What is the danger of a president who publicly silences the claim of a citizen that “Jesus is Lord”?

For starters — and this may be too obvious to be worth mentioning — the entire impetus for freedom of speech was so that people did not have to fear punishment when putting God before king and country. When we believe our government to have overstepped its God-given boundaries, we should be able to freely speak out about it, call it down, and name the One who gives us both the ultimate truth and the authority on earth to do so.

Secondly, Harris’s retort, “You guys are at the wrong rally…I think you meant to go to the smaller one down the street,” implies several problematic philosophies for the leader of the free world. At best, it was a spontaneous quip to make her supporters laugh at someone else’s expense (and Christianity more generally) and get a disruptive person or group out of her forum. At worst, it was a pre-planned response given to her to say to boisterous rally-goers to communicate the attitude that she does not submit to the lordship of Christ, that people who do believe in God are a small, socially deviant group and have no place in an America “unburdened by the past,” and that political symposiums should not be dialogic. Whether it was the latter or the former, she accomplished each of these divisive and destructive ends, and we were given a sample of what kind of leader she would be.

Most importantly of all, in my opinion, is the implication that she does not hold firm to Christ’s ultimate sovereignty, that her knee-jerk reaction to “Jesus is Lord” was not a wholehearted yes and amen, but rather the opposite, “You’re at the wrong rally.” It should be paramount to American believers that our president be a person who at the very least has a healthy fear of God and recognizes that any power they have has been given to them for a breath of time to steward it well. Harris does not communicate this.

Not only did Harris silence the Christians at her rally, which arguably emboldened her supporters to physically force them from the room, but her campaign has been rife with anti-Christian rhetoric and symbolage that need to be addressed, and we should be very wary of a leader who has in some instances gone out of her way to disrespect Christianity. It is a small step from making parodies of the Last Supper or Holy Communion to all-out religious persecution, and as in this specific example (not to mention the innumerable examples we have from that pesky thing, the past), the off-the-cuff quips and parodies of a ruler inflame the intolerance and even physical violence of her followers.

Imagine if her answer had been more in line with J.D. Vance’s response at a similar eruption from a crowd member, “Jesus is King!” to which Vance replied, “That’s right — Jesus is King.” Imagine if she had acknowledged God’s authority or at the very least did not try to silence the voices that were disagreeing with her. Imagine if revival had broken out at that rally and seeds of peace and neighborly love were sown, rather than dissention and strife. Unfortunately, that dream was quenched before it even had a chance to ignite.

On the other hand, imagine if Trump is re-elected. Imagine life going back to a little bit of the normalcy of pre-pandemic. I am not saying his behaviors do not stir up strife, but they do not seek to silence opposing views, nor to centralize truth so that only a few chosen ones have access to it. Imagine, too, a world in a few years once Trump leaves office, and say Vance is elected the next president, a man who fears God and proudly proclaims, “Jesus is King.” These imagined worlds are worth deep consideration as we go into the next election.

To end this post, I want to put the same verses from yesterday here again. May we read them and bury them in our hearts and use them as a sword, not against flesh and bone, but against spiritual forces at work around us.

For this reason God highly exalted Him
and gave Him the name
that is above every name,

so that at the name of Jesus
every knee will bow—
of those who are in heaven and on earth
and under the earth—

and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:9-11