Your Vote
A week from today, millions of Americans—and non-citizens—will go to the polls to cast their vote. Many more millions of Americans will stay home.
Why should you vote?
In what is certainly an oversimplification, let me offer two reasons underlying why you should locate your polling place on Tuesday and cast your vote.
First, there are numerous places in Scripture where participation in government is either explicitly or implicitly endorsed. Jesus discussed taxation with Peter, political power with Pilate, and law with the Pharisees and Sadducees. The Letters exhort us to pray for those in authority—because everyone in authority is placed there by God.
Thus, to think your Christianity impertinent to the governmental process is shortsighted. Failing to participate in the governmental process is not only poor Christianity, it is poor citizenship, which the Bible also values.
It is incumbent upon you as a Believer to participate in the governmental process, but you do so knowing that government is not your hope. Jesus Christ did not come to establish an earthly kingdom but a heavenly reign in the hearts of humankind.
There are all kinds of governments. There is only one King of Heaven and Earth, and as Isaiah noted, heaven is His throne and Earth His footstool.
Government is reflective of humanity under self-rule. Christianity is about God’s governance in the heart of humanity. Voting is a compare-and-contrast exercise.
Second, voting is about power. This is why secure voting is consistently compromised by fraud. As the man said, “I vote often and repeatedly.”
Voting is a hard-won privilege—a privilege billions of people in the world do not enjoy. For example, it wasn’t until 1868 that American blacks gained the right to vote. It wasn’t until 1920 that American women gained the right to vote.
Politicians and their constituents seek to control the vote to gain or remain in power.
Come Tuesday, I encourage you not to take your privilege for granted. As a Believer, the precedent of your faith is to participate in government.
As a voter, the privilege of going to the polls is precious. Billions on the planet cannot vote, and billion’s votes are a charade, made so by politicians to preserve corrupted power.
Speaking of power: Voting is an exercise in personal power. If this were not so, there would not be a consistent and concerted effort to compromise your vote.
Exercise your power. The moment you relinquish your personal power under government is the moment you subjugate your hope to government.
So, how do you vote?
There are significant issues for which there is limited biblical guidance. Therefore, what and whom you vote for can be informed by your faith, but only in a few instances does your faith dictate how you vote.
It doesn’t matter to God whether you are a Democrat, Republican, or Independent. What does matter to God is that you exercise the freedom of choice He gifted you with when He created you.
God doesn’t take sides, per se, because God is not dedicated to government. He is dedicated to what is best and good for people. God is the great redeemer because He states that He is love—and that is what love is, i.e., doing the most redemptive thing possible for people.
As society becomes more fractured, how do you vote (and participate in society) for the purpose of redemption?
The bad news is that we continue to splinter as a once-homogeneous people known as the melting pot of the world.
Emma Lazarus’ sonnet on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty declares: “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. / Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, / I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
In these poetic lines there is redemption. As is the case with the majority of Americans, my ancestors were outcasts in their home country. My ancestors arrived “wretched refuse” during the Irish potato famine, but in time became Americans.
Somewhere along the way, it seemed good to the beneficiaries of the melting pot to begin hyphenating ourselves to create distinction: African-American, Native-American, Irish-American, Cuban-American, Mexican-American.
It is a difficult proposition to find political candidates sincerely dedicated to the unity of the nation. Listen. Evaluate. Then, when you cast your vote, consider this fundamental necessity to our collective wellbeing as a voting guide. United we stand, divided we fall.
The good news (if you want to call it that) is that with all our strident schisms, the sides and the planks in their platforms are clear.
Both political parties in America have long, rich histories. Today, however, both are claiming the other is destroying democracy. The rankest and most despicable of names are cast about flippantly.
Deplorable. Fascist. Conspirator. Treasonous. Destroyer of democracy.
Before you go vote, ask yourself: What is democracy? Does it have something to do with the rule of law? Religious freedom? Freedom of speech? If so, who is advancing these ideals and who is not? Vote accordingly.
I have friends who read only the New York Times. I have friends who listen only to “Fox News.” This is inexcusably shortsighted! Read and listen widely.
For example: Here is a link to an article you need to read:
Before you click on the link, look at the address (the URL). Note that it is from Fox News. Now, note how you feel about this source. If you lean Democrat, you are speculative. If you lean Republican, you default to Fox as a reliable source. Either perspective is shortsighted.
When you click on the link and begin reading, take note whether the article is a rant—an opinion, an Op-Ed—or whether the article is genuine reporting. All but the most strident of media outlets occasionally produce representative journalism. Be discerning.
Read the article. Cross-reference it. Digest the information.
Then, as a Believer—no matter your voter registration—ask your heavenly Father how this information should inform your vote on Tuesday.
Do the same for other issues: A secure border or compassionate immigration? When does life begin or freedom of choice? Where does caring for the widows, the orphans, and the sojourners fit with your political views, and thus, your vote?
I have friends so consumed with hatred for Donald Trump that they cast a straight-party vote against Republicans. I have conservative friends so disgusted with Joe Biden’s progressivism that they blindly vote straight-party Republican. In both instances, my friends relinquish their personal power to hatred for those whom they despise.
If government is your hope, then hatred for those derailing your utopian ideal is predictable.
As a Believer, I encourage you to take your concerns to the One whose Kingdom is not of this world and whose Book states that all power is granted by Him. If you need a few case studies, consider how your predecessors in the family of God managed themselves: Esther, Nehemiah, Habakkuk, Jesus, the twelve, Saint Paul.
In addition to prayer before you vote, use your God-given sense. After all, Scripture contrasts the darkened mind against those endowed with the mind of Christ. Think and consider.
Do you have kids? Grandkids? As society advances sexual transience—boys can be girls and girls can be boys; men can get pregnant; no idea what a woman is—use your God-given sensibility to consider what’s being put forward.
Think this through when you go vote. Talk to those whom you trust. Pray and ask God for guidance.
God is not affiliated with any political party. God is the great redeemer because He is love and redemption is the driving force of love.
You are called to love. Redemption is your top priority. You can’t love and be redemptive cloistered away at home, at church, or with those who think like you do. Engage. Go vote.
You are blessed with personal power. Power to choose. Power to act. Invest your personal power thoughtfully when you step into the voting booth.
God endowed you with the mind of Christ. Read. Consider. Pray. Then, cast your vote before God and your fellow humans.
Whatever you do, do NOT stay home languishing in pity or indifference. That would devalue you and be an affront to society.
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