The Idolatry of Ideology

An editorial by David Pipkin, State Chairman of the Constitution Party of Texas — October 28, 2026

Ask a Christian his views on a subject, or how he is voting, and he answers with a word. Conservative. He offers it as a description of what he believes about God, family, and country. The word often passes without notice or explanation. The meaning is assumed.

Ask what the word means, apart from a party, and there is no answer. It has no creed. No platform. No confession.

The men who founded this republic did not identify themselves by ideological labels. They were Americans. Virginians. Christians. They are often described as liberal, and may have been called that at the time. Their work and the legacy they left make it plain the word has nothing close to that meaning now.

A word whose meaning drifts that far in two centuries is anchored to nothing.

What it does have is a command. Conservative means vote Red. Liberal means vote Blue. That is the whole of its content.

It is not a description. It is a label. A leash.

The Christian sees the party fail his moral principles, or flat-out betray them. So he stops calling himself a Republican. "I am not a Republican," he says with pride, and a touch of indignation. "I am a Conservative."

The party does not object.

Let that same Christian consider voting outside the party. The party stands ready to yank the leash. "You're a Conservative! How can you split the vote, and hand this election to the Democrat!?"

When a Christian engaged in political concerns suppresses his identity in Christ in favor of a label, that is idolatry. Not a figure of speech. The thing itself. The first commandment does not pause for politics. They are besieged by it daily, hourly. In the end, they are deceived, and they are promoting the deception.

Conservative is not the same thing as Christian. We see that evidence all around us.

A well-known commentator calls himself a Conservative. He represents that he is "married" to another man. Through surrogacy, a child was brought into the home. A gay couple using marriage as a costume to deny a child what every person has by nature and by nature's God: a father and a mother. It is a moral abomination of a home.

The label holds Milo Yiannopoulos. It holds Ronald Reagan. Donald Trump. John McCain. Mitt Romney. George W. Bush. George H.W. Bush. John Cornyn. Greg Abbott. If all of them belong under the same label, what meaning does that label possess?

The Christian who rises to defend that home has answered the question. The label taught him to guard its inclusion list more jealously than God's design. His outrage is the diagnosis.

Its commonly perceived counterpart is very much adrift. In 2007, Pew found that 62 percent of liberals called themselves Christians. Today that figure has fallen to near 30 percent. Half claim no religion at all. One in four say outright they do not believe in God. That is what setting God aside looks like once it becomes the price of belonging.

The Conservative label is walking the same path. The same morals are being compromised. Compromise is how idolatry is practiced when outright worship is too expensive.

From a moral framework, liberal once referred to liberty. Now it refers to licentiousness. So what exactly is being conserved by conservatism? Not morals. Morals are what the label spends. In both instances, what the labels conserve is the party, and the party's power.

The government of Texas was established upon a Constitution. Its first self-evident truth is God, that He governs in the affairs of men. "Humbly invoking the blessings of Almighty God, the people of Texas do ordain and establish this Constitution." No party is mentioned. No idol is invoked. Of Texans. By Texans. For Texans.

The Christian is not asked to trade one label for another. He is asked to remember which name came first.

Should the Texan be required to do less?

The survival of Texas depends on the fulfillment of the mission of this party and our endorsed candidate for governor. Return Texas to the Lord. Return the authority of government to the people. Neither will be accomplished through idolatry.

In this election, there is no better way to demonstrate our rejection of the parties than to write in Jenn Mack for Governor of Texas.

No leashes. No true Texan would ever accept one, nor should they.