In this Dennis Prager Show interview, host Dennis Prager introduces Pastor Jack Hibbs, a prominent evangelical leader, to discuss the startling finding that millions of self‑identified Christians, especially evangelicals, did not vote in the 2020 U.S. election. Hibbs cites recent Barna Group polling that shows hundreds of thousands of evangelicals in key swing states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina) failed to cast ballots, numbers that could have altered the election outcomes. The conversation moves to why this apathy exists. Hibbs argues that a theological misunderstanding—specifically, an over‑emphasis on God’s sovereignty that leads some believers to think their political actions are irrelevant—underpins the disengagement. He counters this by asserting that Scripture calls believers to active participation, likening voting to a moral duty akin to biblical commands to defend the nation. Both hosts stress that Christianity’s historic role in America’s founding implies a responsibility to steward the republic, and they call on pastors to preach about political issues from a biblical worldview. Hibbs outlines concrete issues he believes Christians should vote on (pro‑life, pro‑Israel, strong borders, Second Amendment rights) and urges a coordinated voter‑turnout effort, suggesting that even a modest number of votes per state could shift national policy. The interview ends with practical information on how listeners can follow Hibbs online and a brief discussion of the broader cultural battle between biblical values and the political left.
Chapters
Pastor Jack Hibbs, one of the best-known pastors in North America, for good reason. I'm afraid to, because I know how Christians are serious about the sin of pride, I'm afraid to tell you how highly I esteem him. He will have to repent after the show for having heard it, but folks, he's He is uniquely, or near, I hope not uniquely, he is a rare man of courage. And courage is the rarest of the good traits, as I often say. His official title is the Senior and Founding Pastor of Calvary Chapel in Chino Hills, California, founder and president of Real Life Ministry. And the subject that I have asked Pastor Hibbs to talk about is, and the reason for my hesitation is, when I'm, what I'm about to say, I'm not even sure, well, I'm sure I don't understand, but I'm not even sure it's accurate. So I will ask you at the beginning, Pastor Jack, do we have any sense of how many Christians don't vote?
Well, shockingly, Dennis, we now do. And we know this by virtue of the fact that George Barna, the Barna Group, who is a highly respected polling and analytic research group— they're no, they're nobody to joke around with— they were commissioned recently to do a poll. And their data that came out, Dennis, is alarming, to say the least.
And that data suggests what?
I'll give it to you. Yeah, I'll give it to you right now. You just tell me to stop because I've got enough here. Regarding the 2020 election, for example, post-election results among evangelicals, 2020. Dennis, listen to this. The state of Arizona has a professed 730,600 evangelicals that did not show up to vote. Listen, Biden won Arizona by 10,000 votes. Georgia, the state of Georgia has 1,350,000 professed evangelicals who are registered to vote. They did not vote. Biden won by 11,000 votes. Georgia. Michigan, 2020, 1,340,000 evangelicals registered to vote. They didn't vote. Biden won by 154,000 votes. Pennsylvania, 1.5 million evangelicals. They did not vote. Biden won Pennsylvania by 80,000 votes. Wisconsin, 873,000 registered evangelicals to vote. They didn't, and Biden won Wisconsin by 20,000 votes. And almost done here. North Carolina, listen to this. The one swing state that Trump won both in 2016 and 2020 did so even though the state's evangelicals by and large did not vote. It has been calculated that for Trump to win in North Carolina in the 2024 election, there will have to be an evangelical turnout of 74,500 out of its 1.1 million registered Christian voters. Point is, Christians have a tendency to register to vote, Dennis. The problem is Christians are apathetic. They don't see the issues important enough to get up off their duff and go out there and vote. And so we wonder why the nation is in the condition that it's in. Well, I listen, I get to do this because I am a Christian and I'm a pastor. We're the reason why things are so messed up. If the evangelical vote got out and voted, it would change this nation in one election overnight if we just overwhelmed them by showing up. And Dennis, you know me, I think it's more than anything being political. I believe, Dennis, it is a spiritual issue. It's a It's a responsibility that the Christian is not managing or stewarding well at all.
If these numbers are accurate, and you're giving me, you know, a pretty good source, I, I don't know. I must admit it's one of the rare times, because I spend my life trying to explain life, explain society, I don't understand it. So since You're an evangelical pastor, one of the most prominent in the country. You must have a theory as to why this is happening.
