OPINION:
“I don’t talk about my faith a lot.”
With these few, consequential words, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz offered one of the most stunning and disturbing lines of Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate.
Mr. Walz, the Democrats’ vice presidential nominee who then proceeded to cite a Bible verse to encourage people to keep their “dignity” in how they handle the immigration issue, acknowledged something many already know: Religion isn’t the candidates’ forte this election cycle.
Furthermore, religion isn’t informing many of the policy perspectives we’re seeing on the campaign trail. It’s a travesty; the culture’s God void is on full display, with sadness, depression and suicidal ideation at disturbing highs, particularly among youths.
People need moral clarity and hope more than ever, but that’s not what’s percolating this election season. Instead, it’s an array of policies and statements predicated on selfish ambition.
Many headlines have noted the lack of religious discussion in the 2024 campaign, with a recent Axios headline proclaiming, “Harris, Trump go light on religion in ’24 campaign.” The article goes on to say that this “is the first presidential election in half a century in which neither candidate is openly telling voters much about their religion or faith.”
At a time when America faces challenges surrounding inflation, housing and energy costs, assassination attempts on political candidates and other perils — and when the world appears to be on the brink of potentially catastrophic war — faith should be the primary source governing our leaders’ hearts and minds.
If not God, then to whom are these politicians looking to discern truth, rightfulness, goodness and morality? From what source are they deriving their plans and proclamations?
Some of the biggest issues this election cycle expose the depths to which ethics have plunged, as the proverbial “god of the self” — a worldview that relies on a nonsensical array of viewpoints based on little more than individual whims — has replaced biblical ethics and truth.
From abortion and transgender ideology to the newfound obsession with college loan forgiveness, the fixation on personal proclivities is dominating our politics.
On abortion, much of society and culture has decided to look past the overwhelmingly obvious reality: An unborn child is a live human being, and stopping its heartbeat is terminating its life. Vice President Kamala Harris, Mr. Walz and others have gone from “safe, legal and rare” to “it’s none of your business,” refusing to restrict access to abortion at any gestation.
Even former President Donald Trump has tried to separate himself from the overturning of Roe v. Wade, although his Supreme Court nominees helped torpedo the long-standing abortion law to the elation of many pro-life activists.
Fear of man and political costs over fear of God and truth too often triumphs in our discourse. Fact-based conviction is sadly absent from most politicians’ lexicons.
Mr. Trump has maintained his general opinion against abortion, a stunning juxtaposition when pitted against Ms. Harris and others who have waged a full-throttled campaign built, in some ways, on the backs of the unborn.
Progressives’ argument is that people should essentially be able to do what they wish, though their assertions predictably leave out the bloody details, treating the unborn like property and not living humans.
This obsession with the whims of the self at the expense of truth and reality — a flagrant rejection of the idea that God knits humans together in their mother’s wombs (Psalm 139:13) — is the miserable consequence of an ideology that perfectly coalesces with mantras like “I don’t talk about my faith a lot.”
It’s why Mr. Walz said in the debate that Roe v. Wade offered “52 years of personal autonomy” and that abortion is essentially a “basic human right” without mentioning that performing an abortion requires the literal killing of an unborn human.
With religion out of the way, politicians continue to reimagine what’s right and wrong, creating a Frankenstein-like moral barometer incapable of passing any smell test. There’s a reason these people use terms such as “women’s reproductive health.” Such Orwellian phrases take away any of the emotion or real-world explanation surrounding what’s really happening.
This extends into the transgender battle as well, with the Biden administration seemingly bowing to pressure from activists rather than following science, morality and common sense. The shocking chemical and surgical changes children undergo are conveniently labeled “gender-affirming care” to keep people from fully understanding the body-damaging consequences. Sadly, the Biden administration has upped the ante on these efforts.
Dr. Rachel Levine, the assistant secretary of health and human services who is transgender, shocked observers in 2023 when pondering what to do when young people go through the “wrong puberty.”
“Adolescence is hard and puberty is hard,” the government official said. “What if you’re going through the wrong puberty? What if you inside feel that you’re female, but you’re going through male puberty?”
While that’s strange enough, consider the dangerous and perplexing fact that many girls and young women in America must compete in athletic events against biological males, with little regard being given to the girls’ safety, comfort or to the facts.
The confusion and outlandish policies are rooted in a rejection of universal and definitive truth. It’s the sort of result one arrives at when relativism so dominates that common sense is relegated to the dustbin.
What America needs is clear, definitive moral guidance — a lighted pathway to truth and goodness that helps heal a beleaguered populace, not a morally bankrupt mess fueled by the whims of the self.
“Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion,” George Washington warned in his farewell address. “Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
Both sides of the political divide would be wise to remember that advice.
• Billy Hallowell is a digital TV host and interviewer for Faithwire and CBN News and the co-host of CBN’s “Quick Start Podcast.” He is the author of four books.
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