Ahead of Wednesday’s inauguration, evangelicals are preparing for a chillier relationship with the Biden administration due to the President-elect’s positions on abortion, LGBTQ matters, and other issues on which evangelicals and the President-elect hold vastly different views. Additionally, violence at the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6 increased tensions across the nation, including among Christians who continue to debate the legacy of Donald Trump’s presidency.
Immediately following the riot at the Capitol, Southern Baptist leaders reacted on social media, sharing anger, confusion, and sadness. One of the most outspoken voices, and for some, the most controversial, was Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. On Jan. 8 Moore tweeted on his personal Twitter account, “Mr. President, people are dead. The Capitol is ransacked. There are 12 dangerous days for our country left. Could you please step down and let our country heal?”
In response to his comments, some called on Moore to resign, while others expressed their support. Online, Southern Baptists have expressed their opinions regarding each other, the state of the nation, Trump, Biden, and a host of other issues, mirroring the division seen across the country.
In a Jan. 15 column for Baptist Press, Ronnie Floyd called on Southern Baptists to unite. “In Jesus’ name, we need to come together now,” wrote Floyd, president and CEO of the SBC Executive Committee. “The churches across America need to see a Southern Baptist Convention that is cooperating and unifying together for the cause of taking the gospel to every person in the world. This is America’s hope and the hope for the world.”
Reasons for concern
As Joe Biden’s administration prepares to take over Jan. 20, the concerns many Christians raised during his candidacy remain. Biden campaigned on reversing pro-life measures undertaken by the Trump administration, including ending foreign aid for abortions. His pick for Secretary of Health and Human Services is a staunch proponent of abortion rights. Biden has also pledged to advance LGBTQ rights and reverse religious liberty protections enacted by the previous administration.
In late 2020, one of the country’s largest LGBTQ organizations released its legislative agenda for the Biden administration. The Human Rights Campaign’s “Blueprint for Positive Change 2020” includes 85 policy recommendations that could be implemented by Biden without congressional approval.
One of the proposals would strip accreditation from Christian colleges that uphold policies opposing homosexuality. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, called the document “sinister” and the threat to revoke a school’s accreditation an “atomic bomb.” He further determined the recommendation “is an undisguised attempt to shut down any semblance of a Christian college or university that would possess the audacity to operate from a Christian worldview.”
Biden himself campaigned on several key LGBTQ issues, including reinstating the Obama administration’s guidance on school restrooms to guarantee transgender students access to facilities based on their gender identity. He also pledged to end the ban on transgender military service, and to revoke religious exemptions for businesses and other organizations that hold to a biblical view of marriage and sexuality.
One early cabinet pick—Xavier Becerra as Secretary of Health and Human Services—also alarmed evangelicals. As California’s Attorney General, Becerra defended the state’s Reproductive FACT Act, which forced pregnancy centers to inform clients about public programs that provide family planning services, including abortion. In the 2018 case National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of pregnancy centers.
“Mr. Becerra has a consistent track record of opposing religious liberty and cultural values emerging from religious convictions,” said Jeff Iorg, president of Gateway Seminary in California. “He will, no doubt, demonstrate his convictions and use his position to further those positions if his cabinet appointment is approved.”
Pro-life surprise
Despite evidence that Christian views on the sanctity of life could be sidelined in the new administration, voters in November elected 17 new pro-life women to the U.S. House of Representatives, with races still contested in Iowa and New York. At least 11 of the women replace pro-abortion incumbents. Another 11 pro-life women incumbents were re-elected.
Pro-life advocates celebrated the victories. “These gains are a repudiation of abortion extremism,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser of Susan B. Anthony List, “and further evidence that life is a winning issue in politics.”
Prior to the Nov. 3 election, pro-life jurist Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed to serve as an Associate Justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Barrett has already weighed in on a few emergency rulings of the Court, including a ruling in which she joined the majority in voting 5-4 against the State of New York reimposing limits on religious gatherings as part of its COVID restrictions.
The Supreme Court could rule on several religious liberty cases in their current term, according to reporting by WORLD magazine. In Fulton v. Philadelphia, the plaintiffs claim the city of Philadelphia violated the First Amendment by excluding Catholic Social Services from the foster care system, based on the agency’s beliefs about marriage. In Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski, college students are contending for the right to share faith on campus.
– With information from AlbertMohler.com, Baptist Press, WORLD