Does Every Vote Really Matter?

Imagine you’re a candidate who took the scary leap and ran for office.  Month after month, you, along with family members, friends, and other volunteers, go out and talk to voters, raise money, and work through intense media interviews — all in hopes of winning the election.

Then imagine what it would be like once the ballots were tallied on Election Day to find out you didn’t win.  And you didn’t lose.  Your race ended in a tie.  Or imagine you’re in a different race and find out you lost by a single vote.  These stories, and many others like them, aren’t hypothetical.  They’ve actually happened.

Before we get into these surprising outcomes, let’s take a look at the big picture.  Every election cycle we hear, “Be sure to vote” and “Every vote matters.”  We know that’s what we’re supposed to say as responsible citizens, but some Americans aren’t convinced.  In a nation of over 335 million people, about 75% of whom are voting-age adults, it can be tempting to wonder if one vote is really going to make a difference.

According to a recent survey conducted by George Barna and the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, there are an estimated 41 million born-again Christians who are unlikely to vote in the 2024 elections (and 32 million unlikely to vote who regularly attend church).  Interestingly, the survey found that one out of seven of these likely non-voters said they could be convinced to vote if family or friends talked to them about the election’s importance, if they received objective information about the important positions of the major candidates, or if they believed the election was going to be close and their vote would make a difference.

That last point shows how many people don’t think their vote will actually matter.  While I believe we have a duty to steward our votes and participate regardless of how close we think the elections may be, there are many, many examples of close races where just a few votes made all the difference.  In most of these cases, people had no idea just how close these contests would be ahead of time.  From the presidential contest all the way down to local school board campaigns, there are thousands of important federal, state, and local races on the ballot this election.  Regardless of whether you live in a deep red state, a deep blue state, or a purple state, there’s a very good chance that there will be elections somewhere in your state decided by just a handful of votes.

So how many races are really that close?  The answer might surprise you.  Here are a number of notable examples, from oldest to most recent, where just a few votes changed the outcome.

Senator Bernie Sanders (VT-I)

Given his far-left positions, you probably weren’t expecting me to start out with an example about Senator Bernie Sanders.  But his story really illustrates this point.  A self-described socialist, Sanders is well-known nationally and is considered by some to be among the most liberal members of the U.S. Senate.  He’s also credited with moving the Democratic Party significantly left during his presidential runs and was considered the party’s presidential frontrunner for a period of time in the 2020 primary.  What most people don’t know is that Sanders’s political career was launched when he won his election for mayor in the small town of Burlington, VT.  He won that contest by just 10 votes.  Had six of those voters cast their votes the other way, it’s entirely possible that most of us wouldn’t even know who Bernie Sanders is today.

2000 Presidential Election

One of the most well-known “nailbiters” in history, the 2000 presidential race, was incredibly close.  The battle for control of the White House came down to the state of Florida.  President George W. Bush secured the nomination because he bested Al Gore in the state and won the electoral college 271 to 266.  His narrow margin of victory in the Sunshine State was just 537 votes.  That incredibly small number is even more noteworthy when we remember over 5.9 million votes were cast in the state that year.

2016 Presidential Election

Let’s fast-forward to more recent elections.  In 2016, Donald Trump was the decided underdog — so much so that well-known outlets like Reuters declared “Clinton has a 90 percent chance of winning.”  We all remember how wrong the “experts” were that year.  But many people forget just how close the race was.  Four different states were decided by less than one percentage point (Michigan, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin).  Had President Trump lost Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, Hillary Clinton would have won the election.  These states combined for 13.9 million votes, but Trump’s combined margin of victory was less than 78,000 votes.  In other words, he won the White House because he won these three states collectively by less than six-tenths of one point.  It’s also worth noting there were an estimated 7.4 million voting-eligible adults in these three states who didn’t bother to cast a ballot.

2017 Virginia State House

Seven years ago, control of the Virginia State House of Delegates came down to one last House race.  When most of the dust had settled after the election, Republicans held a total of 50 seats, Democrats had 49, and the final race was too close to call for a while.  When the final tally came in, the race was tied: 11,608 votes to 11,608 votes!  So how did the state decide the winner?  Believe it or not, a name was drawn at random from a bowl.  Republican David Yancey’s name was drawn and Republicans ended up with a 51-49 majority.

2018 State Legislative Races

You might be thinking, “Yeah, those are a few examples of close races.  But that’s bound to happen every once in a while.  Are there really that many in the grand scheme of things?”  As a matter of fact, there are.  An analysis by Ballotpedia found that in 2018 there were 88 different state legislative races decided by a half a percentage point or less.  This included two state legislative races that were tied, and 16 that were decided by 10 votes or less.

2019 Boston City Council

Boston, Massachusetts is a large city that boasted nearly 700,000 residents in 2019.  That year, there were races for city council, one of which was extremely close.  After three days of hand-counting the ballots, Julia Mejia (D) bested her opponent 22,492 votes to 22,491 votes — the margin was a single vote.

2020 Presidential Election 

The 2020 presidential race was also extremely close, and the Electoral College winner came down to Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin.  These were the closest states that collectively could have swung the outcome.  There were 11.7 million votes cast in these three states, but they were decided by a mere 44,000 votes combined.  There were five million voting-eligible adults in these three states who did not bother to vote.

