Conservative Christians throughout the United States are breathing a collective sigh of relief at the re-election of Donald Trump to the presidency. The reason is not that we are inveterate Trump supporters—far from it. Our expectations of his presidency are low. He is not the man to restore the moral fiber of our civilization. He will not return us to civility or bring an advance in reasoned discourse.
But then, we did not choose Trump primarily for what he is. We chose him for what he is not. In most elections of the past, we would not have voted for him. So why did we now?
One reason is that four years of incompetence, corruption, and radical ideology are enough. Biden, Harris, and their cronies gave us galloping inflation, military chaos, a porous border, rampant crime, divisive identity politics, and a weaponized legal system. Trump is not a paragon of order but compared to the past four years he looks positively OCD.
Another reason is that we have seen what the Left has tried to do to Trump. With the legacy media providing cover, they have reviled him at every opportunity. They have raided his home. They have engineered selective criminal prosecutions out of whole cloth. They have depicted him as such a threat to the country that multiple attempts have been made on his life. We watched as these things happened. We saw the unfairness of it all, and we could not escape the sense that anything the Left could do to Trump, they would eventually do to us.
Putting Tim Walz on the ballot only reinforced that perception. Walz is the guy who tried to promote gender confusion in the schools, even placing tampons in the boys’ restrooms. He told teachers to hide students’ gender confusion from their parents. He made it illegal for parents to refuse gender mutilation for their children. He weaponized Minnesota’s social services to pull kids out of homes where parents discouraged gender mutilation. He has made Minnesota into a state where normal parents have to live in fear. No wonder Harris and Walz received fewer votes from Minnesotans in 2024 than Harris and Biden got in 2020, while Trump received more.
Walz also enshrined abortion in Minnesota. With control of both houses of the legislature, he and his cronies passed laws to allow abortion up to the moment of birth. He has made Minnesota a destination for women who want abortions, and he has also turned Minnesota into a sanctuary for abortion seekers.
What Walz did in Minnesota, Harris and Walz were going to try to do at the national level. If they had been elected, they would also have tried to eliminate religious exemptions on these and similar issues. The Left is all about forcing people at gunpoint (every governmental ordinance and law is enforced at gunpoint). Harris and Walz wanted to force us to pretend. We would be made to pretend that a fetus is not a child, that two people of the same sex can marry each other, and that a man can be a woman and vice versa.
In some cases, Trump will also force us to pretend. He is the first president to be elected (in 2016) while publicly endorsing same-sex marriage. With Trump, however, there is at least some possibility that religious protections might remain in place. Under his administration, for example, Christian organizations might not be forced to pay for their employee’s abortions. Christian adoption agencies might not be put out of business for refusing to place children with same-sex couples. Artists of different sorts might not be prosecuted for refusing to celebrate events that are contrary to their consciences.
We also had other reasons for choosing Trump over Harris. Trump is less likely to interfere with our right to self-defense. He is more likely to uphold our property rights against radical ecotopians and predatory regulatory agencies. He is more likely to crack down on crime, and he is far more likely to defend the country from foreign invasion (whether armed or not). He has shown himself to be a friend of Israel. He has demonstrated his willingness to appoint judges who respect what the Constitution says, rather than what they wish it might say. Furthermore, as we learned from his first administration, Trump does not make promises that he does not intend to keep.
President Trump does not have the ability to fix our country. He is not the Messiah, and he will not lead us in either a civic or religious revival. Things may get worse rather than better under his presidency. But they should get worse at a slower rate than they would have under a Harris-Walz administration. President Trump cannot cure the disease, but he can temporarily ease some of the symptoms.
Curing the disease must begin with us. A Trump administration gives us a short reprieve, nothing more. We need to remember that the problems in our civilization cannot be addressed by mere legislation and enforcement. Law that is not felt in the heart does not hold power. Our job—not Trump’s—is to address the hearts of our friends and neighbors.
This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
When All Thy Mercies, O My God
Joseph Addison (1672–1719)
When all Thy mercies, O my God,
My rising soul surveys,
Transported with the view, I’m lost
In wonder, love, and praise.
Unnumber’d comforts on my soul
Thy tender care bestow’d,
Before my infant heart conceived
From whom those comforts flow’d.
When in the slippery paths of youth
With heedless steps I ran,
Thine arm, unseen, convey’d me safe,
And led me up to man.
Ten thousand thousand precious gifts
My daily thanks employ;
Nor is the least a cheerful heart,
That tastes those gifts with joy.
Through ev’ry period of my life
Thy goodness I’ll pursue;
And after death, in distant worlds,
The glorious theme renew.
Through all eternity, to Thee
A grateful song I’ll raise;
But oh, eternity’s too short
To utter all Thy praise.
