Will we be able to live together in 2025?
Voting the "wrong" way in a Presidential election does not mean you are evil or that you are going to burn in Hell Fire.
Faggot.
Cuck.
Traitor.
Retard.
Idiot.
These are just a fraction of the names I was called in 2016 for not supporting Donald Trump. Often, these insults would be accompanied by the F word, and sometimes multiple different variations of the F word.
I keep hearing that Christians who do not support Donald Trump are parading their virtue, and showing they are "clean" by not voting for him. But is that really true? For some, yes. But as with many things, you have to consider the audience. A great many Christians take a great deal of heat for not supporting Trump, sometimes from their own family and friends. If you are in a very "red" area, or your friends, fellow church members and coworkers are Trump supporters, you often get way more grief for opposing him than for supporting him. I speak from personal experience.
Do some Christians virtue signal by opposing Trump? Sure. It can also be a stand on principle met with thunderous condemnations. Context and audience actually do matter.
This leads me to the overwrought hand-wringing about voting this November. As I have made abundantly clear by this point, I am vehemently opposed to Kamala Harris. She is a terrible person and a terrible candidate. But people who literally damn Christians for voting for her truly do not understand how personally toxic Donald Trump is. I do not believe that many of those who have "Trump Derangement Syndrome" are basing their beliefs on facts or his record as President. Trump is not Adolf Hitler and will not be mass arresting people who oppose him politically, for example. He was already President and did none of that, though he did mouth off a lot.
But the fact is that "TDS" is encouraged by Trump, who loves to troll and taunt to make people angry. When he said he would "be a dictator on day one," he was joking. But Trump knows how people on the Left view him, and he was intentionally tweaking them to get a response. Other times, he is ranting and venting, such as when he said the way he was "cheated" in 2020 allows for "the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles," including the Constitution itself. A well-disciplined man would not say things like that, especially where millions of people can see it. But Trump has never been disciplined, restrained or focused. He lacks basic professionalism.
Given Trump's habit for ranting without any discipline over his mouth, the fact that he loves to troll and provoke people, and the terrible events of January 6, is it really that unreasonable to assume that Trump is a threat to democracy and the rule of law? I do not share that view, but I do understand why even principled conservatives would vote for Kamala Harris in November given Trump's antics and filthy mouth. Trump undermines those trying to defend him and defuse the arguments against him with his complete lack of discipline and restraint.
No, people who vote for Harris are not "enemies to the cross of Christ and His Church," as one pastor railed on Facebook. They are people who have a different opinion. They do not support every single terrible thing that Kamala Harris does. You can think someone is wrong, without literally damning them. Would a pastor who says this move to have his board of elders excommunicate or officially censure someone who votes for Harris?
A vote is not a complete and total endorsement. It is simply not true that if you vote for someone, you automatically agree with every single thing they say or do. So no, voting for Harris is not an automatic endorsement of "gender reassignment" surgeries for minors or of partial-birth abortion. I have voted in 21 general elections since 1995. (They cancelled the 2019 general election, or it would be 22.) Out of the many different votes I have cast over three decades, I voted for a candidate I agree with 100% of the time exactly 3 times. Each time, I voted for myself. Even then, I knew I was voting for a candidate who was personally flawed because I know myself.
Folks, we are going to have to live, work and shop next to each other after this election is over. Are we going to dismiss, condemn and refuse to associate with every single person who voted for the "evil" candidate we opposed so strongly? Will we split our own families apart? We might even worship next to people who voted the "wrong" way in the Presidential election. In a nation that is almost evenly split, is this really the best way to move forward, much less be a witness for the blood of Jesus Christ?
By all means, continue to advocate for your chosen candidates, from township board up to the President of these United States. Continue to explain why the opposing candidate is not worthy of votes. But it is wrong to issue a blanket damnation of over 70 million people who vote for Harris or Trump, respectively. Let's all have a lot more grace, a lot more humility, and a lot more tolerance for those who support a different candidate than we do.