3 Christian Convictions That Should Determine How You Vote Nov. 6

In a few days, on Nov. 6, millions of Americans will go to the polls to vote in one of the most important elections of our lifetime. As followers of Christ, we have a responsibility not only to pray for our country, but to vote for those candidates who will best reflect the values Jesus Christ brought to this world.

America’s founders, though flawed like all human beings, understood the importance of seeking to the emulate the values of Jesus as revealed in the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament. This is what led George Washington to declare, “The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the external rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained” (Hyatt, Pilgrims and Patriots, 174).

When I walk into the voting booth on Nov. 6, I will not be voting as a Democrat or Republican. I will not be voting on looks or personality. I will cast my votes based on values and convictions that have been shaped by a life-long study of the teachings of Jesus and the New Testament.

Here are three Christian convictions that will determine how I vote on Nov. 6:

1. Jesus is Lord.
2. Life is sacred.
3. Family matters.

Conviction No. 1: Jesus Is Lord

Whose moral values do you want to live under? Those of Marx? Mohammed? Buddha? Darwin? Soros? Sanders? Hollywood? America’s founders had a clear answer.

In a letter to the governors of the various states at the end of the Revolutionary War, George Washington included an “earnest prayer” that the citizens of the new nation would seek to pattern their lives after Jesus Christ. He wrote,

I now make it my earnest prayer that God would have you, and the State over which you preside, in His holy protection; that he would incline the hearts of the citizens to entertain a brotherly affection for one another … and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility and pacific temper of mind, which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without a humble imitation of His example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy nation (Hyatt, Pilgrims and Patriots, 134).

Every founder, even the most irreligious, agreed with Washington that the teachings of Jesus Christ held the key for social and political stability in the nation they had formed. Thomas Jefferson, for example, stated, “Of all the systems of morality that have come under my observations, none appear to me so pure as that of Jesus.” His commitment to the teachings of Christ is, no doubt, why he ended every official presidential document with the words, “In the year of our Lord Christ.”

Benjamin Franklin, another supposed irreligious founder, stated, “The moral and religious system which Jesus Christ transmitted to us is the best the world has ever seen or can see.” When the noted Deist, Thomas Paine, sent Franklin a manuscript copy of The Age of Reason, in which he attacked historic Christianity, Franklin refused to print it. In very strong language he suggested to Paine that he burn the manuscript and then said, “If men are this wicked with religion [Christianity], what would they be if without it” (Hyatt, Pilgrims and Patriots, 142).

For the founding generation, Jesus was the archetype model for morality for all humanity. They may have disagreed on doctrine and adhered to different churches and denominations, but all agreed that Jesus stood in a class all alone as a moral teacher and guide.

So pervasive was this commitment to Jesus among the founding generation that Jonathan Trumbull, a British-appointed governor in New England, wrote to his superiors in England, “If you ask an American who is his master, he will tell you he has none, nor any governor but Jesus Christ” (Hyatt, Pilgrims and Patriots, 119).

The founders were unanimous in their belief that only a virtuous, tolerant and moral people could maintain the liberties enshrined in the founding documents. They were also unanimous in the belief that such morality and tolerance could only be derived from Jesus Christ and the teachings He brought to the world. This belief led John Adams to declare,

“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion … Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious [Christian] people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other” (Hyatt, Pilgrims and Patriots, 173).

Make no mistake about it; It was this commitment to Jesus as the archetype model for life and morality that made America a compassionate and tolerant nation. We are now, however, beginning to see the fruit of a nation rejecting Jesus Christ as its model for life and morality. We have sown the wind and are beginning to reap the whirlwind.

We are now seeing social and political divisiveness on a scale unknown by this generation. This has come about because the secularists of this nation, with the full support of one political party, have been on a crusade to remove all expressions of Christianity from the public life of the nation.

In rejecting the moral vision of Washington, Jefferson and Franklin, much of our nation is like a ship without a rudder, adrift on a sea of moral relativism. As a result, moral confusion reigns in our schools, colleges and public institutions. Acrimony and vindictiveness are on full display in the halls of Congress. With no transcendent, moral principle to guide our culture, each one does that which is right in his or her own eyes. What a recipe for moral chaos and social disaster.

Psalm 33:12a says, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.” America has been blessed because her founders acknowledged Jesus Christ and His teachings as supreme. I cannot vote for any party or candidate that outright rejects the time-tested moral principles of Jesus for the subjective, erratic and unreliable creeds of modern secularism and multiculturalism.

My Christian conviction that “Jesus is Lord” will be a determining factor in how I vote on Nov. 6.

