Last night, My Faith Votes, the Religious Right effort overseen by Ben Carson that seeks to mobilize millions of Christians to vote in 2016, hosted another teleforum, this one featuring Religious Right activist and pseudo-historian David Barton, who told participants that they will answer to God if they fail to vote for Donald Trump.
Barton ran a pro-Ted Cruz super PAC during the Republican primary, but quickly shifted his support to Trump once it was clear that he would be the GOP nominee, even going so far as to declare that Trump is obviously “God’s guy” in this election. As such, it came as no surprise to hear Barton tell caller after caller last night that Christians must vote for Trump and will have to answer to God if they don’t.
Barton said that Christians who refuse to support Trump are just looking for “excuses” and would probably have refused to vote for biblical leaders like King David because he was a murderer and adulterer or Noah because “he had trouble with drunkenness” or Lot, who slept with his own daughter.
Christians who won’t vote for Trump, Barton said, need to realize that “maybe God’s got a different standard than what we do. Maybe at a national leadership level, there are people who do good things for the nation who have character flaws … What God calls great leaders wouldn’t fit your litmus test, but maybe you need to catch up with where God is rather than expecting God to catch up with where you are.”
“Voting is not a right, it is a responsibility,” Barton said. “God wants you to be locked in that room with a ballot box and don’t come out until you vote. And if you have that approach, then you’re going to have to find the best you can of what is there and vote for it.”
“We will stand before God one day and answer for everything we’ve said and thought and done,” he continued. “[God will say,] ‘I gave you your country, what did you do that with?’ ‘Well, I didn’t do anything because I didn’t like any of the candidates.’ Really? You think God is going to buy that? In Matthew 25 and Luke 19, the guy who was given something to do and didn’t do anything with it, he’s the one who got in trouble with the master. He’s going to say, ‘I gave you a vote. What did you do with that vote I gave you?’ ‘Well, I couldn’t use it for anybody.’ And again, we’re back to Matthew 25 and Luke 19 where Jesus turned to him and said, ‘Wait a minute, you didn’t do anything with what I gave you, at all?’ And that is the one who got thrown into outer darkness.”
“That mentality that this is my choice is the wrong choice,” Barton said. “It should be this is my accountability; I will account to God and I have to vote because He put that ballot in my hand and I’m going to have to account to Him for what I did with it. And I can’t use the false standard of I have to have somebody perfect because there is nobody perfect except for Jesus and, by the way, when He was on earth, they didn’t think He was perfect; we only think He’s perfect now. Back then, they called him a winebibber and a glutton; he had all sorts of campaign ads run against him. So nobody is going to fit the criteria, so let’s get God’s mind on this thing instead of finding excuses … [because] you will answer to God for what you do with that ballot and what you do with this country.”
