Country music singer Jason Isbell has the media fawning over him for proclaiming, “Jesus would not have voted for Trump.” It’s always cute when pro-abortion, anti-gun celebrities try to explain Christianity or the Bible to the rest of us.
Listening to these people for theological advice would be like driving to the country club and asking the local golf pro to perform day surgery on you. It’s a little bit outside his area of expertise.
The Grammy-winning Isbell elaborated, “The whole point of Christianity is to behave as Jesus behaved.” How do they come up with this stuff? (Spoiler alert: The devil.)
The “whole point of Christianity” is not to behave as Jesus behaved. That is the point of your walk with Jesus. The point of Christianity as a faith is to change cultures for the better, so they are more in line with the concepts the secularists refer to as “Western Civilization:” Justice, mercy, peace, the rule of law, limited civil government, freedom of conscience for churches and so forth. The purpose of this, in turn, is to draw people closer to Him – so that more individuals will believe and subsequently behave as Jesus behaved.
Isbell gets extra credit for ignorance in thinking that Jesus would have voted at all. Jesus lived in part of the Roman empire and Jews were effectively non-citizens in their own occupied territory. Jesus would have been advocating for non-citizens to vote if He had told people to vote at all. This would have been repugnant and hypocritical to God the Father, who establishes the borders of the nations.
Jesus even told His followers of their duty as citizens of Rome: “Render therefore unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.” (Matthew 22:21) Not even a liberal Unitarian could twist that verse into “Whatever you do, don’t vote for Trump!”
If the duty of Christians living in the Roman empire was to “render unto Caesar,” to live as good citizens, what then is the duty of Christians living in our constitutional republic? Our version of rendering unto Caesar is to exercise the privilege of voting at every opportunity, and to vote only for candidates who will adhere to the US Constitution. The choices in 2016 were Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
Unbeknownst to singer Jason Isbell and other atheists who would like to teach us about Christianity, the Bible does give us standards on how to choose people for representative positions in government. Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, explains to him in Exodus 18:21, “Moreover thou shall provide out of all of the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over the people, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens.”
This format for selecting representative judges for ancient Israel predated the Roman Republic’s representative democracy by about a thousand years. It was a standard considered to have great merit by the Founding Fathers of America and undoubtedly was useful in forming our representative form of government. Therefore, the verse is adequate for Christians to use to select candidates to vote for. Let’s compare Trump and Clinton based on the biblical standards of capability, fear of God, truthfulness and hating covetousness, shall we?
Capability: This is a tie, as both candidates fit the constitutional requirements to run for president.
Fear of God: Trump was raised Presbyterian, professed a love of God on the campaign trail and has proven to be the most pro-Christian president in recent century. Hillary Clinton belongs to a satanic coven of witches known as “The Wing.” Advantage – Trump.
Truthfulness: Ha! Advantage – Trump.
Covetousness: While Trump certainly enjoys wealth, there is no evidence that he covets the wealth of others. Instead, he prefers to generate new wealth through real estate deals. Hillary Clinton’s entire career has been built on coveting the wealth of others and living off it. Reference her lifelong favors-for-donations scheming and the Clinton Foundation if you doubt this. Trump may have coveted other men’s wives in the past, but there is ample evidence that he has reformed on this position. Advantage – Trump.
So, using the exacting standards of the Bible, Christians should feel no guilt whatsoever in having voted for President Trump. Whether Jesus would have voted for Trump is a moot point, frankly. We have no evidence of Jesus voting or not voting in the historical record. His family participated in a census and He encouraged His followers to do their duty as good citizens of Rome.
If you want some more advice from country music singer Jason Isbell, he wants voters in Tennessee to support pro-abortion, pro-Obamacare Democrat Phil Bredesen over Christian candidate Marsha Blackburn for US Senate. We’re just guessing that Isbell didn’t consult the Bible to come up with that position.
~ Christian Patriot Daily
