(RNS) — I came of political age in 2016. For my cohort of young evangelicals, the 2016 election and its aftermath have dominated our political imaginations, shaping our understanding of the relationship between faith and politics — for good and ill. In 2020, as the country continued to grapple with the rise of Donald Trump and weighed a second term, I was often asked — as a twenty-something evangelical who wrote about faith and politics (The New York Times said I had a “sterling evangelical pedigree”) — to comment on a new generation of evangelical politics. Would younger evangelicals replicate the relationship their parents had with the Republican Party with another party or candidate? Would they swing too far in the other direction? I often said no. I was convinced evangelicals who were alarmed by Trump in 2016 came to those conclusions by careful biblical study and sincere conviction. I still believe that.
But I now fear I underestimated the power of the political formation we had received. We may have identified political conclusions we do not want to repeat, but we have failed to excavate the political theology that motivated those conclusions — and so we will keep repeating the same mistakes.
In 2016 and 2020, a majority of white evangelicals voted for former President Donald Trump. The reasoning for that decision varied, but there were a few consistent themes across pastors, public figures and voters. All the way through the 2024 election, many arguments in support of Trump followed a familiar logic: He may be vulgar and rude, but he will bring “biblical values” back to the White House, he protects Christians and he is a “baby Christian” surrounding himself with Christian influences.
A minority of evangelicals in each of these elections supported the Democratic candidate, but the logic was often surprisingly similar. In 2016, one evangelical leader defended a vote for Hillary Clinton by arguing for a “more holistic gospel faith” and noting evangelicals in other parts of the world call Clinton a “sister in Christ” and “someone who lives out the Golden Rule.” In 2020, a group called Pro-Life Evangelicals for Biden supported the president because he advanced a more “biblically balanced agenda.” In 2024, groups like Christians for Kamala and Evangelicals for Harris have followed a similar script. The Evangelicals for Harris Zoom call began with a description of Kamala Harris’ Christian upbringing and personal faith, described some of her policy positions as “biblical” and argued that many people “who actually follow Jesus” have reason to support her. Taking it a considerable step further, the Christians for Kamala website says the vice president “champions true Christian values embodied in the teachings of Jesus.”
It would be unfair to argue these groups are replicating the same dynamics of evangelical support of Trump in 2016 and 2020. These groups do not display the fervor — often tipping into idolatry — of many Christians who supported Trump. There is no messianic language, no prophetic claims of chosen status, no insistence Harris will protect Christians from harm. Yet there is a thread across the political differences, a distinctly evangelical approach to voting that needs reexamination.
In short, it is an insistence that the goal is to discern which candidate, platform or party is more “Christian” or “biblical” than the alternative.
A voter completes a ballot in the presidential primary election at the Summit View Church of the Nazarene on March 10, 2020, in Kansas City, Missouri. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
American evangelicals have been discipled into a political theology that says the spiritual stakes for our country are high every election year and our votes are of eternal spiritual significance. Therefore, it is our job to correctly determine the “true” Christian candidate — whether through a sufficiently convincing conversion story, the testimony of other prominent Christian leaders or the candidate’s use of Christian language or symbols. We have learned some policies are more “biblical” than others, though we disagree on which ones.
The last few election seasons have been something of an “apocalypse” — an unveiling, a revealing. They have revealed long-simmering political idolatries — and a woeful lack of political formation for generations of evangelical Christians. Our failure to offer resources for a Christian method of coming to political conclusions is, at its root, a consequence of a deeper theological mistake: We have forgotten that, for Christians, all of politics is contingent and provisional. Christian Scripture and theology give us great resources for thinking well about the kinds of communities God intends for humans to live in, the varied ways sin can corrupt our communities, and the wisdom God gives for aiding us in addressing that sin. But our political responses to the Word of God are always imperfect experiments — we try to enact policies that will create conditions of flourishing in our communities, but we know they may fail and we’ll have to try again. We know our earthly attempts at well-ordered communities are only temporary. By the grace of God, we can do good and faithful political work here on earth, but it is always a shadow of the coming kingdom, a flawed and frail effort aimed toward something perfect and true.
Given that political theology, our efforts here and now are never as straightforward as voting for the “Christian” candidate or supporting the “biblical” policies. We should understand our political engagement will be messier and more complicated than that. There will always be a certain tragedy to our political participation, as even our best attempts at creating goodness here and now will be tinged with regret, doubt and failure. Our votes, cast by and for fallen and finite creatures, will always and only be heavily mediated opportunities to aim at the best good available to us. They cannot bear the weight of expressing our Christian identity or representing everything the Bible commands of us. We cannot be certain we are making absolutely correct decisions — candidates will fail to live up to their promises, and too often policies we believed were good will have unintended consequences we must later lament.
We can, however, learn how to make imperfect political decisions better. We can learn how to read the whole biblical canon for guidance — on policy priorities, but also on the character of leaders, the temptations we face in politics and the spiritual resources we need to do politics without losing our souls. We can learn to dialogue better with our local communities, learning from public school teachers and accountants and sanitation workers about the practical needs of our communities. We can humbly examine the state of our own hearts as we enter voting booths — acknowledging that all the research in the world won’t make us better voters if our hearts are turned toward greed or pride.
Most crucially right now, we can learn to better frame our endorsements. We can publicly support candidates as the best available option — not as the more Christian choice. We can advocate for policies we think best represent an attempt to respond to the biblical story of human communities, not simplistically label imperfect human laws as “biblical.” In short, we can learn a humbler method of doing politics, taking seriously some of the most crucial Christian doctrines for our political life: we are fallen and finite, our earthly efforts at justice and peace are provisional and our ultimate hope is in the return of Christ to make all things new.
(Kaitlyn Schiess is the author of “The Ballot and the Bible,” a doctoral student in theology at Duke University and senior editor and co-host at “The Holy Post.” The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)