(LifeSiteNews) — I understand those who are choosing not to vote for Donald Trump in the upcoming 2024 election. I know pro-lifers who are not voting at all or are writing in a candidate, and I know pro-lifers who are voting for the American Solidarity Party. In my view, those are all ethically defensible electoral positions, as is voting for the Trump-Vance ticket.
But there is one position that I find very difficult to understand: the growing number of high-profile evangelicals who are publicly announcing their support for Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
As I noted in an earlier column, evangelical writer David French endorsed Kamala Harris and followed that up with a column in The New York Times titled “David French on the Pro-Life Case for Kamala Harris.” French essentially makes the case that conservatism must be saved from Trump … and that the way to do this is to vote for an abortion extremist who has voted against protections for babies who survive an abortion. NYT columnist Ross Douthat, no fan of Trump, thoroughly tore apart French’s arguments in a very revealing exchange.
Even more disturbing, pastor and theologian Ray Ortlund — father of well-known apologist and pastor Gavin Ortlund — has also come out and endorsed Kamala Harris. Ortlund is the founding pastor of Immanuel Church in Nashville, Tennessee, serves as the president of Renewal Ministries, and is the author of many books. (Ortlund is Russell Moore’s pastor. Moore is the editor-in-chief of Christianity Today.) Ortlund went so far as to use the name of the Lord Jesus in his endorsement, posting: “Never Trump. This time Harris. Always Jesus.” French responded: “This is the way.”
One bewildered Christian responded: “How can you vote for Harris/Walz as a believer? Do you think that killing babies is something Jesus would support? Put your personal views on the person aside and vote for the party that is going to support your morals and religious beliefs. I believe that any party that has any association with murdering children of God should be immediately out of the question.” Ortlund replied: “Abortion is a horrible evil. But the evils on the other side have risen to levels that jeopardize the foundational rule of law in our country. I am thinking long-term and voting for us to have a chance at national renewal in the future.”
Again, I believe pro-lifers can disagree, in good faith, on Donald Trump. I have written many columns critiquing Trump’s positions on abortion, both in this space, in First Things, and in WORLD magazine (see here, here, and here). But to vote for an abortion extremist to preserve America’s long-term future? What is “long-term” for babies who will be killed if Harris manages to kill the filibuster and enshrine Roe v. Wade in federal law, eliminating pro-life protections for unborn children in over a dozen states? What version of “national renewal” comes from turning power over to someone who has been running her entire campaign like a high priestess of Moloch?
It seems so strange to me that a theologian, presumably steeped in Scripture, would actively endorse someone running on a platform of sexual revolution and killing children. Is there some biblical precedent I have missed that supports endorsing someone like this? The argument made by Never Trumpers is that Trump’s character rendered him ineligible for higher office, and that thus Christians should not support him. Regardless of whether you subscribe to that view, it is coherent and defensible. But to turn around and endorse a truly wicked woman like Kamala Harris is to make a mockery of your previous arguments.
Indeed, you are making precisely same case that pro-lifers voting for Trump made — except that in this instance, instead of saying that voting for a flawed man because babies will be saved is the lesser of two evils, you are saying that voting for a woman committed to the destruction of unborn babies is the lesser of two evils because of the other candidate’s character. I may be wrong, but the idea that a national renewal will be brought about because God will bless the presidency of a woman who is loyal to nothing but the bloody sacrament of the sexual revolution and champions child sacrifice as the most fundamental of freedoms seems ludicrous to me.
Evangelicals for Harris. Christians for Moloch. They’re the same picture.
