Why Praying for Political Victory Misses the Point of Faith

You would think that if five thousand people prayed for the same thing, surely God would listen, right?

That was the number of faithful Christians who gathered for an online prayer meeting ahead of the Presidential Debate. They were not praying for the truth to be revealed. They were not praying for wisdom and discernment for all participants or for the nation’s leaders to be guided by integrity and compassion. Instead, their prayers were focused on securing a political victory for their chosen candidate and ensuring that their preferred outcome would come to pass.

They were praying, specifically for Donald J. Trump.

That he would win.

Because this particular crowd has made up their minds about what God’s will is. All they needed to do now was “pray it into existence.”

This particular prayer meeting was organized by none other than evangelical social media superstar Sean Feucht. In case you haven’t heard of him, Feucht is a self-proclaimed Christian nationalist who achieved notoriety through his “Let Us Worship” tour during the COVID-19 lockdowns. He traveled from city to city and held Christian worship concerts in defiance of government restrictions on religious gatherings due to the pandemic.

He is a Christian activist, singer, songwriter, and former worship leader at Bethel Church in Redding, California. In the last election, he ran as a Republican in California’s 3rd Congressional District because, hey… religion and politics make for such good bedfellows.

Feucht has charismatic appeal, political theatrics, and evangelistic zeal. Above all, he believes that Donald Trump is God’s man for the White House, which is why last night, Feucht posted an impassioned video to his 323,000 Instagram followers, inviting them to pray for Trump on the eve of the Presidential debate.

Instagram

“As many of you know, the big debate is tonight. Last time we had a debate, we rallied thousands of people, an army of intercessors to pray. I believed God moved on our behalf and so we’ve been asked to do it again,” Feucht declared in the video.

5000 faithful fans… err… I mean, followers flocked to Feucht’s fervent prayer event, focusing all their faith on forcing a favorable political fate. Unfortunately, God must have been off doing something less important, like protecting innocent children in the Gaza Strip, because, in the end, he didn’t heed their prayers.

Harris came out on top.

According to CNN: “Registered voters who watched Tuesday’s debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump say, 63% to 37%, that Harris turned in a better performance.” Betting markets agreed.

Maybe these intercessors didn’t have enough faith.

On Politics and Prayer

When I was a child, I used to pray, with all my might, that my football team would win. In fact, I used to take it a step further and pray that both my football team would win and my favourite player would have an amazing game.

I stopped praying like this when I was about eleven years old.

Why?

Because, even as a child, it seemed immature to pray this way. I decided that it put God in the difficult position of having to choose between my prayers and the prayers of the other children who were praying for the other team to win. Above all, though, it seemed childish — irresponsible even — to be asking God for something as trivial as making my side win.

Even as a child, my understanding of prayer was evolving — maturing even. It’s not about picking winners and losers. God is not a cosmic referee deciding which team — or political candidate — gets the divine boost. The more I thought about it, the more I saw that prayer should be about something deeper.

Prayer is meant to change us, not the outcome of a football game… or an election. So when I see large groups praying for a political candidate to win, I can’t help but think about those childhood football prayers. It feels a lot like we’re putting God back in that awkward position, expecting Him to choose a side.

That is not what God does. God is not tribal — we are.

When we start to use prayer as a way to stake our claim in a political battle, it’s less about seeking God and more about trying to enlist God in our own personal crusade. We draw lines, create camps, and assume that God must surely be on our side because we’re convinced our cause is the righteous one. But that’s just human nature, isn’t it? We often want to believe that we are the “good guys” and that our vision for the world aligns perfectly with God’s plan.

There is no Law Against Such Things

Now, I‘m not suggesting that an election is as trivial as a football game. I realize that the stakes are higher. However, the principle remains the same: when we pray for a specific outcome — whether it’s a win for our favorite team or our preferred political candidate — it still reduces God to a sort of referee, as if divine favor is tied to our personal desires.

Elections have real consequences. They affect people’s lives, policies, and the direction of a nation. But even with these higher stakes, should we really be asking God to choose sides? Are we so certain that our candidate is the one who perfectly aligns with God’s will? Or could it be that we’re simply trying to align God with our personal vision of how the world should be?

It’s not that we shouldn’t care about the outcome or that we can’t have strong convictions about what’s best for our country. But if our faith hinges on the result of an election, we’re placing our hope in the wrong thing. When we pray for a political victory, it reveals a desire for control, a fear of uncertainty, and a lack of trust in the possibility that God’s plan might not always match our own.

After all, true faith isn’t dependent on who holds political office. It’s about how we live our lives, how we treat each other, and how we seek to embody love, justice, and compassion no matter who’s in charge.

The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things, there is no law. To put it another way, no political party, leader, outcome, policy or law can prevent me from living like Jesus.

I Can’t Take You Seriously

So, to all those praying for a Trump win or a Harris win, I admire your zeal — I really do. But I just can’t take you or your faith seriously.

When you pray for a candidate to win, you’re not showing faith. You’re showing fear — fear that if your person doesn’t win, the world will fall apart. This kind of prayer is driven by anxiety, not trust. It comes from a place of believing that everything hinges on one election, one leader, or one party. It reveals a belief that without our candidate in power, chaos will reign, our values will be lost, and the future will be bleak.

But that’s not faith. Faith doesn’t panic.

And when we pray for a political candidate to win and things don’t go our way, it’s not just our faith that falters — our entire worldview can start to crumble. Instead of accepting the outcome with grace, we scramble to make sense of it. We tell ourselves the election was rigged, stolen, or manipulated.

Why?

Because it’s easier to believe that there was a grand conspiracy than to face the fact that our prayers didn’t get the result we wanted — that maybe it was God’s will for the other candidate to win. Or maybe — just maybe — God wasn’t involved at all in the outcome.

Shock, horror!

The Deciding Vote

Here is the truth of the matter: When we turn prayer into a tool for political victory, we’re missing the essence of what prayer is truly about. It’s not about asking God to align with our personal agendas or to give us the outcome we desire. God is not all that interested in winning.

Ultimately, if our faith is so fragile that it hinges on the outcome of a political debate or an election, then we need to reassess what we truly believe in.

Is God in control or not?

Then pray, not that a particular person will win, but that God will transform you into the kind of person who can be presented with wins and losses and welcome them both the same.

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This post was previously published on Backyard Church.

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