Conviction No. 2: Life is Sacred

Jesus said, “I came that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly” (John 10:10b).

I will never forget the first time I saw an ultrasound image of a baby in the womb. I was stunned, and my response was, “That is a real living person!” Erica, who was about to have an abortion, was even more stunned when she saw the ultrasound of her unborn baby. She wrote,

I begged the nurse to let me see my baby; I felt that I had to see. As soon as I saw my child on the ultrasound, I knew I couldn’t do it. I saw the heart beating, and he moved his little hands (almost like a wave). I think God intervened and sent me a message that I was about to make the biggest mistake of my life.

These intuitive, common-sense responses are confirmed by both the Bible and science. For example, Luke, the physician and author of the third Gospel, records the very personal response of John the Baptist, while still in the womb, to the voice of Mary, the mother of Jesus, greeting his mother. He must have kicked, for his mother, Elizabeth, said to Mary, “Indeed, as soon as the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. For indeed as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy” (Luke 1:44).

The hand of our Creator on our life from the moment of conception is vividly expressed in Psalm 119:13-16, which reads,

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Science confirms the biblical record. After only 11 weeks in the womb the baby has a heartbeat and brainwaves and can kick. He/she squints, swallows and sucks their thumb. They are sensitive to heat, light, noise and all body systems are working.

After 20 weeks in the womb, babies are capable of experiencing pain, and that capability for pain increases with each passing day. Babies in the womb, therefore, experience excruciating pain during an abortion. They will seek to avoid the abortionist tools and will emit a “silent scream” as their tiny bodies are ripped apart.

Ninety-eight per cent of abortions are done for convenience and to end unwanted pregnancies. Such a contempt for life in the womb should not be part of a civilized society and will eventually lead to other forms of “legalized” murder.

My Christian conviction that life is sacred, even in the womb, will not allow me to vote for any candidate who holds a contrary position.

Conviction No. 3: Family Matters

I heard the veteran civil rights activist, Robert Woodson, declare that liberal social policies in America have accomplished what years of slavery and Jim Crow were unable to accomplish—the destruction of the black family. He and other black thinkers, such as Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell, trace the hopelessness and distress of the inner cities to the loss of fatherhood and the breakdown of the nuclear family. In a recent Daily Signal article, Williams wrote, “The No. 1 problem among blacks is the effects stemming from a very weak family structure. Children from fatherless homes are likelier to drop out of high school, die by suicide, have behavioral disorders, join gangs, commit crimes and end up in prison. They are also likelier to live in poverty-stricken households.”

Williams argues that the weak black family is not a legacy of slavery and gives statistics showing that the breakdown of the black family did not begin until after the 1960s. He blames this breakdown on the social welfare state created by clueless left-wing politicians who think the government holds the key for every human need.

I can attest to what Williams is saying from my own experience growing up in a rural area of northeast Texas in the 1960s during segregation and Jim Crow. As a teenager, I worked in the fields alongside blacks chopping cotton, picking cotton and hauling hay. I remember them to be some of the happiest people I ever knew. Looking back, there is no question in my mind that the strong bonds of faith and family produced joy and mitigated the pain of segregation.

All of this confirms the fact that God created the human species to function in family units with a mother and father in a committed relationship called marriage. The environment produced by such a committed relationship between a man and a woman is the ideal setting for raising strong, healthy children who will become productive citizens.

This is borne out by the fact that when God sent His Son into this world to be born as a human being, He placed Him in a home with a mother and father. By doing so, He confirmed that such a home is the safest and most nurturing place for a child to be reared. Jesus affirmed this same truth of the family unit, when after a visit to Jerusalem with His parents at the age of 12, “He went down with them and came to Nazareth and was obedient to them” (Luke 2:51a).

The family unit is the basic social unit of any society, and strong families are necessary for a strong and stable society. Destroy the family and you destroy the nation, and this is happening in America today.

I, therefore, cannot vote for any candidate or party that supports polices that undermine the natural, nuclear family established by God in creation and affirmed by Jesus Christ.

Concluding Prayer

I write this, not out of ill will toward anyone, but out of a commitment to Jesus Christ and His kingdom. If you have not put your faith in Him, I urge you to do so now. Just say this prayer from your heart,

Lord Jesus, I give You my heart and life. I choose this day to follow You. Forgive me of my sins and fill me with Your Holy Spirit. Amen!

Dr. Eddie Hyatt has documented America’s spiritual birth out of the Great Awakening in his book, Pilgrims and Patriots, available from Amazonand his website at eddiehyatt.com. He also conducts “America Reawakening” events, stirring PowerPoint presentations based on his book that include a call for Christians to pray and believe for another Great Awakening across the land.