Two Questions For Christian Voters Before November 3

With less than four weeks until Election Day, a Baptist leadership organization is making a clear call to Christians who may be tempted to sit out politics: Someone else will make decisions if they choose to do nothing.

“If Christians don’t vote, non-Christians will. If Christians don’t vote, Communists will. If Christians don’t vote, Muslims will. If Christians don’t vote, abortion voters will. If Christians don’t vote, LGBT voters will,” the Center for Baptist Leadership posted on October 6. “If Christians don’t vote, it doesn’t make us more holy—it just takes Christ out of the voting booth.”

If Christians don’t vote, non-Christians will

If Christians don’t vote, Communists will

If Christians don’t vote, Muslims will

If Christians don’t vote, abortion voters will

If Christians don’t vote, LGBT voters will

If Christians don’t vote, it doesn’t make us more…

— Center for Baptist Leadership (@BaptistLeaders) October 6, 2026

The post reflects a broader effort among Christian organizations to encourage believers that political disengagement does not create neutrality. Instead, it leaves decisions to the voters who show up.

For North Texas’ Bunni Pounds, that effort has been years in the making.

From Election-Year Outreach To Permanent Engagement

Bunni Pounds founded Christians Engaged with a three-part mission: encourage Christians to pray, vote and engage in civic life.

In October 2024, Pounds told The Dallas Express that her goal was not merely to turn Christians out for a presidential election, but to build a network that would continue reminding them about primaries, local elections and other contests that often attract far fewer voters.

“We need to build a standing army of Christians ongoing, not just Christians who are voting or we’re marketing to every four years or two years,” Pounds said at the time.

At the time of that October 2024 interview, Pounds said Christians Engaged’s partnership with Family Policy Alliance had engaged nearly 900,000 Christians.

An October 2025 Dallas Express report later quoted Pounds as saying Christians Engaged had recruited 850,000 believers before the most recent election and hoped to reach 1 million by the end of 2025.

The effort also appears to have translated into unusually high turnout among people who formally joined it.

Excellence in Giving reports that 92.6% of people who pledged to pray, vote and engage voted in the 2024 election, while 62% voted in their primaries.

Christians Engaged merged with Family Policy Alliance Foundation during the summer of 2024, as The Dallas Express reported that October. At the time, Pounds became senior vice president of Family Policy Alliance and Family Policy Alliance Foundation while continuing her Christians Engaged work.

Such organizations have emphasized involvement beyond a single presidential election, including election reminders, civic education and resources intended to keep participants involved at the local, state and national levels.

Pounds has framed that involvement as stewardship rather than simply partisan politics.

“Good policy blesses people, and bad policy hurts people,” she previously told The Dallas Express. “We are the hands and feet of Jesus … we have to participate. No one is going to hear the gospel if we don’t open our mouths and share the gospel. In the same way, if we don’t vote and just stay home, then we’re relinquishing our responsibility and stewardship that God gave us.”

Other Christian Leaders Make The Case

Oklahoma state Sen. Dusty Deevers, who also pastors Grace Reformed Baptist Church in Elgin, wrote for the organization on Election Day in 2024 that Christians should not expect public policy to reflect their values if they refuse to participate in civic life.

“If Christians fail to vote, you can be sure the pagans will,” Deevers wrote.

He argued that Christian participation extends beyond choosing candidates and includes understanding public policy, holding leaders accountable and encouraging churches to teach what Scripture says about civic questions.

That argument has particular relevance in Texas this year because Christianity is not merely being discussed by outside religious organizations.

It is being invoked in a distinct way by one of the candidates himself.

Talarico Makes ‘Christianity’ Part Of His Campaign

Democratic U.S. Senate nominee James Talarico has placed his faith near the center of his campaign against Republican nominee and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Talarico’s official campaign describes him as a “Presbyterian seminarian,” while his “Freedom, Family & Faith” platform says his “faith in Jesus” leads him to oppose Christian “nationalism” and support separation of church and state.

That same platform supports federal legislation codifying abortion protections, same-sex marriage protections and protections for LGBTQ Americans.

The Dallas Express has previously examined how Talarico applies Christian language to progressive politics.

In resurfaced 2021 audio, Talarico described himself as “a Christian who hates Christianity” while discussing institutional religion, as DX previously reported.

The Dallas Express also reported that Talarico’s longtime Austin congregation, St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, listed Planned Parenthood Greater Texas among organizations aligned with its vision and receiving support through its benevolence program.

He has also preached that “our ‘trans’ community needs abortion care too,” as The Dallas Express previously documented.

Talarico presents those positions as expressions of his Christian faith rather than departures from it.

His current health care platform calls for restoring abortion access by codifying Roe v. Wade, expanding access to Medicare and protecting contraception and IVF.

That theological divide, not simply whether a candidate calls himself Christian, has increasingly become part of the political argument.

Undercover Videos Add To Questions About His Shift

Recent undercover recordings have brought additional scrutiny to Talarico’s evolving positions on “transgender” issues.

The Daily Wire published September 29 exclusive footage recorded at Houston’s Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church in which a woman posing as a supporter asked Talarico whether she could count on him to defend “transgender” children.

“The way I fought for trans kids in the legislature is the way I will fight for them in the U.S. Senate,” Talarico responded. “My position hasn’t changed.”

The exchange came after Talarico publicly adopted more restrictive positions on some “transgender” issues, including saying he would oppose “transgender” athletes competing in girls’ sports when participation threatened fairness or safety.

Separate undercover footage featured Rev. Babs Miller, a minister at St. Andrew’s, discussing Talarico’s political positioning.

“I can guarantee you that once he gets elected, he’ll change his tune back to where he was,” Miller said, per The Daily Wire.

Voting And Discernment: Two Questions

The debate points to two different questions for Christian voters:

The first is whether they participate.

The second is how carefully they examine what candidates mean when they invoke Christianity.

Bible teacher Ray Pritchard recently challenged Talarico after the candidate linked Jesus healing the sick with his support for government-backed universal health care.

“When Jesus healed the sick, he didn’t ask for a deductible,” Talarico said in a campaign video.

Pritchard argued that the comparison improperly converts the miracles of Christ into a prescription for a particular government health care policy.

Talarico sees the connection differently, explicitly grounding his political priorities in his interpretation of Christian morality.

That disagreement may ultimately be the more important story behind the Center for Baptist Leadership’s warning.

The political question facing Texas Christians is not simply whether faith belongs in the public square. Faith is already there, invoked by pastors, activists, and candidates across the political spectrum.

The question is whether voters will examine those competing claims, decide which policies align with their convictions and then actually cast a ballot.

However you vote, vote.

Convictions carried only in conversation, congregations or social media do not shape an election. Ballots do. 

Early voting in Texas begins October 19 and runs through October 30. Election Day is November 3.