Alright, it’s official. 2024 has brought us another edition of “Whose Religion Is It Anyway?” where everything’s made up, and context doesn’t matter! Election season means it’s time to dust off the Holy Bible and flip through like it’s a political Mad Libs. Lately, the right-wing’s argument is essentially this: Christianity is now a one-party system. You can’t be both a Christian and a Democrat, they claim, which is ironic given that Jesus’s actual teachings might land him squarely in a Berkeley co-op.
Take Donald Trump, who recently exclaimed, “How any Christian can vote for a Democrat… is crazy.” I mean, he says “crazy” about as often as people say “hello,” but he’s serious about this one. For Trump, who sees the Sermon on the Mount as the first draft of “The Art of the Deal,” the message is clear: to be a Christian, you’ve got to keep your vote conservative and your Bible verses selective. And he’s not alone—several prominent voices from the religious right have taken to airwaves and pulpits alike, railing against the “godlessness” of the left.
One Washington Examiner article this year practically claimed that Democrats had “cast out” Christianity, as if it was a guest who’d overstayed its welcome at brunch. The article went on to describe Democratic ideals like reproductive rights, equality, and, gasp, intersectionality, as un-Christian. But let’s break this down for a second. Intersectionality, the idea that people can face multiple forms of discrimination at once, doesn’t exactly scream “anti-Christ.” In fact, it sounds like something Jesus himself might be into, considering he often focused on folks society shunned—lepers, tax collectors, you name it. Today, he’d probably be called “woke.”
If you squint hard enough, you might see the irony: a group of people chanting “What Would Jesus Do?” while voting for policies that, by all accounts, Jesus would not. Remember when Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” and “Blessed are the meek”? Right-wing Christianity has taken this beatitude and given it a 2024 remix: “Blessed are the ones with tax shelters” and “Blessed are the strong, who shall inherit—well, pretty much everything.” For them, “love thy neighbor” comes with footnotes, like “…as long as they vote the same.”
Pew Research actually reported this year that 69% of Trump supporters want the Bible to have at least some influence on U.S. laws. Apparently, they’re envisioning a government like one of those hotels with Bibles in every drawer—there, but strictly for decoration. It’s as if they’re saying, “Let’s use the Bible in our laws but, you know, let’s not go overboard and start acting like Jesus or anything.”
And here’s the kicker: if your God hates all the same people you do, that’s probably not a revelation—it’s a projection. The Bible isn’t a tool for political gerrymandering. It’s a guide, a moral compass, and if you’re taking it literally, well, you should also be out there loving your enemies, turning the other cheek, and maybe even throwing a dinner party for the IRS guy who took too much. But when the loudest voices insist that God wants lower capital gains taxes and an expanded defense budget, it feels less like the Good Book and more like a self-help manual for billionaires.
So, here’s the takeaway: if someone tells you that Jesus wouldn’t be caught dead voting for a Democrat, it’s worth asking if they’ve actually read his book. Because last I checked, the “Prince of Peace” didn’t come down to tell us how to slash federal aid.
