You should pray for Donald Trump no matter how you voted

The biblical command to render honor also means we cannot in good conscience undermine the legitimacy of our new president. Evangelical believers can and often do publicly disagree with our elected officials over important issues, and holding those in power accountable is part of our duty. But that accountability does not entail proclamations of “Not my president.” Such statements were wrong and irresponsible when some said them during the last administration, and they are still wrong and irresponsible now applied to the new administration.

Inauguration Day is one of new beginnings for a country. It is also a day in which heavy burdens are taken from one set of shoulders and placed on another. We should pray now, while the parades are marching and the choirs are singing, that the presidency now starting turns out to succeed in every good thing, abounding in wisdom and justice.

We are told to pray this way not because the country is ultimately so important.

As a matter of fact, we are to pray that way because the country is not of ultimate importance. We pray for wise, successful civil leadership because we know what matters more: “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time” (1 Tim. 2:5-6).