Why I’m a Christian for Kamala but not a ‘Christian for Kamala’

(RNS) — I watched the Christians for Kamala live event with a good deal of interest. For one thing, I’m a Christian. For another, I plan on voting for Kamala Harris in November. I guess that makes me a Christian for Kamala. Or does it?

The event, organized by John Pavlovitz and Malynda Hale, was a real success as these things go. It raised over $150,000 and brought in a murderers’ row of respected Christian leaders to rally the growing but still somewhat nebulous and unorganized religious not-right around the Harris/Walz ticket. Many of the featured guests were people whose lives and ministry have meant a lot to me — people like Diana Butler Bass, the Rev. Jacqui Lewis, William Matthews and the Rev. Dante Stewart. I’ve learned from these people and they made the Christian case for Harris with grace and conviction, highlighting her campaign’s inclusive and liberation-minded spirit, contrasting it with Donald Trump’s whole thing. It was, all told, a pretty convincing couple of hours. 

So why was I left feeling unconvinced? 

Let’s take a step back and evaluate the genuinely disorienting vibe shift we’ve all been through over the last month. After President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Trump, I felt the same spirit of bitter cynicism practically everyone to the left of JD Vance felt. The polls were all but unanimous: Biden was going to lose and nobody was surprised. “Here go the Democrats again!” “They’re addicted to losing!” “We hate life and ourselves! We can’t govern!” 

Except this time, Democrats did something nobody could have seen coming: They took action. Thanks to what sure sounds like a dramatic, high-stakes few days of behind-the-scenes political maneuvering, Biden agreed to bow out of the race and endorse his vice president for the 2024 ticket.

Since then, the Harris campaign has been soaring on good vibes, huge rallies and coconut memes. This energy only got more juice from the addition of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, whose jovial demeanor and bawdy dressing-down of his opponents made him all but impervious to the right’s various attempts to smear his military record. Meanwhile, Trump the Campaigner is, for more or less the first time, on his heels. His famed bravado has been replaced by a meandering, listless desperation, and Sen. Vance’s efforts to blow some fresh wind into the sails have been dampened by a naked and charmless misogyny. 

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign rally, Aug. 10, 2024, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)

So, yeah. It’s been a vibe shift. And as a white Christian guy who has always found himself in the statistically unusual position of opposing Trump, I can’t say I’m mad about any of it. Trump’s reelection odds are looking mighty iffy, and goodbye and good riddance to them. But I don’t think that automatically makes me a die-hard Christian for Kamala either. 

My politics don’t conveniently map onto either political party. I think most Christians feel the same way. Heck, I think most people feel the same way. This isn’t because I’m one of those faux-sanctimonious centrists who see staking out the middle ground between Republicans and Democrats as a worthy goal in and of itself. It’s just that a lot of things I’d like to see done politically are not being touted by either party.

For example, I’d like to see some action on climate change commensurate with the actual threat it poses. I’d like to see the U.S. stop sending strongly worded letters to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and actually shut off the endless stream of weapons that allow him to vaporize whole entire blocks and everyone on them. I’d like to see every American earn a living wage and have access to health care. I want well-funded public schools. I want strong unions. I want LGBTQ kids to live without fear. I want accountability for police and other authority figures who abuse their power, particularly where racial minorities are concerned. And so on and so forth. 

These things are important to me, and while context clues suggest the Harris/Walz ticket comes a lot closer to achieving at least some of them than the Trump/Vance one does, that’s just an educated guess. Harris’ website doesn’t have a policy section and she’s been light on interviews with the press. I can live with that for a while, given the extraordinary circumstances of her apparent nomination. But given the Democratic Party’s track record, I’m a little skeptical. While the Republican Party of the last few years has staunchly opposed many of those goals, Democrats haven’t exactly been wildly enthusiastic about them either. Will Harris break with Biden’s blank checks to the Israeli military? I hope so, but I have yet to see any concrete evidence that she’ll try.

For these reasons, I’m less interested in being a “Christian for Kamala” than I am in being a “Christian with particular and occasionally even contradictory politics who is forced to make a strategic vote in this two-party system and will ultimately pull the lever for the candidate who seems more likely to hear my side out than the other candidate is.” (Not the catchiest name, but you get the idea.) 

Based on what I know right now, that candidate is pretty clearly Harris. Of course, it’s at least conceivable that a third candidate would be more in line with my politics than Harris is. I know plenty of people sleep better by casting a symbolic vote for a third-party candidate or writing in their own dream option. I don’t begrudge anyone that, but it’s never been clear to me how these votes actually help struggling people. I’m all for working to disrupt the two-party system, but it seems to me that voting day is probably the least effective possible time to do so, especially if your overall goal is to put people in charge who can make the world a little better for people who are struggling right now.

But the reason I hesitate to call myself a “Christian for Harris” is that when we pledge allegiance to one political candidate, we surrender a lot of the power we have in a democracy. This is more than just semantics. Our political influence comes not just from who we decide to vote for, but how we use our voices in the intervening years between elections. A “Christians for Undocumented Immigrants” group has a lot more leverage to influence politicians and hold them accountable than a “Christians for (Politician)” group does, because the former isn’t beholden to a single flawed person who is susceptible to mistakes and lobbyists and squishy polling data and billionaire donors, but to a noble cause. 

Anti-abortion protesters celebrate after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the federally protected right to abortion, outside the Supreme Court in Washington, June 24, 2022. The Supreme Court ended constitutional protections for abortion that had been in place nearly 50 years, a decision by its conservative majority to overturn the court’s landmark abortion cases. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)

For an example of how quickly these “Christians for (Politician)” groups go awry, look no further than Harris’ opponent. I personally spoke with many Christians in 2016 who admitted they found many things about Trump distasteful but voted for him anyway because of their opposition to abortion. Anti-abortion groups’ support for Trump turned out to be well-placed, as Trump’s GOP delivered a once-unthinkable Roe v. Wade overturn. However, Republicans now seem a little sheepish about this victory, as it has turned out to be a significant electoral liability. They’re so embarrassed about gutting federal abortion protections that they’re distancing themselves from all responsibility for this herculean accomplishment and omitting a pledge to ban abortion nationwide from the official party platform for the first time in 40 years.

Given this apparent reversal on the ostensibly all-important issue of abortion, have “Christians for Trump” withdrawn their support? Have these single-issue voters stood outside of Trump rallies and demanded he make his position clear on Florida’s abortion amendment? Has evidence that overturning Roe actually led to an uptick in abortion led these groups to find new ways to bring these rates in line with their stated goals? Current polling has observed no such break.

Once you’ve thrown in with a candidate, it’s much easier to shift your values to align with that person than to pressure the candidate to align their policies with your values.

I bring this up not to draw any moral or political equivalence between Trump and Harris, who are very different people. But I do think it’s a helpful illustration of the pitfalls that come from backing a politician instead of a political vision.

In the Gospels, Jesus proclaims a unique vision of the world — one where the meek inherit the earth and the mourning are comforted. I do not think either Trump or Harris is going to bring the kingdom proclaimed in the Sermon on the Mount to reality. I do think Harris is likely to get us marginally closer, but not if all of us just put the entirety of our weight behind her, no questions asked.

Now is not the time to pledge blind allegiance. Now is the time to start making some demands.

(Tyler Huckabee is a writer living in Nashville, Tennessee, with his wife and dogs. Read more of his writing at his Substack. This column does not necessarily reflect the views of Religion News Service.)