Abuse and Misuse of Scripture for Political Purposes

I remember the day after the 2016 presidential election in the United States. Hillary Clinton, conceding that she had lost to Donald Trump, quoted Galatians 6:9:

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

My immediate reaction was: How is supporting abortion “doing good”?

In August of 2021, President Joe Biden, speaking of the U.S. volunteer military, quoted the passage from Isaiah where the prophet responds to the divine call saying, “Here am I, send me.”

Now, in 2025, we have the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Patrol using the same passage from Isaiah 6 in a media campaign seeking to recruit new agents. They seem to be equating enforcing U.S. border policy with the holy mission God gave His prophet.

If you were upset by Clinton and Biden’s misappropriation of God’s word, you should be just as outraged by the DHS/CBP abuse of the Bible.

Go back and read the passage from the beginning of Isaiah chapter 6. As Kaitlyn Schiess recently said:

This is a really easy grab-n-go verse for attaching to whatever political project you want to conscript people into. But one of the things we miss—besides the fact that, obviously, the mission that God is giving Isaiah is not whatever modern political mission we are asking people to join—I think that one of the crucial pieces we miss is that a few verses before this, which is another pretty famous passage from Isaiah, where the beginning of this revelation is happening, and Isaiah says, “Woe to me! I am ruined! I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

The beginning of this moment of calling, and of Isaiah responding to this calling, begins with Isaiah’s sense of his unworthiness for the calling he’s being given, and his recognition of his own sinfulness and the sinfulness of his people, and their desperation for God to enter into their situation and tell them what to do. And what makes it so insidious then when we take the call later and apply it to any political mission we want, is that part of what’s happening, both with Biden’s example and with this ICE commercial, is a totally unwarranted confidence that we are not only doing the right thing, but God is on our side.

And even when Isaiah, who has every reason to be the one who’s very confident that he’s doing the right thing, and God is on his side, before that moment of calling has this deep sense of his own sinfulness, his own need for God, his own uncertainty about what’s next. And instead of taking that part—of we’re always, in the middle of what God is doing, uncertain of what’s going to happen next —trying to be faithful, trying to do the right thing, trying to respond to how Scripture has described how faithful people should live, how a good community should function, but always aware that we’re sinful and lost and going to make lots of mistakes both of stumbling, and also sinning against people. There are appropriate moments for us to say, “I think God is calling us to a mission, let’s do it.” But if it’s not starting with that sense of humility, you end up with this ICE commercial, or even a president saying the U.S. military is on the side of God.

Before Isaiah hears the voice of God saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” the prophet is overwhelmed with a sense of his own sin and state of moral uncleanliness. It is only after his sin has been purged and his lips cleansed that the divine call is issued, and Isaiah then willingly offers to be God’s messenger. And the message Isaiah is given to proclaim isn’t a call to serve in the military or law enforcement, but one of woe and judgment on God’s rebellious people who have forsaken His covenant.

To rip this passage from its context in order to twist it to fit a non-spiritual purpose is, in a sense, taking God’s name in vain—using God’s word in a way God never intended it to be used. See my previous article on misappropriating Scripture for partisan purposes for some more examples.

Reconciliation?

Then there is Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, quoting Paul from 2 Corinthians 5:18:

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

Johnson apparently simply looked up the word “reconciliation” in a concordance in an effort to find a Bible verse he could apply to the reconciliation process for the One Big Beautiful Bill.

Johnson attends an evangelical Christian church. I certainly hope his pastor teaches and employes better hermeneutics than Johnson is displaying. And, in all honesty, Johnson’s pastor needs to have a talk with the Speaker about abusing Scripture like this.

Build the Wall?

Back during President Trump’s first term, I had Christian friends on social media equating the administration’s desire to build a wall along the southern border with Nehemiah’s rebuilding of the city walls of Jerusalem. This was actually a great example of why we need to take historical and cultural context into account when interpreting Scripture, rather than simply looking for a passage that appears to parallel our present situation.

One of my Facebook friends, Tyler Dawn Rosenquist, stated it very well in a recent post:

In the Bible, walls were built to keep invading armies out of cities, not foreigners out of the country. And they were never, ever built to confine people to small areas.

Not in Israel, Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, etc...

So can we please stop comparing a border wall to anything in the Bible? Such a thing didn't exist and you need to find another way to justify it, please.

And no, justifying it isn't the topic here. Misusing the Bible and giving people the wrong ideas about it is the topic.

Just look back to the medieval period, romanticized in the tales of King Arthur. The castle was a walled fortress where the farmers and herders living in the countryside could seek protection when the area was attacked by a rival noble or clan seeking to gain territory or enact vengeance. Ancient walled cities were more or less the same. A place the inhabitants of the surrounding area could seek refuge when foreign armies came against them.

Final Thoughts

No matter where you fall on the political spectrum, if you take God’s Word seriously, these abuses of the Holy Bible should upset you—and not only when it’s the “other side” that does it. We cannot call out wrong on the part of our opponents, and then give our own team a pass when they do the same thing. Anyone misusing Scripture for political or personal gain should be called out, no matter how much affinity we have with them in other matters.

If there’s anything we’ve learned, it’s that communities can adopt the mantle of God’s chosen people to justify their sin, that people can see themselves as the victorious warrior of God or the righteous prophet when they are in fact doing evil, and that fallen humans are prone to manipulate and distort Scripture for their own purposes.¹

1. Kaitlyn Schiess, The Ballot and the Bible: How Scripture Has Been Used and Abused in American Politics and Where We Go from Here (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Brazos Press, 2023), 86.