The Report
Donald Trump won the 2016 United States presidential election, defeating Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in one of the most unexpected electoral outcomes in American political history. Trump carried states that had voted Democrat for decades, including Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, assembling an Electoral College majority while losing the popular vote. His victory was met with shock and grief across the mainstream media and in the political establishment, and with cautious hope among many conservatives and Christians who had feared the alternative.
Trump's platform included promises to appoint conservative judges to the Supreme Court, to defend religious liberty, to restrict immigration, and to reverse many of the policies of the Obama administration. His personal character and history were widely regarded as deeply flawed, and many Bible-believing Christians wrestled with the question of how to vote.
The election of Donald Trump was a remarkable and unexpected development. The relief felt by many Christians at the defeat of Hillary Clinton — who represented a continuation and intensification of the anti-Christian cultural agenda of the Obama years — was understandable. Clinton's positions on abortion, religious liberty, and sexuality were directly contrary to biblical teaching, and the prospect of a Clinton presidency appointing several Supreme Court justices was deeply alarming to those who care about the rule of law and the protection of religious freedom.
But Christians should be clear-eyed about what Trump's election represented and what it did not. It was not a religious revival. It was not a return to biblical Christianity. It was, at most, a temporary restraining of some of the forces that have been driving Western civilization away from its Christian foundations. The real battle for America's soul is not won or lost at the ballot box; it is won or lost in the Church, in the family, and in the faithful proclamation of the Gospel.
God is sovereign over the nations. He raises up rulers and brings them down according to His own purposes. Christians are called to pray for those in authority, to live as faithful citizens, and above all to keep their eyes on the King of kings — who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, whatever the outcome of any election.