2022 U.S. House Majority

Control of the U.S. House of Representatives is tremendously significant and carries important public policy ramifications that impact every single American.  In 2022, Republicans won the House majority.  But just a few thousand votes could have swung the gavel back to Democrats.  In the 435-seat chamber, 218 seats are needed for majority.  Republicans ended up with 222 seats.  The GOP won their five closest House races by a razor thin 3,340 votes in all five contests combined.

Close Elections Database

If these examples aren’t enough to convince you that every vote matters, take a look at Public Interest Legal Foundation’s database of tied and close elections.  They did a deep dive on historical federal, state, and local election results across the country.  Their research found an astounding 636 races that ended in ties and 173 more that were decided by a single vote!  And what’s more, this list of 800+ races isn’t comprehensive.  There are many other close races that aren’t even included.

So the next time you hear someone say, “My vote doesn’t really matter,” share these stories!  Of course, there are plenty of races that are not this close, and our votes matter in those races too.  But you can never completely predict just how close a race might be.

Ultimately, it’s not just about winning close elections.  The candidates who won these contests went on to implement policies that had a profound impact on their districts and, in some cases, the entire nation.  In a democratic republic like ours, your vote is your voice.  Use it!

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

‘Jesus Is Lord’? A Tale of Two Rallies

Political campaigns all too often come down to one memorable moment: Nixon’s debate with JFK, Reagan asking if Americans are better off today than four years ago, Bush promising “no new taxes,” or Trump descending a golden escalator.  Two rallies — and three events — over the last week presented a series of revelatory moments that should burn themselves into Christians’ minds, culminating with the way two of the most important figures in the election responded to the phrase, “Jesus is Lord.”

Kamala Harris presided over the first event at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse the other week.  As she delved into a monologue castigating pro-life protections for the unborn, two university students declared, “Christ is King!” and “Jesus is Lord!”

“Oh, you guys are at the wrong rally,” replied the Democratic Party’s candidate for president of the United States.

The students — Grant Beth and Luke Polaske, two juniors at the university — said Harris singled them out during the speech.  “She was actually waving to me.  I took this cross off my neck that I wear, and as we were getting asked to leave, I held it up in the air and waved at her and pointed at her, and she looked directly in the eye, kind of gave me an evil smirk,” Polaske told “Fox and Friends Weekend.”  Sadly, the liberal university crowd shared Harris’s disrespect for Christians and, allegedly, for Christ. 

The New York Post reports: “I was pushed by an elderly woman.  We were heckled at, we were cursed at, we were mocked, and that’s the biggest thing for me personally,” Beth said.  “In reflection of the event, Jesus was mocked.  You know, [H]is disciples were mocked, and that’s OK.”

Contrast that scene with a rally Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance held in Waukesha, Wisconsin.  During a lull in his speech, someone in the audience cheered, “Jesus is king!”

“That’s right.  Jesus is king,” Vance responded, as the Republican crowd erupted in approval.

One candidate signaled that the Name of Jesus Christ — the Name at which every knee shall bow and every tongue confess His eternal lordship — is unwelcome speech at any of her rallies.  And if the Democratic nominee banishes Jesus’s Name from her campaign, when she’s trying to earn the votes of the largest share of U.S. citizens (and, alas, others), how much more will Jesus find disfavor once she’s comfortably ensconced in the Oval Office for the next four years?

On the other hand, J.D. Vance rhetorically affirmed, not merely empty praise for Jesus, but the notion that God’s sovereignty supersedes even his own.  The phrase “Jesus is King!” recognizes the view that government, and those to whom it is temporarily entrusted, are subordinate to the will of God.  Their will is circumscribed by the rights, priorities, privileges, and kingdom rights of Christ the King.  Vance’s words pumped oxygen into the heart of the American experiment, that U.S. citizens enjoy certain unalienable rights which no government can ever take away.

As a Christian, those two images should stand preeminent above all others as you go into the voting booth.

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

State of the 2024 Election

Much has been made about what’s at stake in the upcoming 2024 election, and rightfully so.  The last three and a half years have seen wars emerge on almost every continent, a dramatically weakened dollar with persistently high inflation and declining standard of living, the deterioration of military readiness, a wide-open southern border, the politicization of our legal system, an unprecedented all-out assault on the unborn and those standing up for life, attacks on religious freedom, a disconcerting rise in political violence, and more.  As a result, just 28% of Americans say the country is on the right track, and they are primed to make their voice heard.

The presidential election between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump has generated most of the attention and campaign spending and will be the main driver of turnout among voters.  Every day, there are several new national and battleground polls released to the public, and in general they show a race within the margin of error (give or take 2-4 points depending on the specific poll) at the national level.  Harris currently enjoys a two-point edge in the head-to-head polling average at RealClearPolitics.  The Democratic candidate has traditionally won the national popular vote, but because of the wisdom of our Founding Fathers, the Electoral College is determinative.  

Sixty-one percent of Americans agree the country is on the wrong track, and while this portends trouble ahead for the Harris campaign in persuading voters to continue the Biden-Harris policies in a Kamala Harris administration, it does translate to some anti-incumbent sentiment among voters, which plays to the benefit of Senate Republicans hoping to take the majority in the upper chamber in Congress.  With a slim 51-49 seat majority, the Senate Democrats stand severely disadvantaged this election.  Of the 34 Senate seats up for a vote this cycle, 23 are held by Democrats, many of which are in states that are also highly competitive at the presidential level.  