Oh, thank you. It's my theory. This is one reporter's opinion. Every pastor, I do believe, and maybe, Dennis, even every rabbi, I believe that's hearing this, we would agree on something, and that is apathy is real. Talk is cheap. But putting your feet and your hands to doing the task. Look, as a church, as a pastor, we'll get 100 people sign up to help paint the fences, you know, in the city, but 25 people will show up. You know, it's always that thing where a lot of people talk it up, but very few people actually do it. But listen, that's consistent in our Old and in our New Testament. Human nature is the same. It doesn't matter if you're a Jew or Gentile. You've got to show up and put your faith to action. Faith is a verb. And somebody might say, well, you know, Christians shouldn't get involved in elections. Well, my friend, listen, you're in the wrong country to be saying that because I hope you've read our founding fathers. In fact, I've got in front of me John Adams. Listen to this. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and a religious people, and it is wholly inadequate for the governance of any other. Our Founding Fathers assumed that the Christians would steward, they would keep the republic, they would take it seriously enough to defend a nation that was built off of Judeo-Christian worldview values, the Bible, unlike any other place on earth. This country is worth fighting for, and for crying out loud, you can't do it in North Korea. You don't have a constitutional republic there. You can't do it in Saudi Arabia. But you can do it in America. And instead of us protecting and defending it and advancing it, Christians have become lazy, apathetic, and they've said things like this, Dennis: "Oh, I don't get involved in politics," which is ridiculous. Every time you fill up your gas tank in California, you're dealing with politics per gallon, mind you. Everything's political. And so even Jesus said, Dennis, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's. And everybody in the first century knew exactly what Jesus was talking about. They all went, wow, that's brilliant! Because Caesar, who sat in Rome, thought he was the big kahuna, that he was the emperor of the universe. When Jesus said, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, to God the things that are God's— what is God's? Well, Caesar belongs to God. Caesar's palace belongs to God. Caesar's salad belongs to God.
Almost incomprehensible. That millions, I mean apparently many millions of evangelical Christians don't vote. So you gave the analogy of how many might sign up to paint the fence at your church and only a quarter of those who signed up show up. But ironically, that's much more, or not ironically, that's much more understandable. It's a hell of a lot tougher to paint the fence than to vote. So I just— what? I'm sorry, what?
No, you're right. It's true. It's easier to vote than to paint the fence.
Yes, I don't understand it. So let me ask you, is there some sort of theological idea behind this that, look, God governs the universe, my voting doesn't matter? I'm just throwing out ideas.
Yep. Yep. Wow, you hit the nail on the head. Okay, there are— there's a group of Christians that believe, uh, that, uh, that God is sovereign. By the way, I do too. Christians do. Jews do. God is sovereign. But there's a group of Christians who believe that God is so sovereign that, uh, it doesn't matter what we do, he's got it all pre-programmed and we don't need to show up. When they fail to realize that from Genesis to Malachi, and for the believer as a Christian from Matthew to Revelation, this same God is not only sovereign over all, but He invites us to participate. Imagine if God told David, "David, go to battle against the Amalekites. Go to battle." And David just stood there in his underwear and said, "Well, You're sovereign. You take care of it." Well, God is sovereign, but He told David to go to battle. And so listen to this, Proverbs 29:2 says, 'When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan.' Joshua said, 'Choose today whom you will serve.' So God has placed the Christian in the United States of America, in this constitutional republic, by which, Dennis, we are responsible for the conduct that God has given us. It's like— look, it's like you giving your son, Dennis, a certain amount of money or resources or tasks to to do, and you will judge his faithfulness and his capacity based upon what he does with it. God gives the American voter this responsibility to not only uphold the remarkable laws that we have, but we were given these rights to vote freely by those who sacrificed their lives for us. I said recently in a sermon, and it made it all the way to the New York Post or New York Times, that I believe it's a sin for a Christian to not vote because It would be exactly like me if the Jews were being attacked under Hitler, if I didn't say anything and remained silent. I believe my silence is guilt. I believe that I'm doing the wrong thing by being silent. I'm not being virtuous by being silent. I've got to get involved. And so, yeah, the author of this tremendous— and I encourage everybody to go to georgebarna.com. This guy's top shelf. Researcher, he says he winds up concluding that apathy is what plagues the church today. However, many of the Christians that were included in the study said that if they heard their pastor speak about issues from the pulpit in a biblical worldview to teach them how to respond, they would vote. So listen, it's the pastors. We need pastors this Speak up.
Okay, uh, I want— I'd like to continue. Do you have the time? Because I want to continue with you. There's maybe no more important— uh, good, excellent. Pastor Jack Hibbs, speaking with— okay, excellent. Sean, what is my timing here? What is, uh— okay, so, so, oh good, we still have 1 minute. So I don't— I want to ask you a question, Jack, if I may.
Yep.
If I don't vote because God is sovereign, why do I go to a doctor if God is sovereign?
