Christianity in Elections and the Beauty of Sacred Music

John Harper (0:00)

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Rebecca Raber (0:12)

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John Harper (0:15)

Don Harper in this afternoon for Drew, and Drew will be back on Monday. And again, we'll continue to follow through this hour. The two major breaking stories of the afternoon from New Orleans were rescue operations were underway after a tanker collided with a docked riverboat on the Mississippi River. One over 29 passengers, crew members on board that cruise ship. We do not know of any casualties or any injuries. We'll be monitoring that. And of course, the other big story that broke within the last 30 minutes, the FAA issuing a nationwide ground stop of all flights. The FAA says it's communications issues that are affecting multiple air traffic control facilities. So two big stories impacting a lot of folks here today. And we'll watch that for you here on Relevant Radio and the Relevant Radio app.

Another story that continues to dominate the headlines is the midterm elections. That was 10 days ago. But we're still analyzing the impact of the will of the voters that will put Democrats in control of both the House and the Senate in January. And you and I heard familiar themes from the candidates, affordability, the impact of the war in Iran, corruption. But we heard something else that we really haven't heard in a very, very long time. The midterms had an underlying theme, and that was one of Christianity. And when you go inside the numbers from election night, religious unaffiliated Americans became a huge part of the Democratic base.

This is information from Pew Research. They found that white Catholics, white evangelical Protestants favored Republicans in the midterms. Other religious groups split or leaned Democratic. Let's take a look at those numbers and some of the questions that conservative evangelicals should be asking and how candidates should understand the role of Christianity in this election cycle as we now prepare for the 2028 presidential sweepstakes. Somebody who knows because he was a member of Congress for 16 years, a member of our family, Dan Lipinski. He is currently a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the Pope Leo the 13th fellow on social thought at the University of Dallas. Dan, welcome back.

Dan Lipinski (2:23)

It's good to be with you, John.

John Harper (2:25)

Were you surprised to see Christianity emerge as strongly as it did, or was that just all driven by Talarico in Texas?

Dan Lipinski (2:33)

Well, that's a good point you make there.

I'm actually writing an article that is going to be in First Things, where I talk about this issue. I mean, there certainly is a narrative that came out of the election after. You know, as a political veteran, I know there's always people who are trying to either put their spin on or give an honest assessment of what the election results tell us. And one of those common narratives right now is the rise of the religious left as liberal Christian, liberal Christian churches. I think that this was really a reflection of, first of all, James Talarico, the Democrat who defeated the Republican in Texas for the Senate. But you also had, so Talarico is a Presbyterian seminarian. You also had Adam Hamilton, who is the pastor of a large Methodist. Well, by some account, it's the largest Methodist megachurch in the world in Kansas. Adam Hamilton, Democrat, beat the Republican for Senate. In Kansas, and you had two women who are ministers in Iowa, who each won a race for the House of Representatives, Democrats who flipped Republican seats. So I think those four candidates, especially Taylor Rico, is what all the real focus is on.

Whether there's a movement, I don't know if there really was a movement, but there are some good things and some bad things, I think, about this narrative, and I'm happy to talk about those.

John Harper (4:29)

Go ahead and call me Polly Anish, but we were just having a conversation with Michael Minogue, who ran unsuccessfully to become Governor of Massachusetts, and he talked about his faith very openly, because that's who he is, as a Roman Catholic man, and that resonated with a lot of voters in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and our conversation focused on the common good, and maybe I'm being too Pollyanna about this, Dan, and just depending on that making a difference, what your political affiliation is, we always pray to the Holy Spirit that he guide all of our elected officials, again, regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum, but how do we bring the common good back into the conversation here, and not divide it up into religious left, religious right, and conservative, progressive? How do we bring the common good back into the conversation?