After redistricting in 2020, the number of competitive races in the House of Representatives dipped. Gone are the days of 40-60 seat swings like we saw in the Tea Party era.  This year, Cook Political Report has identified just 26 toss-up races in the U.S. House of Representatives.  Of these 26, Republicans are defending 14, and Democrats are defending 12.  For the current razor-thin, three-seat Republican majority, winning every one of these toss-up races is a must.  With just 23% of voters approving of the job Congress is doing, the GOP is swimming against the tide to keep their majority.

Unlike the Senate, where a presidential candidate’s coattails can be decisive, most of the toss-up races in the House are in states that are not particularly competitive at the statewide or presidential level.  Each individual candidate will have to win or lose in their own foxhole.  Alaska, California, Colorado, Iowa, Maine, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Washington account for 16 of the 24 most competitive House races and will not see a competitive result at the presidential or Senate level, or do not have a competitive Senate race. GOP incumbents in these states will have to win in an environment of supercharged Democrat turnout, and vice versa for Democrat incumbents in toss-up races in Republican states.  If you’re the GOP, of particular concern are GOP incumbents in California and New York.  There are eight GOP incumbents between these two states alone, and both states are likely to go for Kamala Harris by as much as 20 points, or more.  Combine anti-incumbent sentiment with deep blue states and you have a strong headwind for GOP incumbents in these states.

Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Americans, have updated their voter registration or registered to vote for the first time this year.  All this data is important and tells us some early signs of how the election will go.  

Early vote data shows a dramatic decline in the number of mail-in ballots requested compared to 2020. Mail-in voting is likely to play a smaller role in the 2024 election than it did in the 2020 election when so many were still dealing with COVID-19.

Then there’s the campaign spending. Kamala Harris’s campaign has raised $678 million to Donald Trump’s $313 million.  The Democratic National Committee similarly enjoys a fundraising advantage over its Republican counterparts, raking in $385 million to the Republican National Committee’s $331 million.  The Republicans enjoy a slight campaign finance edge in the Senate contests, outraising their Democrat counterparts $200 million to $173 million.  In the House, the National Republican Congressional Committee raised $183 million to the Democrats’ $250 million.  This all amounts to billions of dollars flooding the airways and cell phone towers with campaign messaging.

All of this to say, the respective candidates and political parties have their own advantages and disadvantages.  It’s incredibly difficult to say which advantages will determine outcomes, whether it’s a campaign cash advantage or public polling, voter registration or mail-in ballot requests, we will not know for sure until election night.  Right now, the presidential race looks like it’s trending toward Donald Trump, the Senate is securely within reach of the Republicans, and the speaker’s gavel is at risk of being handed back over to the Democrats. If that’s the case, then we’ll look back and say 2024 was clearly an anti-incumbent election, and the country is asking for change.  If Harris wins, the Democrats retain control of the Senate, and win back the House, then we can say campaign funding is the decisive factor in elections.  If Trump wins, the GOP wins the Senate, and retains control of the House, we can say it was a repudiation of the Biden-era with its excessive social engineering, abortion extremism, runaway spending, foreign policy blunders, and all.

As followers of Christ, we know God is sovereign.  This is not an excuse for inaction, but an acknowledgement that no election outcome surprises Him.  The best day of the republic still falls short of the glory of the New Heaven and New Earth to come.  We should pray for righteous leaders to prevail in November and pray that our nation would once again humble itself before the Lord acknowledging how far we have fallen from His righteous standard.  The 2024 elections are incredibly important because of the stark differences in worldview represented by the major parties, but their importance pales in comparison to the work needed to repair our nation’s spiritual walls.

 

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

Why You Should Care about the Electoral College

At a time when Americans feel more divided than ever, influential members of the Democratic Party seek to undermine one of the Constitution’s greatest provisions assuring national unity: They want to abolish the Electoral College. Although many see the institution as a throwback to premodern times, the Electoral College still accomplishes the Founding Fathers’ will of seeing that people of all states have their interests represented in their government.

The most recent attempt to undermine the Constitution came from Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, who said, “I think all of us know, the Electoral College needs to go.”  Over the years, nearly every prominent Democrat, including Hillary Clinton, has called for the presidential election to be determined by a national popular vote.  But doing so would undermine national unity, eliminate voters’ confidence in election outcomes, and drown small states’ votes in a sea of blue.

The Founding Fathers established the Electoral College, in part, to ensure small states like Rhode Island did not end up subject to the whim of a few large states, such as Virginia and Pennsylvania. They made America a constitutional republic, which views individuals’ rights as individual, God-given, and unalienable and forbids the government from passing any law denying a person these rights, regardless of how popular the motion might be.  A democracy, on the other hand, says a majority — 50% plus one — can strip a 49% minority of all its rights.  The Founding Fathers “feared majority tyranny,” said Michael Maibach, distinguished fellow for Save Our States, on “Washington Watch” last Thursday.  “Every state has two senators for a reason.  That was the Connecticut Compromise, so that they would have two electors, no matter” its population.

The Electoral College reflected the Founders’ aim to protect minority rights and assure diversity in the national government.  Presidential candidates would have to go beyond courting voters in large population areas and truly represent the interests of all to be elected.  In The Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton wrote (Federalist No. 68), “Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States.”

