Elijah S. Valley

I share this post in earnest and (what may prove a naive) hope that a few people caught in the situation I’m about to describe will hear instead of rushing to the usual tropes, criticisms and caricatures. For what it’s worth, I offer this in good faith. Between 2016 and 2022, I faced a test of the genuineness of my faith so large and consequential, I’m almost at a loss to think of the right adjectives to describe it. It might not have been so big to someone else but it involved so much of my Christian identity, it was all but existential. Well more than that. It was a dying. It is this test that helps me understand why people who seem deeply devoted to the Lord Jesus and hold the scriptures in highest esteem also hold to a system, institution or leader no matter what they do and defend a side or individual to a degree that is baffling. I can tell you why because I had to face every bit of it. Identity, community, camaraderie, what we’ve known and loved, what part of it we still love, the people we loved, the people we still love, reputation, what people will think, how you will be judged and condemned and thrown over to the other side who doesn’t want you either. And to whom you also do not align and would not belong. Friendships. How you will be misunderstood and misrepresented. How adrift and alone you will feel. How disliked. And then there’s this and it would be a mistake to minimize it: your JOB. Your source of income. Your vocation. This is the part of the crisis I most write these words to convey because I think they are most in play for many right now, whether in media, ministry or politics. Let me try to put this in the words that were constantly resonant in my spirit in those years. And to this day. Though you have no other place to go, Beth, and no place to fit and it not only MAY have financial repercussions but WILL have financial repercussions to the ministry and to your family and will also make them targets and none of it will ever look the same or be the same, will you choose what you believe to be right and put everything else in your vocational life at risk? This is what is at risk for many people whose professional reputations and positions are tied up with leaders, institutions and political parties. Mine was, too. The cost is enormous and the options are often untenable. And so there we are. Having to cast ourselves on the mercy of God. Not for a third way. But as THE ONLY WAY. The only truth. The only life. I’ve made multiple errors in judgment. Jumped too quickly to condemn. Spoken wrongly. Remained silent wrongly and confusingly. I never get it completely together. But what I will tell you is that I believe we are meant first and foremost to call out our own house, our own side, and our own identity group for its mind-boggling hypocrisy. These were my people. Evangelicals. Conservatives. Claim what you will but I know who I am: I am pro life from conception to casket. I am pro small government. I am pro godliness and the pursuit of a holy life. I am pro marriage and family and pro-those God calls to remain single and sanctified and I’m deeply thankful for them. I am pro traditional sexual ethics. I am pro love of God and love of neighbor and the dignity of every person as an image bearer of Christ. I am pro love all. I am pro church. I believe in the community of the saints. I am pro Bible study to the death and believe the aim of all discipleship is to know and love and follow and emulate Jesus Christ. I am pro gospel. Dear God in heaven, I am pro gospel. I believe there is one name by whom we must be saved. Jesus. What I am not is pro Trump. Wasn’t pro Clinton. Wasn’t pro Biden. But those were not the candidates many in the world that I loved so much were cheering on. I accept that Donald Trump is my president. I pray for him on a regular basis. I’m a law abiding citizen and pay my taxes. But I believe Trump fosters something in people that makes them lose their way.

PASTOR FRIENDS: If you've been a "Neither right nor left" / "Pastors shouldn't make direct applications to voting" guy, you need to decide what your red-line moment is. One party (Democrat) is electing jihad-friendly, max-boost-infant-murder, trans-the-kids, promote-queer-sex, Muslim communists who hate and oppose Christianity with all their might. Everywhere this party is in power, evil disproportionately advances and the accomplishment of the Great Commission gets exponentially harder. And the other party just finished hosting the most-viewed explicitly Christian evangelistic event in human history. Yes, pastors should be finding ways to make it explicitly clear to their people - at bare minimum - there is one way faithful Christians can *not* vote (Left).

Here is a lead pastor of a mega-SBC church, who without trepidation, reservations, or hesitation, unequivocally, and unambiguously declares: “at bare minimum-there is one way faithful Christians can *not* vote (Left).” 90% of African American “faithful Christians” vote “Left”. If what Pastor Josh Howerton is saying is true, he would not consider 90% of African Americans who’ve accepted Jesus as Lord, believe in the fundamentals of the faith, and who are walking in a discipling Spirit-filled relationship with Jesus, as faithful Christians. One has to vote Right(Republican) to be a faithful Christian according to Pastor Howerton. There are two distinct versions of Christianity evolving and existing in America. One believes that God’s Kingdom is above all, and would never claim to an exclusive identification with any political party-Left or Right, Democratic or Republican. The other version of Christianity as represented by Howerton and other Christian Nationalist make the false, indefensible, unbiblical claim unless one votes in opposition of the Left, which would be Right(Republican) they’re not a “faithful Christian”. That’s heresy of the highest order.