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How Christians Voted, Why Abolish Porn, and Fourfold Law
How Christians voted in Tuesday’s presidential election, recent instances of Christian persecution around the globe, why to abolish porn, John Calvin’s explanation of the “fourfold law” in Romans 7, and much more.
Anthony Langer
November 09, 2024
It's Saturday, November 9, 2024.
Today’s edition covers how Christians voted in Tuesday’s presidential election, recent instances of Christian persecution around the globe, why to abolish porn, John Calvin’s explanation of the “fourfold law” in Romans 7, and much more.
“Wisdom is too high for a fool; in the gate he does not open his mouth.” (Proverbs 24:7)
Of Christian Concern
HOW CHRISTIANS VOTED IN THE 2024 U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
Screen grab from Trump’s victory speech.
Despite predictions that 41 million Christians, including 32 million regular churchgoers, were planning to sit out Tuesday’s U.S. presidential election, polling data reveals that the Christian vote remained “crucial to Trump’s victory,” Vision Christian Media reports. Among voters, 72% of white Protestants voted for Trump, 61% of white Catholics, and over 80% of evangelicals.
White Evangelical Percentage Voting For Trump, Consistent
AP likewise reports that “Trump once again won the support of about 8 in 10 white evangelical Christian voters,” “a group that represented about 20% of the total electorate.” This 8 in 10 (81%) margin is consistent with the last two elections, Christianity Today notes, though understanding this statistic is complicated by the fact that many white Americans who voted for Trump in 2016 began identifying as evangelicals only afterward.
White Evangelical Percentage of Electorate, Decreased
Journalist Ben Zeisloft notes that the percentage of the electorate identified as evangelical decreased from 2020 in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, and Wisconsin. Among these, the percentage that voted for Trump also decreased, with the exception of North Carolina. On that basis, Zeisloft argues Republicans “suffered heavily” among evangelicals and chalks it up to the Republicans’ failure to “meaningfully oppose abortion.”
Others have suggested these decreases only prove that Republicans no longer need as many white evangelicals to win. Podcaster Steve Deace says the percentage of the electorate identified as white evangelical was the lowest Trump ever had, showing that “Trump paid no penalty whatsoever for watering down his pro-life messaging even if it hurt his evangelical turnout.”
Christians Still Essential
Nevertheless, overall, Christians remain for now a big enough segment of the electorate to be considered an essential element of the Republican base. As PRRI reports, white Christians “make up 41% of the country” and “account for nearly seven in ten members of the Republican Party.”
Here’s how the Christian vote breaks down, according to Edison Exit Polls:
Here’s the same data visualized:
Also Noteworthy
→ Other election-related stories:
Pro-abortion constitutional amendments passed Tuesday in seven states: Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, New York, Montana, and Nevada. Similar amendments failed in three other states: Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota.
Hymn-singing broke out after Trump’s victory at the watch party in the Palm Beach Florida Convention Center, as seen in a video posted by former New York State Rep. Ben Geller. On election day, another video of worship singing in the streets of Manhattan was posted on social media.
Videos from Trump’s campaign website, in which he details promises for his presidency, resurfaced on social media this week after his victory. In one, he outlines his plan to dismantle the deep state. In another, he outlines a plan to end “gender-affirming” care.
→ This past Sunday was International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted. Hebrews 13:3 says, “Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body.” Some recent instances of persecution from around the globe:
Beijing Zion Church was raided again last month.
34 Christians were displaced by Sudanese Muslims last month.
A “buffer” zone law in England and Wales went into effect last week, preventing people from ministering to women around abortion centers.
21 Christians were killed by Fulani Muslim herdsmen in Nigeria last week.
→ Christians are persecuted in seven out of eleven Southeast Asian nations, International Christian Concern reports.
→ Now-disgraced preacher Steve Lawson was neither a pastor nor even a church member at Trinity Bible Church where he regularly preached, Protestia reports. This surprising revelation comes six weeks after the church announced Lawson was disqualified from “ministry activities” following the discovery of an inappropriate extramarital relationship.
Content Catch-Up
Recent, notable content of Christian interest.*
Photo: SHVETS production
→ 7 Reasons to Abolish Pornography: Pastor Dusty Deevers outlines and explains a list of reasons to criminalize porn. (Thread)
→ 4-Year Plan To Fight Tyranny: Christian author Jack Richardson IV recommends action steps to shore up the gains from Donald Trump’s victory. (Article)
→ 4 Pastoral Priorities: Pastor Dale Partridge identifies pastoral priorities for the next four years following Trump’s victory and calls for crushing liberalism, which cannot be accomplished by “Christless conservativism.” (Post and post)
*Not necessarily an endorsement
The Bible, Briefly
The Fourfold Law In Romans 7:22-25
Photo: KATRIN BOLOVTSOVA
In Romans 7:22-25, the apostle Paul talks about several different laws. See if you can follow it:
“For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.”
The great French reformer John Calvin wrote, “Here Paul supposes a fourfold law.” Calvin defined these four laws as follows:
The law of God — “the rule of righteousness, by which our life is rightly formed.”
The law of the mind — “the prompt readiness of the faithful mind to render obedience to the divine law.” This, Calvin writes, is “a certain conformity on our part with the law of God.”
The law of unrighteousness/sin — “that dominion which iniquity exercises over a man not yet regenerated, as well as over the flesh of a regenerated man.” This “law” is set “in opposition” to the law of God. How, then, can it be called a law? Calvin explains: “the laws even of tyrants, however iniquitous they may be, are called laws, though not properly.”
The law of the members/flesh — “the lust which is in the members, on account of the concord it has with iniquity.”
So, the law of the mind is the part of the Christian that conforms to the law of God, and the law of the flesh is the part that conforms to the law of sin.
“Here then,” Calvin observes, “you see what sort of division there is in pious souls,” and from that division “arises” a “contest between the spirit and the flesh.” The regenerate (born again) person is “impelled by contrary desires,” but “deems and judges himself to be especially on [the] side [of the Spirit].” That’s why Paul considered his temptations to be “a coercion with respect to the spiritual desire, which was wholly opposed to them.”
The apostle “closes his argument with a vehement exclamation”: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” He doesn’t ask this question because he doesn’t know the answer, but because “he does not find immediate help, as he longs for.”
By this, Calvin writes, Paul teaches us that “we are not only to struggle with our flesh, but also with continual groaning to bewail within ourselves and before God our unhappy condition.”
What did you think of today’s briefing?
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