The Founders understood, even two centuries ago, Americans differ greatly from one region to another.  These divisions have only grown in the last 235 years.  The Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape Survey showed blue states such as California and Colorado have a diametrically opposed view of abortion from Kentucky, West Virginia, and Alabama.  Earlier this year, the liberal Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) reported:

A 33% difference between Massachusetts and the most faithful states (Utah and Idaho) on pro-life protections for innocent, unborn children.

A 31% difference between the most secular state (Massachusetts) and the most faithful state (Mississippi) on support for same-sex “marriage.”

A 29% difference between the most radical state (Massachusetts) and the most faithful state (West Virginia) on religious business owners’ right to live out their faith in the workplace.

While the Electoral College gives these smaller, more conservative states a voice in selecting a president, the national popular vote would bury their voice beneath a torrent of city voters.  “Nine of our states have 50% of our people,” Maibach noted.  “Los Angeles County has more people than 41 of our states, and New York City has more people than 39 of our states.”

Increasingly, these blue states seek to impose their will on the rest of America by doing an end-run around the Constitution.  Since 2006, 17 states and the District of Columbia, controlling 209 of the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the presidency, have enacted the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPV).  The NPV states that, regardless of how state voters cast their ballots, the state will instruct its presidential electors to vote for whichever candidate won the national popular vote.

This is a problem for numerous reasons.  First, the U.S. government does not determine a national popular vote; each state calculates its popular vote total. NPV states would instruct electors to vote for the winner “I guess as tabulated by CNN or CBS or some other news organization,” said Maibach. Second, should the government come up with a way to calculate the national popular vote, every election could turn into the 2000 election — but instead recounts would multiply from one state to all 50, with all the penchant for mischief we have seen in recent elections.

The NPV would deny people the right to select their own rulers, which legal scholars say would render it unconstitutional.  In effect, it is a constitutional amendment without taking the form of a constitutional amendment.  Additionally, denying citizens the ability to select their own state’s electors would violate the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, according to Peter Wallison of the American Enterprise Institute.  Thomas Jipping of the Heritage Foundation holds that the NPV violates the Constitution’s Compact Clause, regulating state compacts that would harm other states’ interests.

A national popular vote would violate the Presidential Elections Clause of Article II of the U.S. Constitution, writes Norman R. Williams of Willamette Law School, because “[n]ot only did the framers of the Constitution expressly reject the idea of a direct, popular election for President, but also not one state either in the wake of ratification or at any time thereafter has ever sought to appoint its presidential electors on the basis of votes cast outside the state,”  Still others believe a national popular vote runs afoul of the U.S. Constitution’s promise, “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government” (Article IV, Section 3).

The NPV also ignores the American System, in which some areas specialize in urban manufacturing (or did), while others cede vast areas of their state to agriculture.  Rural states naturally have lower population density in the national interest.  “Most of our farmers would feel like serfs if they if they were feeding the cities, but only the cities rule,” said Maibach.  “And the founders never wanted to have that.”

That NPV Compact overrides the rights of the people in another way.  For years, red parts of blue states have threatened to break off and form their own states.  Northern California, dating to the 1941 proclamation of the State of Jefferson.  Eastern Oregon counties want to join Greater Idaho.  But their moves toward independence would see their electoral votes wiped out by a national popular vote.

Not only would abolishing the Electoral College create mob rule, wipe out the voice of more conservative voters in rural areas, and put the government into the hands of big cities — it could see the U.S. government selected by illegal aliens.  The 1993 National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), or “Motor-Voter Law,” prevents states from erecting meaningful barriers to illegal immigrants and other ineligible residents from registering to vote.  Contrary to media “fact-checkers,” the threat of illegal immigrants voting is actual, not potential.  Thousands of non-citizens have cast ballots, in Virginia alone.

The real impetus behind the popular vote is not to secure the national will; it is to secure Democrats’ electoral prospects.  As with the efforts to pack the Supreme Court, the Left seeks to overturn the Electoral College, because left-wing candidates cannot win there.  As of January 1, 2024, Republicans controlled 28 state legislatures, or 59% of the states.  A total of 27 states have elected Republican governors.  Individual states reject liberal policies, while those who favor them live largely in coastal metropolises.

“It is important for small states to be heard,” insisted Maibach.  “Voices have to be heard from all parts of the country and not just from the big cities.”  And it is vital Americans respect the prophetic genius that went into the creation of the Electoral College.

 

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

The Spiritual Ramifications of Kamala’s Plagiarism

A plagiarism expert has determined that Vice President Kamala Harris plagiarized 12 passages in a little-known book she produced in 2009.  While some dismiss plagiarism as a small offense often committed by accident, the Harris-Walz campaign’s decision to deny and excuse her action should concern Christians deeply.

The allegations were brought to light by Christopher Rufo, who has championed intellectual integrity as a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.  “Kamala Harris plagiarized at least a dozen sections of her criminal-justice book, Smart on Crime, according to a new investigation.  She even lifted material from Wikipedia.

The book, Smart on Crime: A Career Prosecutor’s Plan to Make Us Safer, Harris wrote in 2009 as she tried to raise her profile to run for her first statewide office as attorney general of California.  A cursory overview of the book shows she lifted whole passages verbatim from NBC News, a press release from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and perhaps the world’s least reliable source of plagiarism, Wikipedia.

