One of our shepherds here at GCR, Brandon Brunson, posted this “Christian Voter’s Guide” yesterday written by Brian Zahnd. Carrie-Anne showed it to me. It does such a good job of concisely and precisely reminding us of our primary commitments and allegiances during an election season. Seems good to me to post it here, as well. Not all of us are on Facebook.

The Christian Voter’s Guide
by Brian Zahnd

1. The political process, while necessary, has little to do with how God is saving the world.

2. The fate of the Kingdom of God does not depend upon political contests.

3. Don’t be naive, political parties are more interested in Christian votes than they are in Christian values.

4. The bottom line for political parties is power. The bottom line for a Christian is love. Therein lies the rub.

5. While in pursuit of the Ring of Power, you are not permitted to abandon the Sermon on the Mount.

6. If your political passion makes it hard for you to love your neighbor as yourself, you need to turn it down a notch.

7. Your task is to bring the salt of Christian civility to an ugly and acrimonious political process.

8. To dismember the Body of Christ over politics is a grievous sin.

9. Exercise your liberty to vote your conscience and conviction, while accepting that other Christians will do the same and vote differently than you.

10. It’s more important that your soul be filled with love than it is for your political team to win the game.

Peace,
Allan

“If you always vote for the lesser of two evils, you will always have evil and you will always have less.” ~ Ralph Nader

There are some very famous preachers and authors out there who are telling Christians it is our obligation and responsibility as disciples of Christ to cast a vote in the upcoming U.S. presidential election. I know this because several of my Christian brothers and sisters are forwarding to me the sermons they’re listening to and the books they’re reading. Related to this is the prevalent idea that if you don’t vote, you are doing nothing. If you don’t vote, you are siding with evil. If you don’t vote, it’s a give up, and you’re just letting evil win.

As with the previous post, I would like to respectfully disagree and humbly offer a more imaginative Gospel vision.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve watched Josh Howerton preach from his Lakepointe pulpit in Dallas that Christians who decide not to vote are “abdicating their responsibility given by God” and are in “rebellion against God.” Howerton goes so far as to claim that voting for a third party candidate or casting a write-in ballot is also an act of rebellion against our Lord. He says voting is a “spiritual responsibility” about 15 minutes after he claims “selection is not sacrament,” in other words, you can’t decide to not vote for religious reasons because voting is not religious. He separates the secular from the sacred, the holy from the profane, even as he says a Christian decision to abstain from voting is wrong. It’s a little confusing.

Howerton’s cohort in Virginia, Gary Hamrick, preaches from the parable of the talents in Luke 12 that “voting is a Christian duty.” In some sloppy exegesis from 2 Corinthians 5 and Matthew 5, he asserts that God has “charged us to be his ambassadors in this world, to represent him” by voting. Voting, according to Hamrick, is how Christians are to be “salt and light.” Voting is a “God-given job” for disciples of Jesus. “What can we do to advance the Kingdom of God for the glory of God and stem evil?” Hamrick asks. “Vote!” He asserts that “Christians voting can change America.”

Just as troubling is the sentiment that deciding not to vote because of religious reasons equates to “doing nothing.” Eric Metaxas, a best-selling author and champion of this view, claims in interviews and speeches and in his book “Letter to the American Church,” that refusing to vote is “not getting involved.” He says the Church is “supposed to speak against evil, to speak truth, to resist evil when it rises up,” and I agree. He says “If enough churches and pastors don’t stand, evil will have its way with our nation,” and I agree. But he equates speaking and standing and resisting with voting and being heavily invested in the political system and parties of the United States.

I believe we have swallowed a lie that voting is the only way to effect change in our communities. Despite the living proof all around us that voting really changes nothing at all, many of us talk and act like if you don’t vote, you’re not being a good Christian because you’re not getting involved, you’re not being active in fixing the things that are broken. That is simply not true.

I’ve always believed that if unlimited abortion were legal and available everywhere, if you could get an abortion at a 7-11, if there were no restrictions on abortions or abortion clinics, they’d all be out of business and shut down if the Church would only do what it’s called to do. To love. To come alongside. To provide community and support, to mentor and equip. To foster and adopt. Those who run crisis pregnancy centers will tell you most pregnant teens don’t want to get abortions, but they don’t feel like they have any other option. They don’t feel any support or assistance. They feel alone. They feel no hope.

Voting does not solve the abortion problem; it has made it worse.

I believe it’s okay for a Christian to vote; if done carefully and with the right perspective, it’s almost always a good thing. But I’d rather have one Christian out there reading to little kids at Emerson Elementary during a lunch break or mentoring the teenaged mothers at Young Lives or delivering food boxes with Mission Agape than ten Christians putting political signs in their front yards and punching ballots on election day. I know lots of Christians are doing both of these things, voting and getting involved in serving their local communities with the love and peace of Jesus. But some followers of Jesus object to voting because it violates their Christian ethics. Instead of supporting one of two evils, some Christians choose to not participate. And I think it’s more than okay for that Christian to make a real difference in the lives of people and in his or her neighborhood or city by, instead of voting, sacrificing and serving broken people in the name and manner of Jesus. It’s to be commended.

To act like voting is the only way or the best way to change hearts or a nation is to ignore the Bible and the actions of Christ. Our Lord Jesus, the incarnate Word and will of God, shows us that the way to change the world, the way to save the world from evil, is to love and forgive, heal and feed, reconcile and give, to lay down our rights and give up our position and status. To say voting is the only way is to ignore our own Church of Christ fathers like David Lipscomb who saw citizenship in the Kingdom of God and allegiance to Christ as King as incompatible with participating in national elections (Psalm 146:3). It’s to downplay or even disregard the ways and means God through Jesus gave us to bring abundant life to to our communities. It’s to believe the only way to save the world is to use the world’s preferred methods. To say all Christians must vote is to have a severely limited view of what God does in and through the love and service and relational ministry of his chosen people. As baptized disciples, our options are never limited to choices offered by the world.

A Christian brother told me yesterday that we have to choose, even when both candidates are less than ideal, because God is a God who chooses. (I’ll write later about the damaging lie we’ve swallowed regarding binary choices.) I never got clear on what he meant by that: God chooses, which means we must also choose. But I am very clear on the kinds of people and things our God chooses.

When it comes to the oppressor versus the oppressed, our God always chooses the oppressed. Our God always chooses the slave over the master. He sides with the powerless over the powerful. Our God stands with the marginalized over the insiders. He doesn’t pick the first born, he picks the eighth and ninth born. He chooses the weak over the strong, he chooses the small over the large, he chooses the vulnerable over the secure.

If you are a Christian, you are not compelled to vote in a national election. You are not somehow called by God to participate in the politics of a broken, fallen, sinful, fading, worldly kingdom. You are compelled by the love of Christ to sacrifice and suffer with the world and for the world, to love and forgive, to be a continuous source of hope and peace. Voting is your choice. If you do vote, it’s okay; just don’t pretend like it’s an act of righteousness. And I would suggest you consider God’s choices as you make your own.

Peace,

Allan