It’s not jobs. It’s not immigration, albeit both are important.

A local pastor with a long reach recently attended a meeting with several other pastors and Donald Trump. The pastor then posted a photo with him and Trump, mentioning in the caption that he was “honored” to have met the candidate, adding , “Let’s pray for him.”     https://instagram.com/p/8MNXZrJP9E/

Many people were offended that a pastor they respected considered himself honored to have met a “racist” and “misogynist.” Some even went so far as to imply Pastor Franklin was “endorsing” Donald Trump.

To be fair, Pastor Franklin has said several times during his sermons that we should pray for our president, and I have it on good authority that Pastor Franklin is not a fan of President Obama by any stretch of the word. The pastor is simply being obedient to the Bible that asks us to pray for our leaders. He would probably pray for Stalin’s corpse if we elected it.

I was a member of Pastor Franklin’s congregation for six years and I am familiar with some of the ignorance common among the large and very diverse congregation. During the 2014 election cycle, church leaders called an after-service meeting with all small group leaders and any congregants who wanted to attend.  I was a small group leader and I was at the meeting. Since churches are not allowed to endorse candidates, the pastor in charge of the discipleship program instructed the 500 people gathered in the overflow room to vote “biblical values” and to teach others to do so as well. TRANSLATION: Do not vote Democrat; we do not believe in killing babies or the dismantling of the family unit!

The church leadership was aware that having such a large group of Hispanics and blacks in their membership meant they had Democratic voters (if this statement offends you, please click on the following link for factual support  https://www.debt.org/faqs/americans-in-debt/economic-demographics-democrats/ ). This is not to say that white people don’t vote Democrat, but this is Gainesville, Georgia—white people in Gainesville wouldn’t vote Democrat if Vince Dooley, clad in camo and holstered revolvers on both sides, ran on the ticket. The leaders knew that many attendees were too ignorant to connect their faith to their political decisions.

Make no mistake: there are no political issues, only theological issues with political implications. When you empower the Democratic machine, you are helping perpetuate abortion. (Please refrain from informing me of the atrocities I am perpetuating by empowering the Republican machine–this conversation is about an issue, not a party.)

Last week Senate Democrats blocked a vote on a pro-life Senate bill to ban late-term abortions ( http://www.newsweek.com/senate-democrats-block-republican-abortion-bill-375088 ). Two Republicans voted with the 40 Democrats who said nay, and three Democrats voted with the 51 pro-life Republicans. President Obama threatened to veto the bill if it came anywhere near his castle even if it got the 60 needed votes.

This can be easily turned into an anti-Liberal pow wow, complete with supportive anti-life and anti-poor factoids to illustrate Democratic failure. But we already know Liberalism is a failure. Most of us know that abortion is evil. What some of us don’t know, however, is that Conservatism too has strayed.

Conservatives love to tout America’s Judeo-Christian heritage as the source of our power, the long hair to our Samson. But consider the leader for the Republican nominee, the urbane statesman, Donald Trump. Based on his popularity and lead, we can deduct that the two most important issues for Republicans/Conservatives are immigration and jobs. He got our attention with his illegal immigration rant and gained our trust based on his business success.

Immigration and jobs are both very important issues, the former a little more morally complex than the latter. But for a nation whose foundation is Protestant Christianity, a nation whose Congress prays to the God of Abraham before each session, what does it mean when the guy who mentions the protection of defenseless humans least is winning?

When the Senate blocked the late-term anti-abortion bill there should have been mayhem in Conservative circles. Every Christian pastor should’ve tweeted about it, the church-goers should have filled their Facebook pages with links to news of the block, and the conversation on the lips of dinner conversation that started with prayer revolved around the legal death of babies.

From Genesis to Revelation, God makes it clear that fewer issues are more important to Him than justice for the poor and defenseless. Who is more dependent that a beating heart inside the mother’s womb?

John Stott said this about abortion: “One of the major signs of decadence in the Roman Empire was that its unwanted babies were ‘exposed’—that is, abandoned and left to die. Can we claim that contemporary Western society is any less decadent because it consigns its unwanted babies to the hospital incinerator instead of the local rubbish dump? Indeed, modern abortion is even worse than ancient exposure because it has been commercialized and has become, at least for some doctors and clinics, an extremely lucrative practice.”

If we want the blessing of God—if we truly believe what the Bible declares—on this nation as we once had it, I can’t imagine there being a more important issue than abortion. When the Israelites focused on justice and worshiping only God, they prospered and their nation was secure.

There should be no greater outrage among Conservatives than the commercialized snuffing of human lives. If all Conservatives were as passionate about abortion as they are about any other issue, God would bless that and affect the difference needed for legislative change. Until then, God will not bless a decadent nation who once knew His ways. That’s why He’s allowing our enemies inside our borders. This is exactly what happened to Israel—they were overrun by their enemies.

Paul is a freelance writer from Gainesville, Georgia. Visit Paul at http://pauldragu.com/