Rather than apologize — or, to use the biblical term, repent — the Harris campaign has seemingly decided to deny any wrongdoing.  “This is a book that’s been out for 15 years, and the vice president clearly cited sources and statistics in footnotes and endnotes throughout,” said Harris-Waltz campaign spokesman James Singer.

That is clearly inaccurate.  Even The New York Times acknowledged Kamala Harris committed plagiarism, comparing side-by-side passages in a story titled “Conservative Activist Seizes on Passages from Harris Book.”  Yet the story exonerates her “the most serious form of plagiarism,” claiming she did not steal ideas, just words and figures while implying that Rufo harbors racist motives.

Thus far, the vice president appears to have suffered little for the controversy. Her scandal should remind people of Biden’s own: In 1988, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden committed serial plagiarism, stealing a moving speech from Robert F. Kennedy (Sr.) and the autobiography of U.K. Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock.

Aside from refusing to acknowledge wrongdoing, the act of plagiarism itself should concern Christian believers for several reasons.  True, people can accidentally copy material and forget to change it appropriately, and some passages — especially statistics — are difficult to present in a different language.  With that caveat in mind, let’s examine the reasons people of faith should care about plagiarism.

Plagiarism is a form of theft.  It robs original thinkers of their insight, eloquence, and creativity.  It demands a higher intellectual status than the person’s accomplishments merit.  It redistributes respect and reputation from those who earned it to those who did not or, possibly, cannot.  “In a way, fraud in business is no different from infidelity in marriage or plagiarism in scholarly work,” wrote Miroslav Volf of Yale Divinity School.

Plagiarism almost invariably reveals the passion of laziness.  That seemingly got confirmed by those who work with Vice President Harris.  “It’s clear that you’re not working with somebody who is willing to do the prep and the work,” revealed one former staffer.  Lest someone blame the leak on one disgruntled former employee, The Washington Post reported, “Staffers who worked for Harris before she was vice president said one consistent problem was that Harris would refuse to wade into briefing materials prepared by staff members, then berate employees when she appeared unprepared.”  A president who refuses to think deeply, or who outsources her thinking to subordinates, will imperil our country.

For Christians, a listless intellect has a deeper meaning.  The Book of Proverbs states, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Proverbs 1:7). When fools rule, dangerous consequences follow.  “A companion of fools shall be destroyed,” Proverbs goes on to say (13:20).

Kamala Harris is asking 331 million Americans to become her companions and subjects.  They should eschew intellectual laziness and think long and hard about whether they should agree.

 

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

Christians Must ‘Pray and Prepare’ Over Push for Global Governance

When anyone asks former Congresswoman and 2012 Republican presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann why they should care about international bureaucrats’ efforts to establish a world government, she has a simple answer:

“The reason why we need to pay attention is because this will impact literally every person on Earth.  There is no one who won’t be impacted by a move toward global governance,” Bachmann told the 2024 Pray Vote Stand Summit in Washington, D.C. “What we’re talking about with the World Health Organization” (WHO) engaging in attempts to pass a pandemic agreement or “what just recently happened in the last two weeks at the United Nations with Pact for the Future, is establishing a perch for global governance.”

Both documents would give unelected global bureaucrats enhanced authority in the event of a “complex global crisis,” which “could be anything” under their terms, she said.  “It doesn’t matter what the name is, the impact of the power is the same.  It is one global leader who will have the power to make a declaration that triggers other powers.  That could mean restrictions on the right to travel, that could meet mandates for biologically based digital IDs.”

Travis Weber, vice president for Policy and Government Affairs at Family Research Council, agreed both documents will “deteriorate national sovereignty and move sovereignty and decision making away from individual nations to a world power.”

Weber, who attended the WHO’s 77th World Health Assembly in Geneva in May as a correspondent for The Washington Stand, when WHO hoped to unveil a globally-binding pandemic agreement, said Eurocrats did not give a passing thought to America’s first freedoms.  “There was virtually no mention of free speech, individual freedom, political or individual freedom, human rights, religious freedom. Those were not raised in the room as considerations to be worked through,” Weber told a panel on global governance moderated by FRC Action President Tony Perkins.  “In this deliberation of the nations of the world coming together to consider a pandemic preparation or response, what was being considered and mentioned over and over, almost like a repetitive pledge without deliberation, was, ‘We will do more’” to increase the power, scope, authority, and reach of global governance organizations.

Weber noted that the WHO and U.N. documents contained “not one mention of God.”

Bachmann noted the threat of such global advisory bodies taking on greater authority is that they provide cover for homegrown despots to crack down on their citizens under the cover of U.N. directives.  “WHO is not a legislative body. The Centers for Disease Control is not a legislative, or law-making body,” she said.  “Congress never passed any law regarding COVID-19.  And yet the whole country in America was under bondage, because we were forcing our military to get vaccines, whether they wanted to or not.  The CDC had WHO recommendations” on its website.  Under pressure from a since-overturned Biden-Harris regulation, “private employers were mandating vaccinations” for employees to keep their jobs.

Global regulations inevitably seem to benefit totalitarian powers at Americans’ expense, she added. “China gets its way at the U.N., but we pay for everything,” said Bachmann.

