Who has known the mind of the Lord? Not I, nor Pete Buttigieg.
The South Bend mayor was right about one thing: God doesn’t belong to any political party, and he doesn’t like to be used as a “cudgel” against either the Left or the Right.
But while Buttigieg was talking about faith and politics to NBC, he added that if God were inclined toward one side of America’s two-party system, “I can’t imagine it would be the one that sent the current president into the White House.”
No, don’t use God as a trump card, Buttigieg appeared to argue. But if you must invoke a higher power to bolster your credentials, at least do it to own the other side.
Former Rep. Michele Bachmann, a Republican, recently made the opposite argument. President Trump is “highly biblical,” she said in a radio interview last month, “and I would say to your listeners, we will in all likelihood never see a more godly, biblical president again in our lifetime.” In January, press secretary Sarah Sanders also claimed that God was on Trump’s side, saying that he “wanted” Trump to win the presidency.
As comforting as it would be to know that a supreme being supported our favorite candidate or political party, such knowledge is way beyond our capabilities. “No one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God,” the Bible tells all Christians, from Democrats like Buttigieg to Republicans like Bachmann and Sanders.
One’s religious views are likely to inform one’s political views, since religion shapes morals. But the Bachmann-Buttigieg arguments are something else. They are justifying political beliefs with religious arguments. The problem isn’t imposing your religious views on others so much as imposing your political views on the good Lord.
