misinterprets passages of the Bible in order to shore up Christian support for the candidate or policy du jour and have never taken a step back, set aside the issues that dominate the news of their day, and carefully and honestly developed a biblical theology of the state that focuses on timeless biblical truths.

For example, one of the grand unifying themes of biblical teaching concerning the powers that be is that God does not show partiality, i.e. that he does not have a double standard whereby he gives rulers permission to perform acts that he does not permit commoners to perform. On the contrary, if something would be a sin for any commoner to do, then it is also a sin for rulers to do. But the entire premise of statism, including the Christian statism of those who think they're voting for candidates with biblical values, is that there is a double standard and that they are voting to delegate to agents of the state powers that they recognize that God's law does not permit them to wield themselves as individuals.

For another example, they completely ignore the example of Jesus, who, although crucified as an enemy of the state, voluntarily refrained from fighting against pursuing political power by means of the same tools that the state relies on (i.e. force), and demanded of his disciples that they too refrain from attempting to pursue his agenda by using the means that the rulers of the nations use.

I could go on with multiple examples like these.

 

[fisharmor]

For another example, they completely ignore the example of Jesus, who, although crucified as an enemy of the state, voluntarily refrained from fighting against pursuing political power by means of the same tools that the state relies on (i.e. force), and demanded of his disciples that they too refrain from attempting to pursue his agenda by using the means that the rulers of the nations use.

I could go on with multiple examples like these.

No Christian seeks worldly power.

That's not the pattern. We're supposed to jiu-jutsu our enemies and use their strength against them.
Christian statists love to quote Romans 13 but LITERALLY RIGHT BEFORE that part, in Chapter 12, Paul wrote:

Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

 

[Invisible Man]

No Christian seeks worldly power.

That's not the pattern. We're supposed to jiu-jutsu our enemies and use their strength against them.
Christian statists love to quote Romans 13 but LITERALLY RIGHT BEFORE that part, in Chapter 12, Paul wrote:

Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

"You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to fisharmor again."

I agree with your take. I have actually heard Christian statists call attention to that context and claim that the powers that be mentioned in chapter 13 are the means by which God takes vengeance against oppressors, rather than recognizing that it is understood that these powers are the primary example of the oppressors.

Romans 13:1-6 is so often taken out of context and has been so twisted into giving a more positive view of the powers that be than it really does (including by way of translational decisions that the modern versions almost universally follow) that this passage, when reframed as a pro-state passage, has become for most Christians everything they think they need to know about what the Bible says about the state.

 

[fisharmor]

this passage, when reframed as a pro-state passage, has become for most Christians everything they think they need to know about what the Bible says about the state.

If I had to pick one passage for what the Bible has to say about the state it would be 1 Samuel 8.

 

[wizardwatson]

If I had to pick one passage for what the Bible has to say about the state it would be 1 Samuel 8.

Great one. There are also a few passages like Isaiah 65:22 that talk about the future kingdom where you get to keep what you earn. I like these verses for an additional reason, it shows that "heaven" or the "afterlife" isn't some heroin-esque reality where we all stare into the perfect face of God for eternity like moths hovering around a big fuzzy light.

There will be work, and people. You will have hands, etc.

 

[acptulsa]

Great one. There are also a few passages like Isaiah 65:22 that talk about the future kingdom where you get to keep what you earn.

"And if he builds a house he shall live in it..."

We certainly haven't seen this New Jerusalem yet, have we?

 

[CCTelander]

“There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.” - Daniel Webster.