The method of payment itself may become adulterated in the days to come, warned Gabe Lyons of THINQ Media.  The world faces “the threat of a currency that soon could be programmed,” he said. “It’s dictated that you can’t spend your money in this particular place or that when you go to the grocery store, you can only buy this many pounds of meat that month, because that’s your distribution. All of a sudden, the money that you think is yours is being controlled by someone else.  That’s where the future of digital currency is absolutely designed to go.”

Donald Trump initiated U.S. withdrawal from the World Health Organization in the summer of 2020, but Joe Biden reversed the move — and restored all back funding — after his inauguration.

Transforming from a global advisory body to a global government “has been a fever dream of the United Nations since 1945, when it was created,” Bachmann, who now serves as chair of Family Research Council’s board, told the panel. “As a believer, I know in the end times there will be a global government.  And we’re seeing a convergence of events, prophetically.”  “If it was up to me, I would pull us out of the United Nations on day one, defund it, and then sell that land in Manhattan.  And I’d order a demolition company, take down that building and say, ‘Have at it in Geneva or Salzburg or Brussels, wherever you want to go, but get out of the United States of America,’” said Bachmann.

“The enemy has one plan,” agreed Weber.  “And what we saw happening, unfortunately, in that room is the enemy’s plans being advanced, because the things of God were not being considered.”

At an individual level, it is up to every Christian “to observe and discern what’s happening, to be able to pray and to prepare,” said Weber.  “This just comes to gazing upon the Lord, because the news will not fill me; it will drain me.  We need the joy that comes from the Lord Himself, the hope that comes from the Holy Spirit.  And that comes from communing with the Lord.”

 

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

What’s at Stake With 10 States Voting on Abortion?

With all eyes on this November’s elections for president and Congress, voters risk losing sight of the pivotal battlegrounds where the issue of protecting — or sacrificing — innocent life is on the ballot nationwide.  Voters in 10 states will vote on 11 ballot initiatives — nearly all of which would open the door to expanding the taking of innocent life as late as the third trimester.

Voters this November will decide on abortion-related ballot initiatives in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, and South Dakota.

“Americans will be going to the polls to vote on the issue of life.  They’ll be voting on whether or not to protect life in their state constitutions and in their state laws,” Senator Josh Hawley (MO-R) told the 2024 Pray Vote Stand Summit (PVSS) in Washington, D.C., the other week.  “We’re so thankful that they finally have the chance to do so — that the Supreme Court has finally recognized that Roe was wrongly decided, that Roe was an abomination in the Constitution, that now the issue of life again belongs to the people and their elected representatives.”

Experts at FRC Action have compiled the facts about these post-Dobbs state abortion initiatives into a new document titled “Life on the Ballot.”  The resource briefly records the language that will appear on the ballot, as well as how each measure would impact state law, mothers, and unborn babies if they take effect.

One initiative would lay down a state marker against late-term abortion.  If adopted, Nebraska Initiative 434 would protect children from abortion in the second or third trimesters, except those conceived in rape or incest, or when required by “medical emergency.”

Nine of the 10 remaining pro-abortion initiatives would extend abortion until birth in their state constitutions, often with deceptive-sounding language. Confusingly, Nebraska voters will also decide on Initiative 439, which would establish a fundamental right to abortion until viability — but an abortionist could carry out an abortion after that point (generally considered 22 weeks) to protect the “health” of the mother.  Nevada Question 6 also creates the right to an abortion carried out by a “healthcare professional until fetal viability or when necessary to protect the health” of the mother.

As during the days when Roe v. Wade and its companion case, Doe v. Bolton, were in effect, the term “health” can be interpreted broadly, to include everything from imminent death to financial harms. Nevada’s language could also allow non-doctors to carry out abortions, reducing the abortion industry’s costs — and lowering the quality of care received by mothers.

Many other initiatives strip out existing protections for mothers and their children.  Arizona’s Proposition 139 would create a fundamental “right” to abortion under the state constitution.  Under its terms, “All current laws protecting unborn children in Arizona would be removed, including the law protecting unborn children from abortion after 15 weeks.  This means dismemberment abortions during the ninth month of pregnancy would be legal,” explains the FRC document.  It could force taxpayers to fund abortion, it authorizes non-doctors to carry out abortions, and it could increase abortion trafficking (allowing abusers to take their victims to the abortionist to dispose of the evidence of rape, incest, or sexual exploitation).

The proliferation of the abortion pill, mifepristone, has already allowed men to force women into unwanted abortions for at least 24 years.  One of those victims shared her story with a PVSS panel on the right to life moderated by Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at FRC.

Catherine Herring’s husband, Mason, repeatedly deceived her into ingesting abortion pills to abort their child in April 2022.  “I continued getting sick the rest of the day, ended up in the emergency room and was bleeding heavily,” she remembered.  Thankfully, she heard of the abortion pill reversal protocol and was told to take progesterone.  “I think, it truly saved my daughter’s life,” Herring said.  “Josephine is two years old now,” and “the cutest thing you’ve ever seen.”

But after fighting for her daughter’s life, she had to fight for justice.

“One of the most shocking things about my story, is even being from the state of Texas, you might be interested to know the charges for my husband,” she told the PVSS crowd.  “He was sentenced to 180 days in jail.  That’s it for seven attempts to end our daughter’s life.”

