In 2013, my parents and I awaited the week before Easter with eager anticipation. That was when The Bible, an epic dramatization of the whole biblical narrative produced by Roma Downey and Mark Burnett was set to release. Each evening that week, my parents and I tuned in for the next episode, and after each, we raved about how well-produced it was, how it could really help to reach a younger generation with the Good News. That was, until the episode when Jesus was tempted by the Devil in the wilderness, and Mom gasped, appalled and told me that the Devil character bore an unmistakable resemblance to Barack Obama. Just like that, we went from praising the series, to mourning the opportunity for evangelism that the producers, whom I now recognize as Christian Nationalists, had squandered. With this one production decision, they no doubt confirmed the suspicion of untold numbers of young people and seekers, that Christianity in America had become a propaganda vehicle for the Republican party. But to be fair, it is no less sinful to use Christianity in service of the Democratic party. In a few moments of immaturity during the Trump administration, I found myself intrigued by articles speculating whether Donald Trump was the antichrist, and when we came to 2 Thessalonians in my New Testament overview course at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, I did a doubletake when I came to the verse about the man of lawlessness being revealed at the end of the age. “Could Donald Trump be that man?” I briefly wondered. Donald Trump certainly is a man of lawlessness when it comes to respecting civil authorities, or our Constitution. But biblically speaking, if you read the verse in the full context of the passage it is in (2 Thessalonians 2:1-12), he is not the man of lawlessness Paul is referring to. That person will perform supernatural signs and wonders that deceive many and has yet to emerge in human history. Donald Trump is just your garden variety human mortal who happens to be a narcissistic megalomaniac who admires and wants to be a fascist dictator. Unfortunately there have been many of his type in human history. And as inspiring as Barack Obama was, and Kamala Harris is, they too are humans who, like all of us, fall short of Christ’s righteous standards. It is wrong for Republicans to depict them as Satanic, but it is also wrong for supporters like me to elevate them to Messiah-like status, to believe that electing them will save America and solve all of our problems.

Family Radio, the Christian station I love to listen to while I work has been running public service announcements leading up to Election Day. One of these announcements, narrated by John MacArthur has been driving me crazy. He said a question he frequently gets around Election time is “should Christians vote?” His response is that any time Christians have an opportunity to take a stand for righteousness, we must do so, and in our context, voting is one such opportunity. So far, not bad. But then he says that Christians have an obligation to vote for the candidate who honors God and who is “faithful to a biblical standard of righteousness.” On the surface, this seems completely reasonable too, which is what is so dangerous about Christian Nationalism. To a vulnerable, naïve person, such a statement is benign and perfectly reasonable. But true Christians need to think critically about the credibility of the people making such statements, what honoring God looks like in practice, and about what a truly biblical standard of righteousness actually means. John MacArthur doesn’t say who Christians should vote for, and to be fair, this message could have been recorded years ago in a different election cycle. Or as much as I don’t want to be cynical, it could be that endorsing a particular candidate would jeopardize his church’s tax exempt status. But given his extreme and unbiblical complementarian views, and comments about slavery which I have written about before, I have little doubt he will be voting for Donald Trump. With all due respect, I cannot understand how any true Christian can say with a straight face that Donald Trump honors God and is more faithful to a biblical standard of righteousness than Kamala Harris. Donald Trump’s bad character is well-documented, so I won’t rehash all of his disqualifications here, but it is worth repeating that God is not pleased with cultural Christianity that goes through the motions of a Christian life but lacks genuine love (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). Like all politicians, Kamala Harris isn’t entirely truthful, and her positions change with the political winds. It is also important to note that while the Christian Nationalism of the Right is more blatant, there is a kind of soft nationalism that Christians need to be aware of in the Democratic party as well. Overall, Kamala Harris’s speech at the Ellipse was inspiring, and the symbolism of speaking at the same site where Trump inspired his followers to attack the U.S. Capitol was fitting. But I was a little uncomfortable with how she ended the speech with the line about turning the page and writing the next chapter of the most extraordinary story ever told. Though this line may have been spoken with good intentions—an effort to rally all Americans behind a common cause of figuring out how to live peacefully together—we as Christians should be weary of rhetoric that perpetuates the harmful concept of American Exceptionalism, a form of idolatry. The story of our country is not the most extraordinary story ever told.

Both Jerry Falwell Jr., and Zack Hunt, a former pastor and the author of Godbreathed who spoke on a Zoom call for Evangelicals for Harris a call that was discussed in this Rolling Stone article, agree that the goal of a presidential election is not electing a pastor. But Zack Hunt sums up the key difference between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris perfectly. “The problem for Christians is not that Trump fails to live up to the Christian principles he claims to defend.”—We all do, even pastors—“The problem is he actively and aggressively works to undermine the way of Jesus with everything he says and does, and with every policy he wants to enact.” Even if you just arrived from another planet and know nothing about the policy track records of Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, you ought to be able to tell who genuinely seeks to honor God just by listening to them speak in side-by-side clips: I am always struck by the contrast between Donald Trump who doesn’t even try to tame his tongue, giving it free reign to spew deadly, poisonous rhetoric that inspires division, hatred and violence, while Kamala Harris seeks to heal and inspire all Americans with an inclusive, optimistic vision for our country’s future.

But in an article published in Religion News Service, Caitlyn Schiess cautions that as commendable as it is for true Christians, especially young people to reclaim true Christian principles by breaking away from the white supremacist, xenophobic, Christian Nationalist platform of their parents’ Republican Party, we must be careful not to make the same underlying mistake as our parents’ generation, the mistake of believing that the spiritual stakes for our country are high every election year, meaning that our votes are of eternal spiritual significance. “We have forgotten that for Christians, all of politics is contingent and provisional,” Caitlyn Schiess writes, “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.” This absolutely does not mean Christians should not vote, especially in this particular election. Although no election has eternal spiritual significance, the conscience of true Christians should be stirred to “seek the peace and prosperity of the city” (Jeremiah 29:7) which to my conscience means voting against candidates who admire and wish to emulate fascist dictators whose lust for power aggressively undermined the way of Jesus, and led to some of the darkest moments of human history. Of course Old Testament verses must be applied cautiously to our context. As I have written before, the United States is not a covenant nation as ancient Israel was, but we can learn from the principle that all Christians in a sense are living in exile. This country is not our true home and yet we are called to contribute to its peace and prosperity, and in so doing, offer a foretaste of God’s kingdom. But no matter who wins the election, true Christians must never forget that until Christ returns, we will not find a candidate completely faithful to a biblical standard of righteousness, and because we, the voters are also fallen and finite beings, we cannot fully imagine what a biblical standard of righteousness even means in practice. This is why it is dangerous to apply “spiritual warfare” language to secular activities like elections.

Spiritual warfare is theological speak for the reality that “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12). But in his book Losing Our Religion, Russel Moore explains that when tribalism connects with resentment, and resentment connects with fear, culture wars are viewed in terms of spiritual warfare, with human beings as the irredeemable ...