As the presidential campaign winds down, the Trump-Vance ticket is ramping up warnings of Christian persecution if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the election. “The radical left is not going to leave Christians alone. It’s going to get worse and worse, and you’re going to suffer greatly,” President Donald Trump told the 11th Hour Faith Leaders Meeting in Concord, N.C., on October 21. “Ms. Harris has been an integral part of the most anti-Catholic administration in living memory—ironic given President Joe Biden’s Catholic faith,” Sen. JD Vance wrote in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on October 24.
Christians might ask in turn whether persecution is the worst the state can do to the Church. Might coopting the Church be worse? Does the Church suffer more from persecution without than from corruption within? In voting, the usual criterion is to consider what is best for the country. But what is good for the Church?
The Christian Church was born of persecution. It began with a crucifixion, and the martyrs soon followed. They have never stopped coming. But after the initial centuries of living under persecution, Christianity became the religion of the Roman Empire. Paul Kingsnorth, in his 2024 Erasmus Lecture on Monday, suggested that development was profoundly ambiguous. The empire was good to the Church. Was it good for the Church’s witness?
To be sure, imperial powers down the ages have been powerful allies—missionaries came alongside the French colonial expeditions to Canada, the Spanish to Mexico, and the Portuguese to India. Their evangelizing work had the support of the crown. For a long time, Christian clergy even held state power, most notably in the papal states. But the Psalmist warns, “Put not your trust in princes.”
That goes for presidents too. And in the current campaign, piety is playing out in an unusually prominent way.
The night before Kingsnorth’s lecture, on Sunday, October 27—New York is truly the caput mundi—Trump held an epic and idiosyncratic rally at Madison Square Garden, coming home with a full complement of acolytes. Controversy about racism was generated by a vulgar comedian, who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of trash” (and was booed by the audience). But there was also an important moment from Hulk Hogan who, after recalling his past triumphs as a professional wrestler in that arena, put this question to the assembled throng: “Whatcha gonna do to put God back in our homes, our country and our schools?”
“Vote for Trump,” the crowd bellowed back.
Of the many things Christians might do to put God back in their homes, voting for any candidate seems an odd place to start. Indeed, if voting for Trump is considered a fulfillment of Christian duty, or even an act of Christian piety, it would be a distraction from that duty, or a dereliction of piety—in short, a danger to Christian faith and practice.
The political temptation in religion is always present; a great number of those who witnessed Jesus preach and heal wanted to make him king. His kingdom was not of this world.
The last century has often brought Christians, explicitly as Christians, into political life. “Christian Democrats” rebuilt the Axis powers in Europe after World War II. Solidarnośc in Poland was a labor union and a political party, but Masses were offered and confessions heard in the shipyards. Clergy became candidates: Jesse Jackson ran for president in 1984 as a Democrat; Pat Robertson ran in 1988 as a Republican.
Christian engagement in politics does not always mean cooptation or corruption of the faith, but it remains a real danger. This year’s presidential campaign has included moments in which the Christian faith itself seems to be a partisan position.
Harris told hecklers shouting “Jesus is Lord” that they were “at the wrong rally.” As surely as night follows day, at Republican rallies chants of “Christ is King” and “Jesus, Jesus” began. Faith put to political purposes risks violating the First Commandment, making God an instrument for political ends. That is not good for the Church, either now or in the longer term.
An analogy might be drawn to the political troubles of President Bill Clinton in the 1990s. The feminist movement, which had long railed against powerful men taking sexual advantage of their subordinates, decided to grant Clinton absolution for Monica Lewinsky because of his support for abortion.
The power of that support likely saved Clinton at the time. But credibility was lost when principles were sacrificed for power, and over time that power dissipated too. Liberals today who are stupefied that Trump’s convictions for sexual misconduct do not appear to register with voters might look to Gloria Steinem’s support of Clinton in 1998 as a key factor. Politics, then and now, come first and principles later.
It was, it might be said, a deal with the devil. Christians ought to be wary of making the same mistake, a mistake as ancient as the Scriptures and as recent as Madison Square Garden.
Fr. Raymond J. de Souza is a Senior Fellow at Cardus.
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