Thanks to the state’s outdated laws, she had to lead a fight to “criminalize poisoning people,” Herring said.  “Can you imagine that we’re even having to say that?”

Some of the ballot initiatives could remove protections for women in similar positions, experts say.  And they could compromise other individuals’ rights, as well.  Colorado’s Amendment 79 allows abortion-on-demand until birth, opens the door to taxpayer-funding of abortions, and threatens the conscience rights of Christians and other pro-life religious believers.  It needs 55% support to pass this November.

Montana’s CI-128 would allow abortion until viability, with exception for the “health” of the mother.  It would also hold that the state cannot punish “patients, healthcare providers, or anyone who assists someone in exercising their right to make and carry out voluntary decisions about their pregnancy.” Florida’s controversial Amendment 4 would allow abortion until viability, with broad exceptions afterwards, in the process striking down the state’s heartbeat law and a law protecting children from abortion to prevent fetal pain, beginning at 15 weeks.  It would also erase parental consent or notification laws.

Some initiatives have vague and indistinct language that could legalize “reproductive” measures far exceeding abortion.  Maryland’s Question 1 would authorize a constitutional amendment codifying the right to “reproductive freedom, including but not limited to” pregnancy-related decisions.  Similarly, Missouri’s Amendment 3 would “establish a right to make decisions about reproductive health care, including abortion and contraceptives.”  Missouri’s amendment also says it allows regulation after viability, with a broad exception for the alleged “health” of the mother.

The inexact “reproductive freedom” language of these two amendments sounds similar to Ohio’s Issue 1, which passed last November.  It stated, “Every individual has a right to make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to” abortion.  Just weeks after the election, Ohio Democrats introduced the so-called “Reproductive Care Act” (H.B. 343), which stated that “reproductive health care … means gender affirming care.”

Experts say the ballot initiatives could compromise women’s safety in another way: The Missouri amendment forces pregnancy resource centers to refer mothers to abortion facilities and eliminates ultrasound requirements, according to the new FRC resource.

Pro-life women’s centers already find themselves in the crosshairs, as vandals spraypainted or firebombed numerous such facilities after the unprecedented leak of the Dobbs decision in May 2022.

“If the right person doesn’t get into office, this is going to escalate, not just for us, but the thousands of Christian faith-based pregnancy centers across this country who do nothing more than to help a woman, whether she’s rich or poor, who is wondering about what she’s going to do,” noted Janet Durig, executive director of the Capitol Hill Pregnancy Center, which was vandalized after the leak of the decision.  Imagine a woman whose “boyfriend left her when he found out she thought she was pregnant.  Who’s going to help her?  How is she going to be?” she asked.

In light of the potential worsening of pro-life centers’ lot under measures such as this, Durig encouraged pro-life advocates to “support pregnancy centers in your community” and “stand behind them, because the battle would be great.”

Pro-life centers have come under fire in New York, where Proposal 1 would further ban “unequal treatment based on ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, and sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity and pregnancy.”  It also protects against “unequal treatment” based on “reproductive healthcare and autonomy.”

South Dakota’s Amendment G would reinstate something akin to the Roe v. Wade arrangement, which claimed tens of millions of babies since 1973.

Senator Hawley, who gave an impassioned plea for the Republican Party to “boldly and unashamedly” proclaim that “there is no right more important than the right to life,” said the post-Dobbs environment means Americans face opportunities to protect — or destroy — life in all 50 states.

This decade will be remembered as “a time when our most foundational beliefs — the right to life and liberty, the pursuit of happiness, the right to conscience, the right to worship the Lord as he calls us — were at stake,” Hawley contended.

 

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel

A Battle Over Worldview Will Define Our Nation

Ever since Barack Obama’s vow to fundamentally transform America—a promise he kept—each Election Day has become less about politics and personalities and more of a ferocious battle over whose worldview will define a nation.  Values that used to unite us have vanished, replaced by the hard contours of two parties without much common ground.

For Christians, this year has been marked by the shock of an assassination attempt and the shake-up at the top of the Democratic ticket.  And the disappointments of a watered-down GOP platform still stings.

So how should Christians approach an election when the imperfections of both parties seem more evident than ever before?

“None is righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10).

Our political system, like the rest of our fallen world, is messy, broken and flawed.  As frustrating as it is to see our values trampled or ignored, we need to accept that the church isn’t going to find a perfect ruler until the millennial reign of Christ.  Men and women in public office are human, and they’ll continue to let us down, no matter how sincere their faith may seem.

The Republican Party recently betrayed its longtime principles.  Leaders considered stalwarts of the conservative movement—like Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who chaired the platform committee—wiped out decades of pro-life and pro-family progress.  Christians must go into this election with eyes wide open.  We must practice discernment, understanding that we will never have perfect alignment with any political party.

Does that mean we shrug our shoulders and walk away?  Absolutely not.  It means we recommit ourselves to being faithful witnesses to the truth of His Word at the moment in time that God has entrusted to us, whether it’s in vogue or not.

“But test everything; hold fast what is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21).

If Christians are going to change the country’s trajectory, we have to begin with a basic understanding of God’s truth.

