ith slim majorities at stake in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, the direction of the country teeters on the brink as Americans decide Nov. 5 whose priorities and policies will prevail in the halls of Congress.
For now, Democrats hold a razor-thin voting majority in the Senate thanks to four left-leaning Independents and a Democrat vice president who serves as the tie-breaker when votes are even. Meanwhile, Republicans hold an eight-seat lead in the House of Representatives.
But the balance of power in the federal government will soon be tested by the American electorate. All 435 seats in the House and 33 in the Senate are up for grabs before the 119th Congress convenes Jan. 3. Of the 33 Senate seats in question, 10 are held by Republicans, 19 are occupied by Democrats and four are Independents.
And for Bible-believing Christians, this election couldn’t be more consequential. Much more important than partisan politics, the Judeo-Christian foundation on which America was established faces a perilous future. From the sanctity of human life, to God’s design for human sexuality, to parental rights and public safety, the fabric of a God-blessed America seems to be unraveling right before our eyes.
So, what is a Christian supposed to do when candidates on both sides of the political aisle fail to thoroughly uphold a Biblical worldview?
Instead of not voting or simply casting your ballot for the “lesser of two evils,” vote to lessen evil, writes John Stonestreet, president of the Colson Center.
“Notvoting in order to ‘keep our hands clean’ is a form of pietism, not Christianity,” Stonestreet writes at Breakpoint.org. “[The Book of] James is clear that if there is good that we can do, we should. To not do the good we can, is sin. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, even in the face of far worse political realities than ours, rejected pietism as being contrary to Christian responsibility. Because Christianity is an incarnational faith, he wrote, it must be lived in ‘the tempest of the living.’”
Although the office of the president takes top billing this election cycle, there’s no denying the power that Congress wields to advance or thwart the commander in chief’s agenda.
Case in point is the so-called “Equality Act” legislation that the Biden administration has tried unsuccessfully to ratify into law.
The Equality Act would allow male-bodied transgender women to utilize women’s private spaces such as bathrooms, locker rooms, shelters and sports leagues; employers would be forced to provide health care insurance coverage for hormone treatment and/or sex-reassignment surgery for individuals with gender dysphoria; and parents would be federally banned from seeking counseling for their children struggling with unwanted same-sex attraction or gender confusion.
The deceptively named legislation was first passed by the House of Representatives 236-173 in May 2019. But it stalled in the GOP-led Senate at the time and never made it to the floor for a vote.
Democrats reintroduced the bill in 2021, hoping for a win in both the House and Senate. It passed 224-206 in the House, with three Republicans joining the Democrat majority to vote in favor of the bill. But it lacked at least 60 votes in the Senate to bypass a legislative filibuster.
Franklin Graham calls the proposed legislation the greatest threat to religious freedom in his lifetime. And if Democrats were to win the White House and both chambers of Congress in November, he fully expects the dangerous bill to become law.
“Under the broad reach of the Equality Act, schools, churches and hospitals could be forced to accept the government’s beliefs and mandates about sexual orientation and gender identity,” he says. “That would be highly intrusive and incredibly far-reaching. It will threaten everyday speech where people can be fined or lose their jobs for using the wrong name or pronouns.”
Thankfully, about half of the states throughout the country have passed versions of the Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act. These commonsense protections shield minors from sterilizing puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries that remove healthy body parts and reproductive organs.
Still, the Democratic Party remains committed to giving abortion provider Planned Parenthood and other pillars of the multi-billion-dollar transgender industry the green light to carry out so-called “gender-affirming care,” with all its irreversible effects, on minors whose brains have not yet fully developed—minors whom the law bars from getting a tattoo or smoking a cigarette, because they do not understand the long-term implications of those choices.
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris is hoping that her election to the Oval Office would also usher in Democrat majorities in Congress that could codify abortion rights into federal law—a goal first uttered by President Biden and echoed by Harris.
“I believe that we should put the protections of Roe v. Wade into law,” Harris said during a 2023 CBS News Face the Nation interview in which she refused to name a single limitation on abortion that she would support.
In addition to the president’s legislative priorities, other highly impactful decisions such as judicial nominations and approving government officials to lead federal agencies such as the Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Education and Department of Justice, just to name a few, all must be approved by Congress.
“A system that allows unelected officials to hold such power is flawed, as are the candidates who appoint, and the leaders appointed,” Stonestreet writes. “Voting to lessen evil should never be about excusing bad character. It should be our best attempt to enable the best outcomes possible while recognizing that the most important work the church will do won’t be political.” ©2024 BGEA