So look, if you're gonna view that bizarre way of defining God's sovereignty, how about this? Not only are you right about the doctor, but Dennis, if somebody who's saying, "Oh, God's sovereign, I can't go vote," what do you do when you get hungry? Do you walk outside and look up to the heavens and open up your mouth and wait for God to, what, fly a bald eagle over and drop In-N-Out Burger in your mouth? If you talk about God's sovereignty, then don't feed yourself. Go outside and wait for God to drop a burrito in your mouth. I mean, this is ridiculous.
We're talking about this extraordinary— it's a phenomenon to me. I don't get it, how a person could be religious, could take the God of the Bible seriously, and not vote when the fate of a country founded on biblical principles is at stake. It's, but as you point out, you went further than me. I said, if the issue is God's sovereignty, which of course both of us believe in, but that doesn't mean that we don't do anything. And there's no biblical basis for it. Well, God is sovereign, so you don't have to do a damn thing. There's a guy across the street being beaten to death, but God's sovereign, so you don't have to do anything. But if one doesn't vote, you're allowing people to be beaten. I mean, the people who believe in defunding the police, they might as well say, well, of course we want to defund the police. God is sovereign. It's almost as if the left and evangelicals who don't vote are doing the same thing to society.
Well, listen, you are so correct that it's Isaiah, Isaiah, the Jewish prophet, chapter 5 says that in the latter times, men will declare evil good and good evil, light dark and dark light. And that's what we're seeing. And you say, well, what does that have to do with God's sovereignty? If somebody would just take the time to read the Bible, read the scriptures, they would realize that God made us as engaged creations. He said to Moses, He said to Adam and Eve, "Look, I made all that there is, but go and have dominion over it. Go enjoy it. Get involved. Get your hands dirty. Plow up a field. Plant a tree." I mean, regarding this nation of ours, everybody should go out and vote, but nobody should be more in front of the line because of eagerness than the Christian. The Christian should be ready to bring about righteousness. Dennis Prager, the Bible commands us to do righteousness. And people scratch their heads and wonder, well, what do I do? How do I do that? To do righteousness simply means to do the right thing. And to do the right thing, for example, let's just go— we'll get down to the bones of it all. We've got a presidential candidate, uh, that believes that, uh, the borders don't matter, it's not important, uh, that babies are not important. That gender's not important, that Second Amendment rights are not important. And then we have a candidate that is the opposite of that. Second Amendment rights are important. The borders are important. The baby's important. Look, Israel's important. Just these two. Look, Dennis, I'm voting for one candidate because of what he's done for Israel. And people have got to make a decision. If the Christian doesn't do it, and if the Christian pastor doesn't speak up, I mean, we're running down to the last few days. We're going to be responsible for our actions and our inactions.
By the way, how do people follow you from around the country? Because I—
Yeah, real simple. Yeah, sure. Real simple. JackHibbs.com. That's simple. H-I-B-B-S. JackHibbs.com.
That is simple. That's correct.
Yep.
JackHibbs.com.
Hey, I was thinking, we listen during the commercial break. Dennis, you've got such a huge reach. You're talking right now to all 50 states. What if the listeners of the Dennis Prager Show, all we need is 10,000 per state, 10,000 people per state to go out and vote pro-life, go out and vote pro-Israel, go out and vote pro-borders. Dennis Prager, you and your reach right now, 50 states, just 10,000 people per state is nothing that could completely change the United States because of the Dennis Prager Show. Thank you very much, Dennis Prager.
Well, you're right. I mean, it doesn't seem like an insurmountable hurdle, does it?
No, not at all.
But I, you know, after this I have what I call my ultimate issues hour, and you've given me a topic here. I'm going to talk to, for an hour about this question of what it means that God is sovereign. Because it— a lot of religious people, and it, it has nothing to do with Catholic, Protestant, or Jew— it's— it— a lot of people in each of the faiths, I think, has an understanding of God's sovereignty that is not biblical. It's, it's like they took the words very literally, but they don't They don't really know what it means, but in any event, to be, it's so odd. You don't have to comment on this because I don't know how much you talk straight politics, but obviously I'm allowed. And the battle today, I explain this in speech after speech and in column after column, the battle today is the left versus the Bible. I mean, whatever your faith, if it's biblically grounded, I mean, the very notion, I mean, to take one example, and God created the human being, male and female he created them. The Bible goes out of its way to state to you there are two sexes and God designed the two sexes. So to say that a male can become a female or a female can become a male is not true. And it's certainly not biblical. And yet millions of people who believe in that book will not vote. Anyway, you got your work cut out for you. What could I say? All right, listen, go ahead, give a final thought.
Go ahead. Yeah, final thought. Genesis chapter 1 to chapter 11. You read those, you read Genesis 1 to 11, you've got everything you need to know about God's sovereignty and man's responsibility to what God has given us to do. But to sit idle is inexcusable, and we must get out and vote. We must select our leaders based upon not what we feel, but what is beautiful, best for the nation.
