First, let me establish that doing something because “It’s what the Bible says Christians should do” is a great idea in theory, but has often been twisted into a mockery of actual Biblical teaching. The best historical example of that, of course, is the whole thing with slavery in Colonial days and Jim Crow laws between the 1870s and the 1960s. A whole lot of Christians supported those things, and they were dead wrong.
Now let’s look at where Donald Trump and the current Republican platform are also dead wrong.
First, while it is true that the Bible encourages personal freedom and self-sufficiency, it does not teach us to do so at the expense of the poor. Throughout history, mankind in general has always despised its own poor, but both Old and New Testament strongly teach God’s people to provide a safety net for the poor. That’s a literal, simple, plain-sense-of-the-language interpretation of the Bible, not a “liberal” interpretation. Too many of the rich in ancient Israel ignored what the prophets said, and too many Christians today do the same thing, both by ignoring the commands and, even worse, by explaining them away to make it seem that the Bible doesn’t really say what it says. So you have sincere Christians—decent people, on the whole, in their private actions—actually believing that the Bible commands individuals to be like the Good Samaritan by helping those in need, while it commands civil government to do as the priest and the Levite did. (They are the ones who walked on past the injured man in the parable. According to some Christian school textbooks, government has no business dispensing private “charity.” The Christians who teach that believe that all government welfare—unemployment benefits, food stamps, free school lunches, Social Security and Medicare, everything—is anti-Christian. This is ridiculous on the face of it, and the reasoning that “explains away” the lesson of the Good Samaritan is every bit as bad as the reasoning that explained away Revelation 7:9 and the whole book of Philemon and allowed “good Christians” to purchase human beings that had been kidnapped from their homeland and transported across the ocean to become beasts of burden, and to terrorize free blacks after the Civil War in order to “keep them in their place.”
Second, while it is true that the Bible teaches high standards of personal morality and conduct, it does not teach us to impose God’s standards on unwilling individuals by force. There is a story that Charlemagne once marched a defeated army into a river and baptized 3000 new “converts” on the spot. That might have made sense militarily and politically from Charlemagne’s standpoint, but it was a complete perversion of what the Bible actually teaches about personal conversion. Likewise today, the whole idea of electing certain lawmakers so that they will pass “moral” laws completely flies in the face of the Biblical teaching of freedom of conscience. Laws enforcing private morality do nothing to actually improve private morality, because righteousness does not come by law, but only by faith. It cannot be imposed by force. Ergo, the whole “moral majority” political movement goes completely against what the Bible actually teaches.
Third, Donald Trump, with the complicity of Republican leadership, is encouraging American citizens to indulge in self-righteousness and the hate that flows from such self-righteousness. He is encouraging Americans to hate everybody who isn’t as righteous as they are, in contrast to Jesus’ own command that we love even our enemies. Too many American Christians who profess to believe the Bible are perfectly OK with that hate.
As I have said elsewhere, if I made an upper-class income and didn’t care about anybody except myself, I could easily be a strong supporter of Donald Trump. But I do care about people besides myself (because the Bible commands Christians to do that), and therefore I cannot support the policies of a man, and a political party, that encourages what the Bible condemns.
(As to how I can support the Other Party, which also pushes that which God condemns. . .that’s simple. The Democratic Party platform will not force me to engage in immoral activities if I don’t want to; their platform is all about leaving other people alone to do what they want even if I don’t personally approve. I’m OK with that. As the Apostle Paul himself wrote: “What have I to do with judging those outside the Church? God will judge them.”
Oh, and Democrats aren’t Communists, despite 40 years of Republican propaganda to the contrary. Even Bill Gates, one of the Kings of Capitalism, said as much. Gates said that Democrats are just Capitalists who believe in a bigger social safety net than Republicans do.
As a Bible-believing Christian, I’m good with that.