Josh Duncan

Pastor friends on election week, We have too long been confused by (accidentally) misleading statements like "We don't follow a red elephant or a blue donkey, but a slain lamb" and "prophetic, not partisan." While such statements carry a grain of truth, they (incorrectly and damagingly) make the two parties sound like "equal and opposite errors." As uncomfortable as it is, it's increasingly our job to disciple our people to understand that is not the case, so they can be "salt in the earth." While there are immoral leaders and flaws in both parties (and certainly both candidates), only one party is advocating for catastrophic national sin in its publicly-stated policies. This is not an opinion, it is a fact based on both of their online policy platforms. - One party wants to pass what has been called the greatest threat to religious liberty in a lifetime (The Equality Act), and has hinted they are willing to end the Senate filibuster and restructure the Supreme Court, which would help them to do it - One party wants to establish a National Faith Advisory Board in which evangelical pastors advise the WH and create a 'Pastors' Bill of Rights' to cement religious liberty for a generation - One party is running campaign ads of men watching p*rnography as a public good - One party wants p*rnographic books removed from public schools (and is shockingly opposed by the other party for it) - One party has built their entire campaign on the maximization of legalized infant murder - One party is responsible for the overturning of Roe v Wade - One party is advocating for legalized "gender reassignment surgeries", doing things to children we were prosecuting as war crimes a century ago (and wants that ideology taught to children in public schools) - One party is willing to oppose mental-health-and-family-destroying transgender queer theory - If one party is elected, an aggressive commitment to secularism (the removal of notions of God from the public square) will reign - If one party is elected, the White House will be crawling with Bible-believing pastors Etc. People and personalities come and go, but *policies* last lifetimes and will be the cultural inheritance we hand to our children's children. In the name of evangelism (the "Progressives buy sneakers too" strategy) or "diversity", we must not fail to pastor our people and abdicate our role in society as "the salt of the earth" whose purpose is to slow societal decay. We aren't cultural commentators who should get distracted into talking about every cultural issue, but elections are a moment our people are taking consequential action and need some shepherding. Church history demonstrates the church that's unwilling to influence the government will soon find that government is happy to interfere with the church. And if godly people will not influence the nation, godless people will. At the very least, in the way that you can wisely as a shepherd of your flock, encourage your people to vote to "slow societal decay" this week. And then sleep like a Calvinist, refuse to "trust in princes", and preach and pray that God might pour out reformation and revival on our nation for a RESURGENCE of his purposes in our generation.