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

Jefrey Breshears

PART 3
A Binary Choice

At the outset of 2024 I mentioned in several Areopagus classes that the upcoming election year could be the most turbulent and chaotic election year since 1968. Unfortunately, this prediction is being fulfilled – and we still have more than a month to go. Furthermore, we have no idea what to expect after the election is over – especially if Donald Trump wins. Kyrie eleison!

This election season has been an unmitigated mess. From the outset we had two candidates with very problematic personalities and character. However, their political agendas and visions for America stood in stark contrast. Personalities aside, what ultimately matters in these elections are the candidates’ political principles, policies, programs and priorities.

By all objective standards, Joe Biden is the most incompetent and corrupt president in U. S. history. Throughout his political career he has been, to borrow a term attributed to Vladimir Lenin, the prototypical “useful idiot” for cultural Marxists who are hell-bent on “fundamentally transforming America.” Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense under President Barack Obama, famously wrote in his memoir, “I think [Joe Biden] has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” Even Obama himself was quoted as saying, “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f… things up.”

Joe Biden, of course, is no longer the Democratic Party’s nominee, but Vice-President Kamala Harris is even worse. Not merely a pathetic pawn of the Left, she actually is a cultural Marxist. Prior to being chosen as Biden’s vice-presidential running mate in 2020, Harris was one of the most radical Democrats in the U. S. Senate. Throughout her career in politics, both in California and in Washington, D. C., she had absolutely no positive or commendable accomplishments. Chosen purely on the basis of her sex and race, she was the ultimate DEI hire. She is also, according to many who have known and worked under her in the past (including 92% of her staff who resigned during her vice-presidential term), a thoroughly repulsive individual – but that takes us back once again to the character and personality issue. Suffice it to say that she and her running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, constitute the most radical left-wing ticket in American history.

Many Christians are only reluctant supporters of Donald Trump. Many thoughtful conservative Christians much preferred Gov. Ron DeSantis or another Republican candidate. But we must realize that the future of America hangs in the balance. We are one election away from fulfilling Barack Obama’s vision of “fundamentally (and probably irreversibly) transforming America” – but certainly not for the better. The Democratic Party’s goal is to turn this nation into a secular socialist state that violates virtually every social, political and moral principle upon which America was founded. And no mistake about it: the Democratic agenda is not only radically neo-Marxist (just read their platform) but fundamentally anti-Christian.

Personalities aside – and whether or not we prefer to acknowledge it – this election offers a stark binary choice between two contrasting and irreconcilable political, social and moral agendas. Jesus is not on the ballot(!), and there is no ideal candidate or political party. However, Christians need to understand the gravity of what exactly is at stake. As I wrote in my book, American Crisis:

For much of my early adult life I sought to be as nonpartisan as possible, realizing that neither party is ideal. But the Democratic Party of the past fifty years – since its lurch leftward in 1972 with the nomination of George McGovern – is not the party of FDR or even JFK. The modern Democratic Party is simply the partisan political expression of a secular socialist ideology and the driving force behind virtually all the irrational, immoral, impractical, irresponsible and counterproductive policies and programs that are bankrupting America economically, socially, morally and spiritually. Christians who still identify with the Democratic Party are living in the distant past, totally out of touch with current realities.

Although the Republican Party has often functioned as the party of mediocrity, the Democratic Party is indisputably the party of venality. Mediocrity is a concession to human limitations and fallibility. Venality is a purposeful surrender to the most base and evil impulses in human nature….

Politics is mostly about damage-control – i.e., electing people to public office who will do the least harm, and then holding them accountable…

When a society loses its spiritual and moral bearings, everything becomes dysfunctional. Unlike most contemporary politicians, America’s Founding Fathers understood that liberty without virtue will inevitably degenerate into chaos, which sets the stage for political tyranny. And while we haven’t yet arrived at “1984”, those who are determined to “fundamentally transform America” understand that the secular socialist vision of a globalistic “New World Order” is the surest path to “1984”. And it is the Democratic Party that is driving the agenda….

Over the past fifty years all the social and moral confusion and corruption in America has wreaked havoc in every area of life, including our political culture. The secular Left has been resolutely committed and determined to exploit all this spiritual and moral decay so as to advance their agenda, while many Christians and church leaders avoid this conflict or even deny its existence.

In recent decades our two political parties have come to represent not only two opposing political ideologies but, in many ways, two contrasting worldviews. Ever since the late 1960s the Democratic Party has been pulled farther and farther toward to the Left to the point that it advocates a massive cradle-to-grave socialistic welfare state; the erosion of the Constitutional rule-of-law; open borders and “sanctuary cities;” liberalized drug laws; the radical LGBTQ agenda; abortion-on-demand; increased government control over the economy, education and healthcare; and a naive globalistic foreign policy that often reflects the values and interests of the United Nations more than that of the American people….

In actuality, the main difference in the political parties is that the Republican Party still has a base of social conservatives who care about traditional moral values while the Democratic Party functions as the political arm of a radical secular cultural agenda that is absolutely devastating the moral and civic climate in America. Furthermore, the Republican base includes millions of Christians who care passionately about religious liberty. Within the Democratic Party, virtually the only time religious liberty is a priority is when Muslim rights are an issue…. [Jefrey D. Breshears, American Crisis: Cultural Marxism and the Culture War (Centre•Pointe Publishing, 2020), pp. 281-82, 331ff.]

This election – including the crucial issue of election integrity – should be a priority for everyone who cares about the kind of society and culture in which we and our children and grandchildren will live. As I noted in Part 1 of this three-part series, we must emphasize to all of our family, friends and acquaintances – and especially to Christian leaders – what is at stake in the upcoming election. The failure to do so is the very antithesis of “loving others.”

Undoubtedly, many conservatives – including many Christians in particular – are very conflicted regarding voting for Donald Trump. This is certainly understandable given the reality that he has contributed perhaps more than any other politician in American history to publicly and brazenly debasing the dignity of the office of the presidency through his often-reckless rhetoric and some of his actions. However, for those who truly grasp what is at stake in the upcoming election and the perils that our nation faces, Trump’s rude and crude mannerisms and his annoying narcissism must be of secondary consideration to the generally positive policies and agenda of his administration if reelected. We are not electing a national pastor or even necessarily a role model. But based on his first term in office, there is little doubt that he and the Republican congressional coalition will serve the interests of the American people far more conscientiously and effectively than that of any Democratic administration.

We live in an increasingly decadent, degenerate and dysfunctional society and culture, and realistically, the number one priority of politics is this: Politics is mostly about damage-control. In other words, politics is mostly about keeping the very worst people out of power who initiate and implement the most destructive policies and programs. That being the case, the Democratic Party must be defeated by any legal and ethical means possible.

In summation, a close lifelong friend, Larry Keener, summed up our current situation this way:

One of my daughters asked me how I could support Donald Trump when he demonstrates very few of the values in his personal life that I had taught my children and that I always sought to exemplify in my own life. My response was simply this: “Donald Trump is certainly reprehensible in many ways, but although he may not live my values in his personal life, he does defend my values in terms of most of his policies – and that is why I support him. Over the years I have voted for many good men with values like mine only to be disappointed when they lacked the courage to stand up and defend those values while in office.”

Amen!

As Christians we must stand boldly for what is True, Good, and Beautiful – regardless of the cost. The failure to do so is not only irresponsible and indefensible, but outright cowardly.