The Church Answers Podcast

Why the 2024 Election Won't Be As Volatile as the 2020 Election

No presidential election in recent history has been as volatile and polarizing for churches as the 2020 election. While the 2024 election will still be a challenge for churches, it will not be nearly as bad as the previous election. Thom and Jess examine why the conflict will not be as great in 2024.

Duration:: 10m
Broadcast on:: 10 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Welcome to the Church Answers podcast presented by Chaney & Associates. Chaney & Associates are the accounting firm for the church. Now get ready for fast-paced insights on key issues affecting the local church today. We release three episodes each week, so make sure you've seen or heard them all. And now, here's the CEO of Church Answers, Tom Rayner. We're entering a new era. We're episode number 201. You thought I was going to talk about politics, didn't you? We're at episode 201, so now we're above 200. It's really gone rapidly. Thank you, all of you listeners and viewers for being a part of this. Thank you, Chaney & Associates. We've had one sponsor that has just been with us for so long now, and Chaney & Associates has been that sponsor for many, many episodes, and I'm so grateful for the firm, the accounting firm for the church, and they let you do ministry, and they take care of the finances, the bookkeeping, all of those issues, financial, and let me just say this one more time to you pastors and church members and leaders. Don't try to do the finances in your church. Chaney is the accounting firm for the church. They're serving 1100 churches right now. You need to be 1101, my guess is our project, 1200 since we got this data, but you need to be the next one. Use our cloud-based software. They're based out of California, but they serve churches in every state in the United States. So, I'm glad that you are with Chaney & Associates. This is Jess Reiner's favorite topic, the 2024 election. The politics are not his favorite area to be in, and Jess, I understand that, but you're being a sport and you're letting us talk about it, but I have a reason I want to talk about it. So, thanks for being with us anyway. No, and listen, I know the reason why specifically, you know, how it relates to local church is always important. So, politics aren't always my favorite topic to go to, but I stay informed and knowledgeable because I know it does make an impact. Well, it's not fun because it can bring you down, it can bring anybody down. Right. It's not fun because in a church, especially we saw it in 2020, people took sides and it became divisive. I know some churches that actually had major splits over the politics. I can't say a lot of positive about politics in the U.S. in 2024. The only thing I can say is, "Hey, he's probably not going to be as bad as it was in 2020." Yeah. Yeah. And I agree with that. 2020 was a year for so many different reasons and talking about everything that came into play. Because a year, I describe a year of panic and the election cycle and the timing of that, it just enhanced a lot of that. And so, yeah, I do think as we look into this next election cycle year, one, I think looking back having passed through 2020, having passed through that election year and all the things we learned, we're going to be better equipped for this election year and better ready to handle it and kind of get ahead of it. And so, yeah, I agree with you. I don't think it's going to be quite as volatile as we saw in 2020. And you said, "Well, one of the reasons we're going to be better equipped, we have already been through it. We've never been through anything like 2020." Right. "I'm an O fella and I have never been through anything like the 2020." Right. So, you know, while we're saying it's going to be easier, one, the sides have already been chosen. I pretty much know who you're going to vote for. I understand that there's independence and there's the middle area where they're trying to win just a few more votes. But in terms of strong allegiance, in terms of allegiance that is so, so strong that you're ready to fight someone if they believe differently, those sides are pretty much chosen. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, because this is round two of the same thing. Trump, Trump and Biden, Biden and Trump, whichever way you want to look at it. Yeah. And I don't know. I wonder how many times it's happened in American history. We have the exact same four, three or four, I think where that may be the number of presidents that have run, neither is the income, but I need to check my facts on that. Okay. So, it feels rare that you have the exact same two candidates running again. I mean, I can, you know, not things officially set, but then again, you have a third party candidate potentially in the mix as well. It, that creates for no matter how you feel about it, it at least feels known. Yep. And that's part of it. Yeah. And the only thing is painful. Yep. And so the fact that we're, we're walking into something, okay, we've seen this before. There's the hope it might be a little bit different and, you know, in a positive way, but it's known. And so that, I think that causes a lot of people to begin to go, okay. And even the conversation about having as a pastor and hearing from different church members, it, that's, that's the sense