Donald Trump has won the 2024 U.S. presidential election. How should Christians respond to that?
Based on my social media feed and phone conversations on this day after the election, the answer is obvious. “We should rejoice,” some say. “We should mourn,” say others. Still others are conveying a different response, one I hope to communicate here.
Those who take Paul’s instruction seriously to rejoice with those who rejoice and to weep with those who weep will be busy — and exhausted — following yesterday’s election. But the occasion calls for a deeper and more prolonged response than rejoicing or weeping.
We need to remember two things: Our government is not our hope, and all people are to be treated as bearers of God’s image.
Out of these two things, we need to pray, seek the welfare of our society, care for all the vulnerable, worship the Lord and communicate Jesus’ good news.
Ground hope in Christ.
So much hope was pinned on the 2024 election. Among other hopes, so many saw the outcome as decisive for the future of our democracy. Maybe it was or will be, but such hope is too easily misplaced in politicians and policies.
One important response to this election is for us to be clear-eyed and single-minded about where we are to place our hope.
Christian, we are to place our hope squarely in Jesus Christ, who made all things and in whom all things hold together. He — not any politician or policy — is to have “first place in everything.”
Jesus Christ is the ultimate subject and object of hope, because he is hope’s source and fulfillment. Politicians and policies are like grass — here today and gone tomorrow.
Obey the greatest law.
How we as Christians are to conduct ourselves in light of the election isn’t determined by who won it. Our conduct is governed by a greater and higher law. We are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, and we are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.
Loving God wholly and with our whole selves involves the way we regard and treat other people — all other people. If we are to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, we must fix in our minds that each of us is created in God’s image, and to disparage God’s image is not merely an affront to a person but is contempt for God.
Pray for others.
Sometimes it’s difficult to appreciate the image of God in another person, especially if that other person believes, behaves, looks and acts differently than us. Asking God to do for them what we want God to do for us — praying for them — can change our view of them.
That other person for whom we pray may be the current president or the president-elect, as Joshua Longmire encourages in his Voices article published this week.
Praying for the president isn’t just a nice thing to do, nor is it meant to be patriotic. As Longmire reminds us, praying for the president is consistent with the scriptural exhortation — again from Paul — to make “petitions, prayers, intercession … for all people — for kings and those in authority” (1 Timothy 2:1–2).
To read full article, click here.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This article was written by Eric Black, executive director, publisher and editor of the Baptist Standard, which first published it.
