How Biden’s Win Could Be a Gift for Evangelicals

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. Creative Commons photo.

(OPINION) For much of the world, the perceived four-year nightmare of a Trump presidency is almost over. But for politically conservative U.S. evangelicals, is the nightmare just beginning?

Not if they do their job and serve their Boss.

Joe Biden’s apparent win may presage some dark days for evangelicals on policy issues, but it also frees them from an entanglement that has been interfering with Christians’ primary assignment—to preach a spiritual gospel, not a political one. 

Since the late 1970s, U.S. evangelicals’ political mobilization has focused overwhelmingly on a core of social issues: sanctity of life, marriage and sexuality, parental rights, and religious freedom. Those interests have pushed evangelicals into a symbiotic relationship with one party and alienation from the other party.

Very few evangelicals would have picked Donald Trump as their ideal president. (Yes, Jerry Falwell Jr. did, but as we’ve discovered, he had his own issues.) But when Trump became the Republican nominee, conservative evangelicals had nowhere else to go.

This put them in a miserable dilemma. Christians should care more than anyone else about their leaders’ character, but for four years, evangelicals committed to the core social issues listed above have been forced to say that policy trumps character (and competence, humility, and basic professionalism).

Given the lack of a viable alternative, evangelicals who have devoted their lives to supporting the sanctity of all life or traditional marriage should not be disparaged for their loyalty to the Trump presidency, despite the obvious awkwardness.

Some of them have been quite transparent about their discomfort—like Jim Daly, CEO of Focus on the Family, who stated, “If I like 80-90 percent of his policies, I only like 10 percent of his tweets.” Others have been less transparent, behaving as loyal Trump soldiers and feeding into the widespread narrative that evangelicals (especially those who thought character was very important during the Clinton impeachment) are unqualified to be moral or spiritual models for anyone. 

The perception that Trump and evangelicals view the world in roughly the same way has created public-relations difficulties for evangelicals outside the United States, especially in countries where Trump is unpopular. 

Now, thanks to Biden’s win, this awkward alliance is about to end. But evangelicals must deal with an incoming president who has moved left with his party, embraced the sexual revolution, and says Roe v. Wade should be the law of the land. How should they handle this situation?

Graciously.

If evangelicals heed their tradition, that shouldn’t be hard. Daniel faithfully served pagan kings, and the apostle Paul counseled respect for government at a time when the Roman emperor was someone’s crazy uncle. 

There are plenty of positive contemporary models too, though they don’t get the visibility that the tango between the evangelical right and the Republican Party has received.

The National Association of Evangelicals—the most broadly representative U.S. evangelical body—has espoused a wider approach to public engagement, with eight core principles. The first three match the evangelical right’s social concerns: religious freedom, sanctity of life, marriage and family. But the NAE insists that Christian public involvement should also encompass justice for the poor and vulnerable, preserving human rights, racial justice, promoting just peace, and caring for God’s creation.

Those last five principles offer enormous opportunities for constructive public engagement that in ways that could be broadly appreciated and could thereby dispel evangelicals’ currently unfavorable public image. Creation care particularly deserves attention because U.S. evangelicals have seemed out of step with their global soulmates on this issue.

Whereas U.S. conservatives, including many evangelicals, have taken a skeptical view of measures to combat climate change, the World Evangelical Alliance is much more progressive. Its Sustainability Center mobilizes Christians worldwide for creation care and is viewed as a valued partner by the United Nations in efforts to achieve the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals. 

Evangelicals don’t have to veer far left to recognize that we should do whatever we can to keep Africans from being starved by drought and Asian cities from becoming submerged. The extreme wildfires and hurricane damage our country has experienced this year make this a good time for recalibration. 

Of course, Christians can also (and already do) act in many apolitical ways to aid the poor, advance racial equality, and improve the environment. So if the Biden administration and Democrats in Congress give evangelicals a cold shoulder, there are plenty of other good things to do.  

But evangelicals should never assume their concerns will fall on deaf ears before they try. When India’s Hindu nationalist government blocked Compassion, the evangelical child sponsorship organization, from operating in that country in 2016, the Obama administration was very responsive to Compassion’s pleas for help. Secretary of State John Kerry personally raised the issue with top Indian officials, albeit without success.

For 17 years, I attended an interracial evangelical church in inner-city Pittsburgh. The church was widely known for its contributions to community development, even spending $200,000 to purchase a nuisance bar across the street and put it out of business. When its pastor retired two months ago, Pittsburgh’s liberal mayor visited the church with an official proclamation, declaring a day in the pastor’s honor. As this example shows, there’s plenty of room for collaboration between evangelicals and left-leaning public officials. 

A few prominent evangelicals, including retired Fuller Seminary president Richard Mouw, devotional author Richard Foster, and Christians for Social Action founder Ron Sider, might even get a friendly ear at the Biden White House, having endorsed Biden despite their clear disagreement with him on abortion. This group reports having had productive conversations with Biden campaign representatives. Maybe they could build bridges for other faith groups and keep the Biden administration from being pushed off the rails by radical ideologues, like the New York state senator who didn’t want the Samaritan’s Purse pandemic relief team in Central Park because of Franklin Graham’s opposition to gay marriage.

Evangelicals have understandable fears about what a Biden administration might do. Perhaps their freedoms might be narrowed as in Canada, where a Christian university that affirms a traditional view of marriage can’t have a law school. But even should they encounter such restrictions, if they respond with compassion, grace, and principle they may advance their ultimate goals more than if they had remained shackled to Donald Trump for four more years.

Bruce Barron is executive editor of the Evangelical Review of Theology, the World Evangelical Alliance’s theological journal. He is a former congressional aide and author of six books on U.S. religion and politics. The views expressed in this essay are his own and do not represent official WEA positions.