Christians hold the key to elections, but will they show up?

America is in a spiritual crisis. A nation that was founded on Christian principles, a nation that invoked God in its origins, a nation that has turned to the same God for nearly a quarter-millennium has nearly overnight rebuked Him and has largely abandoned His truth.

Case in point, the newest polling from renowned pollster George Barna finds that only 59% of practicing Christians say they will vote in the November 5 election. If churchgoing Christians make up 80 million of America’s 333 million people, that means only 48 million practicing Christians are headed to the polls.

It’s not surprising that America’s moral decline barely registers as an issue this election, as only 23% of churched Christians consider moral decline a 'defining issue.'

This number is concerning.

Voting is our civic duty, a practice that America’s founders enshrined in the Constitution to ensure that all Americans can share in the process of creating a more perfect union. How often are we at a church service or backyard barbecue when we hear Christians of good faith lament on the state of our union? Yet as Barna’s polling shows, only about six in 10 of these people will make the effort to facilitate change. Even worse, one out of every 10 of these Christians refuse to vote at all.

As discouraging as these numbers are, they get worse the more one digs into Barna’s polling.

Take, for instance, the startingly high number (42%) of Christians who support abortion on demand — that is the right to an “abortion under any circumstance.” That's an alarmingly high number of proclaimed Christians willing to accept the killing of an innocent baby, no matter the reason.

If Christian-backed abortion isn’t disturbing enough, nearly one-third (29%) of American Christians say they prefer socialism to capitalism. Yes, they accept the secular ideology responsible for tens, if not hundreds, of millions of deaths over the past century, rather than a system that incentivizes accountability.

It is also alarming that more than half (56%) of Christians reject absolute moral truth despite it being conveyed through scripture — claiming that “identifying moral truth is up to each individual; there are no moral absolutes that apply to everyone, all the time.”

Although these numbers are shocking, it’s not surprising that America’s moral decline barely registers as an issue this election, as only 23% of churched Christians consider moral decline a “defining issue.”

Where is church leadership? Where are the shepherds who were called by Christ to lead His flock? Are they informing their congregations of God’s truth as it relates to our nation’s sad current state of affairs?

Is weak church leadership to blame for the 40% of Christians who are at this point likely sitting out the election? No. But we shouldn’t be surprised, either, that the number of Christians who claim to have heard sermons or teachings about the Bible’s stand on specific issues (61%) or who were encouraged to vote by their churches (56%) is nearly identical to the number of Christians planning to vote.

Church leaders have a duty to guide their congregations into a closer relationship with Christ. Part of that relationship includes participating in voting efforts and encouraging civic action. In fact, another Barna poll found that 17% of Christians who don’t plan to vote would participate on Election Day if they were told that voting is a “biblical responsibility of every Christian.”

Another 10% say they could justify voting if a religious person they highly respected endorsed a candidate.

This doesn’t mean pastors need to endorse candidates during sermons, nor should they guilt their congregations into voting. However, since there seems to be a correlation between voting Christians and those who have heard sermons about the importance of voting, church leaders must do more.

As Americans, we have a duty not only to leave future generations better off but also to honor our founders and ultimately God by preserving the republic and upholding the unalienable rights He has granted us. Casting your ballot is the perfect start.