Does It Really Matter Who We Vote for in 2016?

What would America be like today if just 4 percent of evangelical Christians had voted differently in 2012? Would it still be facing exploding debts, moral bankruptcy and growing international dangers?

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee addressed this question at The Awakening 2015 conference in Orlando, Florida, earlier this year. “Now here’s the sad part,” the former Arkansas governor said. “There are 80 million self-identified evangelicals in America today. You know how many are registered to vote? Half of them. But of the half that are registered do you know how many voted in the last presidential election? Half of them. And how many of them voted in the off-year election of 2014? Half of that number. If 4 percent more had voted differently in the 2012 presidential election … we would be talking today about (a different administration).”  

In America, we have the freedom to select our leaders through the voting process. That’s why what we see happening to our great country is such a needless tragedy. If we had simply voted, the unraveling of America now unfolding around us may have been averted. This month we chose a contemplative boy for the cover of Charisma with the headline, “This Election Will Impact Generations.” His T-shirt reads: “Think About Me When You Vote.” As Rev. Franklin Graham noted, we’re likely to “lose everything if we don’t get involved in this next election, and we only have this next election” to not only vote in far greater numbers, but become politically engaged. The future of our children and grandchildren depends on Christians voting, becoming politically active and running for office.

For decades, the church has largely shooed politics—preferring to avoid anything controversial. It’s been good for filling the pews and church coffers, but the impact on America has been devastating. During this time, as Graham pointed out, “Satan and his demons” have worked their way “into every level of our government.” As a reporter at the Los Angeles Daily News and a contributor to Reuters and Newsmax for more than two decades, I had a front-row seat to watch this play out. I saw how our government was largely taken over by progressives, secularists and globalist elites who followed what some now describe as “the plan” to “unmake America.” If powerful forces are truly working to radically transform America into something unrecognizable, it’s time to bolt wide awake, vote and make sure our voices are heard in the corridors of power.

In an interview for our upcoming end-times issue in September, Dr. Tim LaHaye, co-author of the Left Behind series that sold 80 million copies, encouraged believers to get “involved more in what I think will be the most important election in American history, or at least since Abraham Lincoln.” LaHaye says the “current administration seems bent on destroying this nation and our relationship with Israel”—adding its desire to “change our great policy of blessing Israel” would be “fatal to our nation’s future! It is my ardent prayer that evangelical pastors will lead their congregations to pray earnestly for the 2016 election and that their congregations will become informed on where their leaders stand on Israel, become registered to vote, and not only vote themselves but help all their members and friends to vote also,” LaHaye says.

At this critical hour, are we going to hand the nation our forefathers fought and died for over to the forces of darkness simply because we’re too busy to be bothered with voting and politics? Until recently when the church largely retreated from the public square, pastors often spoke about political issues, ran for office and served as statesmen. It’s time to do so again. Now is not the time to shrink from our destiny, but to boldly follow the Lord’s calling on our lives come what may.

In a guest column, American Renewal Project founder David Lane is encouraging 1,000 pastors to run for office. He believes it could ignite a spiritual movement that America has not seen since the Great Awakening, an event that preceded America’s founding in 1776. It could happen again.

As history reveals, and as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt could tell us if they were alive today, there is always hope—even in America’s darkest hours. But for this to happen we must act and do the good works that Jesus has called us to “for such a time as this.”

Troy Anderson is the executive editor of Charisma and a Pulitzer Prize-nominated investigative journalist and author. Follow him on Twitter (TroyMAnderson), Facebook (troyandersonwriter) or online at troyanderson.us.