Now What? Winning the Election Alone Won’t Change the Country’s Direction
Evangelical voters turned out in historic numbers this past election cycle, electing the Republican ticket of Donald Trump and Indiana Gov. Mike Pence.
So many evangelical faith leaders have lined up to celebrate the milestone victory and the potential it represents to help steer our nation back into alignment with the Lord. But they also caution there is still much work to be done.
Campaign for Working Families Chairman Gary Bauer, himself a former Republican presidential candidate, called Trump’s win an “American Revolution 2.0” for frustrated Americans struggling under the heavy load of taxes, debt and disastrous policies. He said that was why they elected an administration “committed to making America great for all its citizens, rather than those who profit from government and American decline.”
He said:
This election is the first step toward freeing Americans from the tyranny of political correctness and unchecked political power. Using their votes, Americans who live and work on Main Street overcame the combined resources of the media, the entertainment industry and corporate and political elites. They rejected four more years of more scandals and failed big government policies. The commonsense values of the American people prevailed today. Now the hard work of making Washington work for the people, not the politicians and their special interest, begins in earnest.
Dr. Alveda King weighed in, as well:
What’s important is what “in spirit and in truth” Christians do now. I said on air earlier that what happens on Nov. 9 is more important than what happened now on Nov. 8. Yesterday is now history. We who are spiritual must now keep praying and listening to God. No matter what humans say, God has allowed Mr. Trump to rise this far. No human can save America or the world. Only the God of John 3:16 can do that! More will be revealed in the days ahead.
Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser talked about the impact Trump’s election could have on the pro-life movement in America. She said:
This is a historic moment for the pro-life movement. There are four critical pro-life goals now within our reach: end painful late-term abortions, codify the Hyde Amendment, defund Planned Parenthood and appoint pro-life Supreme Court Justices.
Lila Rose, founder of the pro-life group Live Action, issued the following statement:
Planned Parenthood has been defeated at the ballot box. Despite the millions Planned Parenthood and its allies spent to elect a pro-abortion president and Congress, voters roundly rejected the abortion agenda of Hillary Clinton and the abortion industry that backed her campaign. When the abortion lobby pushed for unregulated abortions through all nine months of pregnancy and wanted to force taxpayers to pay for them, the American people pushed back.
Because of the pro-life pledges Donald Trump made during the campaign, there is now a clear path to end the public funding that enables the dismemberment, poisoning, or starving to death of one million innocent children each year. It’s critical that we unite to hold Mr. Trump to those pledges to defund Planned Parenthood, to appoint pro-life Supreme Court justices, and to ensure that taxpayers are never forced to fund abortions.
Planned Parenthood gets $1.5 million in taxpayer funding every day—nearly half of its budget—which allows it to keep its doors open and ruthlessly slaughter 887 children a day. It’s time to put Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry out of business. Earlier this year, for the first time in history, both the House and Senate sent a bill to President Obama to end the forced taxpayer funding of America’s largest abortion chain, and Obama rejected it. President Trump has pledged to—and must—sign that bill.
Public opinion on abortion is transforming as more and more Americans recognize life inside the womb and refuse to accept the idea that women’s rights are incompatible with children’s rights. Increasingly, Americans are pro-life and demand better for both women and preborn children than the violence that our laws condone.
Live Action’s platform and compelling visual media are educating millions of people every week with the truth about abortion and human dignity. We will continue our efforts to expose the violence of abortion and work with the new Congress and president to stop the billions of taxpayer dollars that prop up the abortion industry. United, the pro-life movement can eradicate the greatest human rights abuse of our time and rebuild a culture that respects every person’s most fundamental right—the right to life.
But Michael Anthony, founder and president of godfactor.com, reminded Americans—particularly Christians—that God’s work has only just begun, and our nation needs to continue to humbly submit to His will. He wrote:
At long last, our time of speculation about the next President and presidency is over. This election season served as a stark reminder that while we may be called the “United States,” we are, in fact, a very divided country. It’s time to heal and unite, but healing and unity are always byproducts of something else, a key ingredient so scarce in our all-consuming quest for self-gratification. Yes, the quest of our next President is over; now it’s time to focus on the King and His Kingdom. No President, no matter if elected by the popular or electoral vote, is a surrogate for the supernatural work that only the Almighty can perform.
Our nation is now in such a mess that it will take nothing short of a series of miracles to turn her around. Our country will be great again, and we’ll all be stronger together, when we rediscover the key ingredient for supernatural success. It’s where real hope and change begin – and how they are sustained. Our next President will need an enduring dose of divine wisdom and humble courage, because without these, our best days will truly be behind us.
Supernatural success is only possible when humble courage, which has been absent for far too long, becomes central to the mix. This would be true no matter who had been elected as our new Commander in Chief. Humble courage is the greatest need in our nation – because it is the greatest need in each of our lives, families and houses of worship. James 4:6 and 1 Peter 5:5 remind us that “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” I don’t know about you, but I can’t afford to be resisted by God any longer – and neither can our families, houses of worship or nation. We need a massive outpouring of humility, at a grass-roots level around the country, with you and me at ground zero.
America, we have work to do, and lots of it. But this work begins with a hard look at what we’ve become, and for many of us, we’ve become hypocrites. Our hypocrisy needs to go the way of the passenger pigeon, which once accounted for nearly 40 percent of the bird population in the U.S.. Similarly, hypocrisy among Christians accounts for a great number of sins throughout our nation. The plank in the eye of most who claim to be following Christ is so large and so culturally acceptable that it is amazing we are even able to see the specks in our neighbors’ eyes – upon which we seem so fixated. Our fixation is wrong, nonetheless. It’s time we heed the command of Jesus and start pointing the finger at ourselves. That’s where hope and change begin.
Is it a coincidence that America’s first nation-wide “bath,” the first-ever National Week of Repentance, took place during the entire week before the election? It was the first time in American history that people in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, took part in a simultaneous, week-long time of self-examination, asking God to do a mighty work – not merely “out there,” in the nebulous expanse we call “America,” but in the specific arenas of our personal lives, families and churches. I don’t think it was a coincidence at all. I think it was providential. Our nation needs a bath, a real and deep work of God in each of us, from the inside-out. That bath, I believe, has only just begun.
No President and no political party can do what only God can do. It’s time for genuine, historic movements of God to sweep across America, one person at a time. This is how America will change. This need is not for some distant time in the future, but now. If America is to be saved, the Church must accept her role as the healing balm of the Great Physician.
Never mind “America” for a moment. While many of us have pointed the finger at Mr. Trump and Mrs. Clinton for their character flaws, could it be that, through them, God has been trying to get our attention by reflecting back to us what many of us have become? It’s just like God to allow His people to have leaders just like themselves. If we want leaders of high moral character, we need to become followers who possess the same trait. Leaders, we must remember, arise from among the people.
Yes, Mr. Trump and Gov. Pence will undoubtedly face many hurdles as they make the transition to assume the presidency and vice-presidency of our nation. Mrs. Clinton and Gov. Kaine would have faced their own share of problems had they been elected. 1 Timothy 2:1-7 tells us we are to pray for our leaders, no matter who they are, that God’s agenda be advanced. But in our praying for our leaders, let’s not forget that they are a lot like most of us. It is this sobering realization that helps me realize that the American Church’s need for a bath, real revival and serious spiritual awakening, has never been more pressing. We have a need for a deep, cleansing work of God in our nation, and that cleansing needs to include each of us, right now.