I get. It's like, we've walked through this before. I get the feeling from a local chance, church standpoint, it's more like, I don't want to walk through it again. Okay. Hopefully it'll be different, but at least it's not going to be this completely non known unfamiliar sense that we had before. Well, the major party candidates are known, Biden and Trump, but we do have a pretty significant, if the polls were correct, third party candidate in Kennedy. And then you have two other candidates that will take one, two percentage points as well. So most of the polls, most of the state will have five candidates on there. So that may affect, especially with the Kennedy candidacy, that really may affect, we make it a little bit different than it has been in the past. Right now the polls are indicating that it's almost equal who Kennedy is taking from, maybe a slight benefit to Trump, especially in some of the battleground states. But it's not, it's not significant. So the sides have already been chosen. Church members probably are currently in a church where they're not going to have to fight the political preferences. Is that a fair way of saying it? They may not be there because there's a chosen candidate for a church, but they feel like it's not going to be an issue as much as it was four years ago. Yeah. In 2020, there were some massive shifts around churches and how they handled, even from COVID to the election. Exactly. And so that in itself caused some shifts to happen. I don't sense that shift anymore. And I think going back to what I said earlier, I think churches are better equipped moving into this election cycle. You know, one of the things I remember pastoring is teaching people how to develop their biblical spiritual convictions, but also how to live out their spiritual biblical convictions. And so having walked through that before and led my church to it before coming into this, it doesn't feel like that polarization will be as strong because we've done this and we've taught on this. This is more like, Hey, as a reminder, as we enter this, let's remember our biblical spiritual convictions, how we develop them and then how we actually lift them out while we're maintaining unity as a church in a local church setting. So it feels like more of less polarization, more reminders of remember who we are, remember the purpose, remember that who we serve, remember is on the throne. And so that it's more of that reminding mindset as we lead into this, this election cycle. On the one hand, less polarization, yes. On the other hand, we accept polarization and it's just the way the world is. It's kind of sad, we expect screaming people, we expect sides to be chosen and not just in church, I'm just talking about in culture in general. So polarization is part of the world of social media, culture, news, et cetera. And you for the most part have chosen to stay off social media. And I think that's one of the healthiest things I've heard from anybody. I made a decision about three years ago to, I think my profile still exists, but I don't ever go check it, I don't ever go look at it. It was a decision I made for myself, it was a conviction that I developed in terms of how I was walking with the Lord and what I was utilizing it for. And I felt like that was a decision I needed to make. I'm becoming a bit more understanding of why and the spiritual health behind it. Again, that's a whole other podcast for another time, but for me, I made that in what happened, you talk about polarization becoming more of a common place. I feel like, especially as I stepped away from social media, the shock factor has wore off. Polarization often is to get that shock factor. Well, again, as we're going into this next election cycle, I think we'll see less, even though maybe polarization has become more of a common place and we're more used to it, I think we'll see less of it, because it's not as effective as it was in creating the shock factor for a lot of people. Yeah, they go hand in hand. That's going to make this election cycle not quite as volatile as well as compared to 2020. And you summarize, well, the opportunity for churches, the opportunity for churches, this is a time to be more Christ-like, to be more like Christ. You're going to stand out in a very good way in society if you're doing that. So you handle that issue very well. And before we go, just to let you know very soon, we're going to have a Know Your Community Politically report available for you so you can just know how your church, what type of community that you are in. We'll talk more about that later. But as always, thank you for being a part of the Church Answers Podcast. Thank you, Jess, for being here. Thank you, Chaney, for being our sponsor and just being the loyal friend and great organization you are, the accounting firm for the church. As always, join us here on Church Answers where we'll talk about all kind of things, from politics to Bible Belt to you name it. We're going to cover it here, especially if it affects the local church. Thanks for being a part of this audience. We'll see you in the next episode. You have been listening to the Church Answers Podcast presented by Chaney & Associates. Chaney & Associates are the accounting firm for the church. When needs to focus on ministry, Chaney will focus on finances. 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