With new data suggesting more than 100 million “people of faith” — including Christians, Mormons, Jews, and Muslims — might sit out the 2024 presidential election, one apologist is suggesting believers are, at least in part, responsible for the myriad problems plaguing the country.
Last month, Dr. Jeff Myers of Summit Ministries appeared on CBN’s “Faith vs. Culture,” where he asserted the United States is facing a significant “problem,” much of which, he said, centers on Christians “not understanding their citizenship responsibilities.”
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A new analysis from Dr. George Barna’s Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University found only about half of all “people of faith” (51%) plan to vote in this year’s presidential contest.
As for respondents’ reasons for not participating, 68% said they lack interest in politics and elections, 57% said they dislike both major candidates, 55% said they don’t believe either candidate reflects their most important values, and 52% said they don’t believe their vote will make a difference in the outcome.
Myers and his organization work predominantly with younger people, many of whom are eligible this year to vote in their first presidential election.
Younger Christians, he said, are turned off by “conflict,” which is, of course, a barrier to entry in the era of former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
“When they hear the political banter going back and forth between the political parties, it discourages rather than encourages them,” explained Myers. “One of the key points I make to them is, if you think that involvement in politics is a battle between liberals and conservatives, then you’re misunderstanding what the political process is all about.”
Most younger Americans spend a great deal of time on social media. In fact, a byproduct of this phenomenon has led to TikTok becoming the main source of news for Gen Zers and a leading news platform for one-third of adults under 30 years old, according to 2023 Pew Research Center data.
Myers argued voters are conflating selecting a commander-in-chief with “liking” something on social media.
“We are not voting as a social media ‘like,'” he said. “We are voting as a hiring decision to figure out who’s best going to be able to run the government part of our society based on the framework outlined by the Constitution. And that frees people from a lot of the tension and causes them to ask the really important questions: ‘What really is the role of government and how does that compare and contrast with the role of the family and the role of the church in a society like ours?'”
Trump and Harris are neck-and-neck in favorability with 45.8% and 46.8% of Americans holding favorable views of the two leading politicians, respectively, according to polling averages from Real Clear Politics. So it’s no wonder Americans — and younger voters, in particular — are struggling to muster the gumption to go to the polls on Nov. 5.
Despite the apathy many are feeling as Election Day fast approaches, Myers argued there is “clearly” a biblical mandate for Christians to participate in the American political process.
“We are obligated as Christians to be good citizens of the place in which we find ourselves,” he said.
Myers uses the visual tool of a pyramid to help Christian voters better reason through how they should approach voting for any given candidate for elected office. He breaks the pyramid, he explained, into three categories: at the bottom is principles, in the middle is policies, and, at the top is personalities.
“The founders of the United States focused on the core principles first; they didn’t focus on personalities,” he said. “[T]hen they developed policies that could bring us close to [those] principles. They knew that there wasn’t equality at the time they wrote that; it was aspirational. But they developed policies [like establishing] an executive branch, a legislative branch, and a judicial branch that will create the kind of government that can self-correct over time. And then, finally, only at the tip of the iceberg are the personalities. There were personality conflicts among the founders. … Elections in the United States have … been vibrant for a long time.”
The difference now, Myers suggested, is voters have inverted the triangle, making electoral decisions based upon personalities rather than principles and policies.
“From there, you can never develop rational policies,” he said. “Policies never even come up in the discussion. And you certainly will never arrive at principles that can tie us all together. So my recommendation is we go back to the way the founders did it: start with the principles, then the policies, then deal with the personalities, rather than dealing with the personalities [first].”
Myers also broke down many myths Christians are tempted to believe about politics. You can read about that here. Or watch our full conversation in the video above.
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