Top reactions from Christian leaders to 'catastrophe' of midterms: 'We are under God's judgment'

By Jon Brown, Christian Post Reporter Monday, November 09, 2026

2. 'As the blind grope in the darkness': Electoral defeat as divine chastisement

Some Christian leaders viewed the election results through a wider spiritual lens, placing them in the context of escalating national sins that invoke God's judgment.

Tony Perkins, president of the Washington-based Christian conservative advocacy organization Family Research Council, told The Christian Post in a post-election interview that the Republican wipeout could be seen as divine chastisement against a nation that increasingly aborts its own children. Despite abortion bans in some states, the number of unborn lives killed in the womb rose from roughly 930,000 in 2020 to more than 1 million each year since 2023, according to data from the Guttmacher Institute.

Noting nations that have historically identified themselves with God are more subject to His chastening when they abandon Him, Perkins said: "We can't expect God's blessing to be upon our nation when we reject His teaching in the way we conduct our policy and business. We can't hold ourselves out as the gold standard when we're actually made of aluminum foil."

Perkins said that offering political resistance to rampant abortion and state-sanctioned sexual immorality has seemingly fallen off as a major priority among Republicans, who softened their pro-life stance and stripped the sanctity of heterosexual marriage from their 2024 party platform. Observing that the Trump administration has allowed a Biden-era policy to remain in place that offers easy access to the abortion pill, he warned CP that Christians cannot take for granted that the Republican Party will represent their biblical values.

During a Nov. 5 interview with Jack Hibbs, pastor of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, in Chino, California, Perkins said one of his pet peeves is when people dismiss an increasingly negative cultural situation by saying, "God's in control."

"Well, God was in control of Sodom and Gomorrah. It was the choices that people made that led to the activity in Sodom and Gomorrah. The question here is not God is in control — He's always in control, He's the creator and the sustainer of all that is," Perkins told Hibbs.

"The issue is: are we in alignment with God, so that the blessing of God and the protection of God can be upon our nation? I think the answer to that is resoundingly no," he added.

Hibbs shared CP's interview with Perkins to social media on Friday, urging his followers to read along with it the curses promised to an unfaithful nation in Deuteronomy 28 and the judgments against national idolatry laid out in Ezekiel 14-15.

Do yourself a great favor, my friend - Before you read this article, read Deuteronomy chapter 28 and then read Ezekiel chapters 14 and 15. Then read the article I posted below. ? https://t.co/DxMKBnWUP9?

— Jack Hibbs (@RealJackHibbs) November 6, 2026

The latter part of Deuteronomy 28 reverses every promised blessing to ancient Israel if they forsake the Lord and His commandments. The chapter lists progressive national judgments that include dwindling prosperity, increasing physical and mental affliction, broken relationships, frustrated military endeavors and conquest by plundering foreigners who worship other gods.

Describing the inverted relationship between foreigners and the native-born in a nation under judgment, Deuteronomy 28:43-44 reads: "The sojourner who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. He shall lend to you, and you shall not lend to him. He shall be the head, and you shall be the tail."

Echoing the image of the men of Sodom being struck with judicial blindness as they groped for the door in Gen. 19:11, the chapter goes on to warn that the unfaithful Israelites would be struck "with madness," leading all of their efforts to fail as they "grope at noonday, as the blind grope in the darkness." The judgments culminate in a loss of national identity, exile and "a languishing soul" among formerly free people, whose conquerors consider them lower than slaves.

Ezekiel 14 and 15, which the prophet wrote among the Jewish exiles in Babylon, foretold the sack of Jerusalem, describing it as "a useless vine" whose righteous individuals could not prevent inevitable national judgment. He rebuked the elders of the people, emphasizing that their outward consultation of the Lord was useless when secret idols remained in their hearts.

During a sermon he delivered on the day after the election, Hibbs preached that God's chastisements against His people are always delivered out of love to restore them to faithfulness. He claimed much of the American church has increasingly capitulated on crucial moral issues as the culture has rapidly deteriorated since 9/11.

"God doesn't require a thing from the unbelieving world. Nothing. He's not asked anything of them. But He has asked obedience from His people and to stand. And when she doesn't do that, then you have a cataclysmic shift in culture, which happened last night," he said. He went on to encourage his congregation to maintain their faith and hope in the Lord.