Jesus and the GOP: An Introduction

An Introduction

Though I didn’t know it as a child, I grew up in a heavily conservative area. Despite being relatively small, my hometown of Holland, MI had multiple churches with thousands of members. Beginning in middle school, I attended one of them. I was heavily involved in the church and the youth group, and many of my most formative experiences were centered around this church. It is not a stretch to say that my faith became the core of my identity.

I began serving on worship teams in high school(something that continued on a regular, if not weekly, basis until 2020). I read CS Lewis. I volunteered at church. I prayed around flagpoles, was a part of FCA, and drew crosses and bible verses on my backpack. Though I didn’t kiss dating goodbye, I did commit to purity culture. I was against abortion. I was anti-affirmative action. I believed in marriage for one man and one woman, and the first time I had a chance to vote, I voted Republican.

Because that’s what you do when you are a good Christian.

Or at least that’s what we’re told, often quite literally. I remember various conversations on my Christian college campus about if it was even possible to be a Christian and also be a Democrat. I wasn’t too plugged in to politics at the time, but I remember more than one professor adamantly insisting that it was not.

Fast forward to June of 2015.

I was quite passionate about social justice and had been fortunate enough to have traveled to multiple countries around the world and experienced other cultures as well as move away from my hometown. Despite that, I still didn’t pay too much attention to politics. I was more concerned with things on a local level and with what was going on in my church. But the moment Donald Trump rode down that golden escalator and launched his political campaign, everything changed.

I watched as he spewed insults at his opponents. I heard him brag about adultery and sexually assaulting women. I heard him demean women constantly and lie incessantly. I saw his use hateful, racist rhetoric. And then I watched the church embrace him.

Suddenly, I cared very much about politics.

As I write, we sit on the precipice of another presidential election, and the vast majority of the church seems to believe that the Republican Party is the only choice for a Christian. Despite a litany of crimes and appalling behavior, the church is once again throwing their support behind a man and a party that looks nothing like Jesus. Even when I encounter those rare conservatives who are able to see Trump for who he is, they so often echo the same sentiments that pervaded my college campus when they say, “I can’t vote for Trump, but I could never vote for a Democrat.”

That is why I have written this. I actually began this project years ago. It was partially inspired by some of the events during Trump’s term in office, and partially by recurring and baffling conversations I had with fellow Christians. I specifically remember one person who told me that they regularly read the Bible and pray, and as a direct result of those actions, they were led to vote Republican 90% of the time. This statement left me in somewhat of disbelief. I’m not a Biblical scholar, but I have read the entire Bible through multiple times (which is more than most Christians can claim). I have studied it thoroughly, as well as many resources about it. I also personally allow for the Bible to have a lot more room for interpretation and error than most Christians I know. But even I couldn’t understand how so many of the conservative positions could be argued to be rooted in the Bible. So I decided that I wanted to compile a resource, not only for myself and ensuring that I was remaining grounded in my beliefs, but also for others. With time, however, this project grew significantly in size and scope, and ultimately sat dormant for a few years. The process of researching and cataloging the position of the right is often draining and depressing. But now, with a high stakes election speeding toward us, there seemed to be no better time to finally get this into the world. So here it is.

This is my effort to try and dive into the policies and positions of the Republican Party (those on the right in American politics) as well as the teachings of Jesus and the Bible to see if, in fact, they actually align. I hope that you’ll find it useful. While I don’t intend to tell anyone how to vote as a result of this information, I do at least hope that people would perhaps come to see that if we truly look at what Jesus taught, we find that many of the most prominent positions of the Republican Party don’t actually line up at all.

Disclaimer

While it is by no means an exhaustive list of events, examples, or of supporting scripture, the point of this project was to be thorough. Almost excessively so, as to provide enough information that it is impossible to ignore. When choosing news sources, I have tried to provide the most neutral or even right-leaning sources I can, so as to not be criticized for providing biased content. In most cases, I went through multiple sources and articles to find either the most neutral option that was not behind a paywall or the most seemingly accurate and informative article. There are some cases in which I do use a source that comes from “the left.” That said, I have intentionally avoided virtually any sources that are as left-leaning as Fox News is right-leaning. But some instances did requite a source from at least the center-left because sources on the right simply don’t cover many of the topics that don’t reflect positively on the right. I hope you’ll understand.

Though I initially thought this might be one singular post/document, I am afraid the sheer length and volume of the links will be too much for anyone to actually try to digest. Thus, I’ve made the decision to separate these into individual topics and post each one individually.

Without further ado, we’ll dive in.