The 2024 Election: What Is At Stake –
And Why Christians Should Care

Jefrey Breshears

PART 2
What Is At Stake

At the risk of sounding alarmist, the upcoming election is the most consequential election in American history since 1860. This warning has regularly been proclaimed in the past several elections, but it is nonetheless true. Our nation faces the greatest spiritual, moral, social, cultural, and yes – political breakdown – since the founding of our Republic. The stakes are higher than ever, and 2024 could be the last (relatively) fair and free election unless the recent trends are decisively reversed.

As implied previously, the contemporary Republican and Democratic parties generally represent not only two contrasting political ideologies but also, in many respects, two contradictory and irreconcilable worldviews. Not all Republicans, of course, hold consistently and resolutely to conservative political, social and moral principles. (Many Republican elitists may be fiscal/economic “conservatives” to an extent, but they offer little or no moral leadership.) Nonetheless, many – perhaps most – Republicans acknowledge and honor America’s Judeo-Christian moral traditions and the ethical principles inherent in traditional natural law.

Conversely, such values and principles are rare in the Democratic Party, which is overwhelmingly and proudly secular and liberal – if not far-left socialist. Many openly disavow the reality of objective and absolute morality in deference to a “progressive” view of social and moral values.

This sharp contrast between most Republicans and Democrats is obvious when considering the most important issues of our day – including the following ten:

1. The sanctity of human life. America’s Declaration of Independence acknowledges and upholds fundamental “unalienable rights” endowed to us by our Creator, including “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” In lieu of the right to life, literally nothing else matters.

While the majority of Republicans support pro-life legislation, the Democratic Party, under the guise of “reproductive freedom” and female “bodily autonomy,” has moved over the past thirty years from a position advocating abortion as a “safe, legal and rare” necessity in some cases to promoting abortion-on-demand even up to the time of birth. Some even tacitly support the “right” of infanticide (killing postnatal babies) in certain situations, and most support legislation calling for taxpayer funding of abortions.

2. Religious liberty. Republicans regard freedom of religion as a sacred right, including the freedom to propagate religious beliefs in the public square. Democrats are generally more secularistic in their views. Under the guise of “separation of church and state,” they support “freedom of worship” but believe public expressions of religious faith can be controversial and inappropriate, and should therefore be limited to private worship in one’s own preferred church, synagogue, mosque or temple.

3. Freedom of public expression and the right of peaceful assembly. Republicans generally oppose limitations on free speech or any attempts to prohibit peaceful assemblies in public places – including school campuses – provided there are no attempts to generate hostile or illegal activities that endanger public safety.

Many Democrats promote “cancel culture” efforts to suppress free public expression and peaceful assembly that they deem to violate their interpretation of “hate speech.” Similarly, Democrats regularly oppose religious exemptions for schools, businesses, medical providers, social service agencies, and other public institutions and organizations that promote conservative social, moral and religious values.

4. The Constitutional rule of law. Most Republicans support the traditional interpretation of Constitutional law based on the principle of “strict constructionism” (i.e., “original meaning”), while Democrats call for more “elastic” or “expansive” interpretations of Constitutional law based on current secular/liberal theories and social/cultural trends.

Republicans believe the fundamental purpose of government is to enact and enforce just laws for the benefit of all citizens, and to defend the life, liberty and property of citizens from all threats both foreign and domestic. Correspondingly, the Constitutional rule of law necessitates the strict enforcement of the principle of equal justice and equal protection legislation regardless of race, sex, religion, etc. Therefore, Republicans advocate the nomination and confirmation of federal court judges who uphold these traditional American judicial principles.

Republicans are consistent in their support of law enforcement, including the rule of law as it relates to immigration and border enforcement so as to protect America’s territorial sovereignty. In recent years prominent Democrats have called for defunding law enforcement and/or replacing law enforcement personnel with social workers.

5. Family autonomy. Republicans generally hold that parents have the right to direct and supervise their children’s growth and behavior according to the parents’ belief system and in any manner that is safe and legal. Parents – not schools or government bureaucrats – have an inherent right and responsibility to guide their children’s thinking in terms of their social, moral and religious beliefs, including in the vital area of sexual morality.

Democrats typically advocate more government oversight in such areas, including even usurping the role of parents in terms of controlling (either directly and explicitly, or indirectly and inferentially) the social, moral and sexual values of children. Democrats are almost exclusively the propagators of the radical and immoral LGBTQ+ agenda.

6. Educational freedom. Republicans believe school choice to be a basic Constitutional right regardless of whether parents opt for public or private education, charter schools, or the home school option. Therefore, many support a voucher system that allows moderate- and lower-income families more flexibility in terms of choosing the best educational option for their children.

Democrats are staunch supporters of liberal/ leftwing teachers’ unions such as the NEA (National Education Association) and the AFT (American Federation of Teachers), and seek to empower them, in conjunction with the federal Department of Education, to strictly control the curricula, standards and policies in both public and private education.

7. Election integrity. Republicans support updated voting rolls, voter photo identification, verified paper ballots, strict legal sanctions on ballot harvesting, and excluding non-citizens from voting in federal, state and local elections. Democrats generally oppose most or all of these measures.

8. National sovereignty. Republicans regard the U. S. Constitution as the supreme law of the nation and acknowledge the legitimacy of international organizations and agencies only to the extent that these entities have been granted limited influence under American law and do not attempt to supercede American legal codes and values.

Democrats are considerably more prone to cede legal jurisdiction and authority to international organizations and agencies such as the United Nations and the World Health Organization.

9. Economic freedom and self-sufficiency. While government has a valid role in terms of protecting the public interest by guaranteeing the safety and legitimacy of products sold on the open market, over-regulation and excessive taxation can seriously impede productivity, increase the costs of manufactured goods and services, reduce healthy competition, and increase American dependence on foreign goods and services.

Therefore, as with other issues mentioned previously, Republicans are considerably more attuned to the principles and advantages of open markets and free enterprise capitalism, whereas for more than ninety years the Democratic Party has increasingly called for more government regulation and control of the economy in keeping with a more socialistic orientation.

10. The bureaucratization of government. In recent decades an alarming amount of power and oversight in most every area of life has been ceded to unelected and generally unaccountable bureaucrats at the federal, state and local levels of government. Republicans generally oppose these trends while Democrats typically support such expansions of governmental control over the lives of citizens.

These ten issues highlight some of the vast differences between the political ideologies, policies and priorities that characterize the Democratic and Republican parties. There are, of course, many other significant issues ranging from fiscal and monetary policies and domestic energy production to government welfare/entitlement programs, illegal immigration, crime, drugs, foreign policies, etc. The bottom-line, however, is obvious: these two parties represent two fundamentally different value systems and visions for America. The individual candidates aside (see Part 3), every Christian must seriously consider: which party is more compatible with Christian – and traditional American – values?

Jefrey D. Breshears is a former history professor, the founder and president of The Areopagus, Inc., and the author of American Crisis: Cultural Marxism and the Culture War – A Christian Response; and C. S. Lewis on Politics, Government, and the Good Society.

JBreshears@TheAreopagus.org