Homer: Yes, Christians Are Voting for Joe Biden: An Open Letter to the Christian Right

By Matt Homer

I am a 40-year-old white guy, former lifelong Republican, former Trump campaign staffer, and a former Republican politico. But last week, I proudly voted for Biden-Harris, and every Democrat on my ballot for the first time!

As a former pastor, this decision has been highly criticized by many on the Christian Right, so I decided to respond to every Christian that excludes any person of faith unless they vote for the Republican Party. 

To my Christian friends that have told me that I need prayer because I voted Democratic, here is my response:

You may disagree because you have fused your political philosophy and your religious ideology. The mission of the church has become the mission of the state.

On one hand, you believe that only God can change human behavior, made possible only by accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

On the other hand, you want government to regulate human behavior through the actions of legislators and judges.

Regulation that reflect some ambiguous idea of a Biblically based society.

If the church represents the power of God on the earth, why does the Church need so much help from government to regulate a dynamic view of morality?

Where do we draw the line?

Let us game this out, shall we? It is 2024, abortion is illegal, homosexuality is illegal, and there are no laws that regulate the ownership of firearms (because Christians believe God’s will is sovereign, preordained, and immutable, but we need AK-47s for protection). For some reason this is one of a handful of issues of significant importance to the Christian Right. Yes, I believe in the 2nd Amendment, but this has become a core issue for evangelicals.

What happens when some “tyrannical” governor opposes this Biblical mandate? Do the most extreme elements take up their non-regulated AK-47s and incite a “Holy War”?

It becomes dangerous when people feel they are acting on behalf of God for the “good” of society. And I posit, the quickest way to get there is by politicizing faith.

Just ask the women in Iran et al.

What is next? Books, bars, anti-Muslim immigration, tobacco, alcohol, science, philosophy?

In theory, there is no limit if it involves the question of morality viewed through the lens of a Biblical worldview. There is also no limitation if public policy is believed to be in competition with Biblical principles.

If you start legislating the Bible, where does it stop?

And what is the mission statement of the modern church? Is it political or spiritual? Temporal or eternal?

Should Christians “go into all the world and preach the gospel” (Matt. 15:16), or stay at home and build Christian civilization? Are they “strangers and pilgrims” (Heb. 11:13) or nation builders? Should Christians “turn the other cheek” (Matt. 5:38), or divide themselves into political factions, defeat the opposition, and define their version of God’s law?

Paul wrote the majority of the New Testament in a prison cell. Should he have been more concerned with the injustices of the state and the institution of Divine law in Rome?

A Christian civilization is neither definable or enforceable without tyranny and subjugation, much like England and its imperialistic reign in the name of God.

My first church was in a small Virginia town of about three-thousand people. The town was also home to approximately thirty-two churches and half of them were splits off one another. I believe the church I pastored split four times over the course of its history to date.

Christianity is incapable of legislating morality within the walls of its local church governments much less the entirety of a civilization, and especially to the unbeliever. There is no uniformity within Christendom and therefore cannot supply political uniformity within a civilization.

The 1648 Treaty of Westphalia marked the end of the Thirty Years’ War that started between various Protestant states and Roman Catholic states that eventually encompassed the European powers. The Westphalia revolution is seen as the origination of the state because it “marked the end of rule by religious authority in Europe and the emergence of secular authorities” (Mingst et al, pg. 20).

In modern Christianity, the concept of the secular state is often misinterpreted, misguided, or mislabeled. The United States is the first to be considered a secular state, not because of immoral ideology or Godlessness; instead, the United States does not legally give preference to religion or non-religion. The first amendment of the United States Constitution states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” (U.S. Const. amend I).

The secular state is strengthened by religious participation and reinforced morally by competing schools of religious thought and supported by a free market of ideals. 

Yes, Democrats are Christians too. No, Democrats don’t want to persecute Christians.

Plurality of thought protects the non-religious and protects the free expression of religious dissent within religious organizations. 

For example, in the United States the free press is open to the atheist, agnostic, and believer alike. It is also equally available to the Calvinist, Catholic, Mennonite, and Mormon. The secular state supplies opportunity for pluralism without fear of the First Church of the Frozen Few being taught to your fiery five-year-old in the publicly funded schools.

Without plurality of thought the state would be reduced to the religious preferences of the ruling Monarch or democratic majority. Instead, philosophers, theologians, academics, and laypeople can debate the “untutored-human-nature-as-it-is” (McIntyre, pg. 55), and how it should be.

For example, many on this thread have been drawing a comparison that says pro-choice = pro-abortion = anti-God. So, if a person is pro-choice, they automatically want people to get abortions? And voting for a pro-choice candidate makes a person complicit in every abortion that takes place?

If so, does this mean if I vote for a politician that is pro-legalized marijuana, I am pro-marijuana? Does this mean that I want people to get high? Does this also mean that I’m personally responsible for every person that decides to get high? Using this logic, am I responsible for their decision to use marijuana simply because I voted for this pro- marijuana politician? Does this make me personally responsible if someone gets high and wrecks their car?

Pluralism allows for dissenting thought and people are not superior in their beliefs simple because they take the self-ordained moral high ground. There are pro-choice Christians in the Church and there is not one person present or otherwise that has the moral authority to tell them otherwise.

For some reason, modern Christianity appears to be on a conquest to recreate American society into some sort of MAGA infused, Biblically mandated society.

Should our faith drive our politics to the point that we must defend the indefensible because we believe this person is going to aid the Church’s conquest to legislate dynamic ideas of biblical morality; I say dynamic because segregation et al used to be considered moral. Is that even the mission of the church? And which church decides?

Maybe the church should untangle the secular Constitution of the United States from the spiritual mission of the church.

America does not need the evangelical version of the caliphate.

Matt Homer is a former pastor, congressional staffer, political operative who worked on both the 2016 Trump campaign and the 2012 Romney campaign, elected political official in Virginia’s 6th Congressional District, and lobbyist.

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MacIntyre, Alasdair. 2007. After Virtue. Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press.

Mingst, K. A., McKibben, H. E., & Arreguín-Toft, I. M. (2019) Essentials of international relations. New York: W.W. Norton and Company.