In the first 12 chapters of Genesis, Scripture spells out the fundamental values we should be looking for: God the Creator (1:1); life (1:26); male and female (1:26); marriage (2:22); and Israel (12:3).  Using these five categories as a guide, how do Kamala Harris and Donald Trump stack up?

While Donald Trump seems to have taken a disconcerting step back from some of his socially conservative views in recent months, Americans have the benefit of the 45th president’s four-year track record, which demonstrated his support for the sanctity of life, religious freedom, parental rights, biological sex, national security, legal immigration, military readiness, free speech, constitutionalist judges and justices, and Israel.

What is much less known is the record of Kamala Harris, who, like Trump, professes to be Christian but invokes her faith as a justification for policies like LGBTQ activism, same-sex marriage, and even abortion.

When she ran unsuccessfully for the 2020 presidential nomination, Harris insisted that the work she did as California attorney general should serve as “a model of what our nation needs to do.”  That “model” was a six-year master class in weaponizing the office of AG, in which she:

Attacked pro-lifer David Daleiden for exposing Planned Parenthood’s sale of baby body parts;

Demanded that California pregnancy centers promote abortion;

Targeted businesses with moral objections to abortifacients;

Refused to defend laws upholding Biblical marriage between one man and one woman;

And fought to overturn abortion safety standards for women.

Harris’s record in the U.S. Senate led GovTrack to call her 2019’s “most liberal senator,” an unsurprising distinction considering she:

Voted twice in favor of legal infanticide;

Vowed to force taxpayers to fund abortion;

Applied a religious test to judicial and Supreme Court nominees;

Sponsored the Equality Act to end religious freedom in America;

Promoted legal prostitution;

Supported the elimination of the Senate filibuster to pack the Supreme Court and abolish election integrity laws;

Opposed homeschooling and popular school choice legislation;

Earned 100% on Planned Parenthood’s scorecard;

Introduced the Do No Harm Act to gut religious liberty;

Cosponsored a bill that would block religious freedom for adoption providers;

Campaigned on allowing trans-identifying men and women in the U.S. military;

And lobbied for girls’ restrooms, locker rooms, showers, sports, and even women’s prisons to be opened to biological men.

White House insiders say she’s the force behind Joe Biden’s leftward lurch, even becoming the first sitting vice president to visit an abortion facility. Together with the president, she:

Rewrote Title IX to force schools to use preferred pronouns, hide gender identities from parents, and elevate transgenderism above women’s rights;

Sued pro-life states to overturn protections for the unborn;

Allowed neighborhood drugstores to dispense the abortion pill;

Granted taxpayer-funded travel to active military seeking abortions;

Forced taxpayers to cover abortions for veterans; reinstated overseas abortion funding;

Advocated for gender-mutilating surgeries and hormones for minors, while demanding taxpayers cover transgender procedures for veterans and military personnel;

Prosecuted whistleblower Eithan Haim for exposing his Texas hospital’s unlawful transgender procedures on children;

Lobbied to expose students to pornographic books;

And funded Planned Parenthood through Title X dollars.

While it’s true that we can’t save the country with a single election, the reality is: we could very well lose it.

“Faith without works is dead” (James 2:26).

Why should Christians care about politics?  Because government is appointed by God.  In Romans 13:1-7, Paul describes the governing authorities as “ministers of God,” responsible for administering civil justice.  Government is God’s idea, and Christians should think about it and engage with it in a way that’s consistent with its God-ordained purposes.

As believers, called to be agents of transformation in the broader society, we have a clear responsibility to vote—not just when we’re enthusiastic about the options or when the choices seem most obvious.  If political parties and candidates don’t align perfectly with our values, the answer is not for Christians to retreat.  If we fail to be the salt and light we’ve been called to be, we could clearly see America sink deeper into darkness.

“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves …” (Proverbs 31:8).

God commanded us to love our neighbors (Mark 12:31), and one way we can do that is by engaging in the political process to meet people’s needs.  While the race for president gets the most attention, there are much broader implications for voting this November than who will occupy 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  In our hands rest the hopes of soldiers on foreign battlefields, the persecuted church in faraway lands and the peace of God’s chosen nation Israel (Numbers 24:9).

And many would argue that there are much more important decisions than the presidency on the state and local ballot.  Control of the House and Senate hangs in the balance.  Governors, state attorneys general, local school boards, even comptrollers are amassing major victories in protecting children from radical gender ideology, pushing back on corporate America’s woke agenda, fighting the Biden Administration’s lawless overreach, and passing sweeping pro-life and pro-parent laws.  While we might not have the ideal situation at the top of the ballot, Americans have several other issues to be mindful of as we head to the polls.

“But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philippians 3:20).

Regardless of what’s happening in America, we should be grateful that we live in a country where we still have the ability to vote.  Even though the fabric of our nation is being stretched and tested as never before, each of us has the power to shape our future and our family’s future—a luxury millions of people around the world will never know.

As believers, we understand that this earth is not our ultimate home.  However, we must engage with the culture, including politics, while standing firm on the transcendent truth of God’s Word.  Paul tells the Ephesians to keep standing (6:13).

Will we turn this country around?  We pray so, and we’ll work hard toward that end.  When former president John Quincy Adams was asked a cynical question about the failure to end slavery after decades of trying, he said simply, “Duty is ours; results are God’s.”  Let us do our duty!

 

Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.

Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army

Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel