Ray Ortlund’s Bad Politics
Another Big Eva Name Backs Kamala Harris
Ray Ortlund’s endorsement of Kamala Harris is Exhibit A for why the current crop of evangelical elites desperately needs to be replaced. On Threads, the haven for center-left evangelicals who have been bullied off X, the founding pastor of Immanuel Church in Nashville posted, “Never Trump. This Time Harris. Always Jesus.” After receiving numerous criticisms due to publicly backing the most radical leftist presidential ticket in American history, Ortlund deleted the post “because it was being misinterpreted.”
But there was no misinterpretation.
David French, along with other pro-Harris evangelicals, didn’t seem to have any trouble understanding what Ortlund had written. French wrote the following (a Star Wars reference, of course) in response to Ortlund: “This is the way.”
“The way of Jesus” apparently means supporting candidates who, when you get past the thin layer of manufactured “joy” and “optimism” engineered by campaign consultants, believe in positively ghoulish pro-abortion, pro-child mutilation, and pro-LGBTQ policies. “Love thy neighbor” means watching your country be transformed through the importation of people from other cultures, no matter who you vote for. And “the world is watching” means that you must brook no dissent from the leftist worldview without inviting the very real possibility of being doxxed or cancelled.
All of this, of course, is clearly against the ends of the civil realm as they are described in the Reformed tradition. As John Calvin taught in a sermon on 1 Corinthians, “[O]ur Lord Jesus Christ did not come to mix up nature, or to abolish what belongs to the preservation of decency and peace among us.” The grace being delivered throughout the entire process of salvation does not destroy the things of nature, which is the domain of politics. God has charged civil magistrates with securing the common good of the people of a specific polity—that is, their safety, well-being, property, happiness, traditions and history, and the Christian religion.
Though the ground was prepared much earlier, the late 20th century lowest common denominator “Coalition Christianity” has successfully abolished almost any useful political categories and distinctions that Protestants once had to defend their way of life. A perfect example of the resulting evangelical mind is a post by Christian commentator Patrick K. Miller, who wrongly pitted watching the vice-presidential debate against college students gathering to worship, thinking that a category error was in fact biblical wisdom.
The same problem that confounds Miller also lies behind Ortlund’s endorsement of Harris. Replying to a Christian who was clearly astonished at his support of Harris, Ortlund argued that though abortion is a “horrible evil,” the “evils on the other side have risen to levels that jeopardize the foundational rule of law in our country.”
In a pithy response, John G. West of the Discovery Institute wondered where exactly Ortlund has been since Trump came on the scene. He rightly pointed out the myriad ways in which Trump has been the victim of a constant stream of attacks from those who swore an oath to uphold the rule of law in America: “Politically-motivated prosecutions of one’s electoral opponents, government-encouraged censorship of dissenting voices on social media, prosecutions of peaceful pro-life protestors, executive orders that have no basis in laws passed by Congress, the refusal to enforce laws already on the books.”
Such an inane argument from someone with the stature of Ortlund, who is also a Canon Theologian in the Anglican Church in North America, sums up the poverty of the evangelical elite mind when it comes to politics (which likely points to deep-seated theological issues as well). The same people who moralistically thunder against evangelical Trump voters for making political trade-offs make those exact same trade-offs—only they display disqualifying judgment in openly supporting candidates who stand for the mutilation of children, the killing of the unborn, and the razing of our country’s borders.
Can you imagine what any Reformer would say to a Christian who supports Harris and Walz? As Simon P. Kennedy wrote at American Reformer, the Reformers’ consensus on the duties of the magistrate were as follows: “The civil magistrate rules in the temporal kingdom with the ultimate goal of ordering the lives of their subjects to the highest good, which is worshiping and pleasing God.” While men like Calvin, Vermigli, Rutherford, and Davenant would certainly be put off at the person of Donald Trump, they’d see the potential of Harris and Walz winning the White House as a far worse judgment against America.
How exactly does a Harris/Walz ticket stack up against the Westminster Confession of Faith’s description of the godly magistrate? The magistrate, the WCF lays out, is to rule “for his own glory and the public good” through “the defense and encouragement of them that are good, and for the punishment of evil-doers.” By that measure, Harris and Walz are doing everything they can to order the lives of Americans by the teachings of the prince of this world.
Yet if Christians notice these patterns among their elites, they are tone-policed and quote-tweeted to oblivion. Then the same elites do the very leftist things that the people accused them of, showing that they’re exactly who the critics say they are: friends of the regime who are increasingly apologists for the Party of Death.
Ortlund’s endorsement certainly doesn’t mean his sons or anyone else affiliated with his ministry are automatically suspect (with one glaring exception for Russell Moore, the minister in residence at Immanuel Church). But it does make one wonder just what is being said behind closed doors at the highest echelons of evangelicalism. Is Ortlund representative of a contingent of evangelical elites who in fact vote for Democrats—and will be doing so again in the fall? As Megan Basham’s Shepherds for Sale demonstrates, it would not be a surprise if that number wasn’t insignificant.
This is the same Ray Ortlund, after all, who famously lauded the decline of “Bible Belt Religion” because it “made bad people worse” by supposedly churning out mostly cultural Christians—not true Christians. But as Brandon Meeks noted in welcome pushback at The American Conservative, screeds from those with a seat at the high table like Ortlund leave one “to draw the conclusion that those who dislike ‘Bible Belt Religion’ really just dislike the Bible Belt.”
“Urban Evangelistas love to rail against nominal religion, declaring with no small amount of glee, ‘Mayberry is not the New Jerusalem,’” Meeks writes. “To which an honest person is bound to say, ‘sure.’ But then again, Mayberry sure as hell ain’t Sodom and Gomorrah either.”
At its best, cultural Christianity adorns every aspect of a particular culture, guiding a people toward eternal, heavenly ends. But by itself, it cannot save souls. At Mere Orthodoxy, Stephen Wolfe reasonably noted that cultural Christianity “cannot bring about a spiritual effect; it cannot make true believers. It plays one role in the Christianʼs walk; it is not a sufficient role for spiritual life, and it was never meant to be sufficient.”
Why Ortlund is excited about the prospects of America becoming a pagan nation with increasing persecution of Christians is a mystery. While serious persecution may eventually come, Christians should do everything they can to prevent that situation from arising—not help the ruling class by psychologically preparing Christians in advance while doing nothing to stop it from happening. And if it does come, Christians are of course to be godly examples, possibly even martyrs for the faith. But this is not a situation Christians should actively pray for.
While there’s no biblical injunction that Christians must support Donald Trump, no Christian in good conscience can support Harris and Walz. Christians simply cannot back candidates who openly spit in the face of the clear teachings of orthodox Christianity, which are reflected in the natural world God made. Pastor Uri Brito rightly wrote in a devastating reply to Ortlund that “there isn’t a single rationale to play the Donatist game and support a candidate so outrageously proud of her disdain for truth.”
Ortlund’s endorsement of Harris/Walz is what happens when Reformed political theology is traded in for a paper-thin theology that has made its peace with leftism.
Too many evangelical leaders have learned their politics from the ways of the world. Fortunately, most average churchgoers have far better political instincts—and will be making reasonable political choices come November.
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