“Clown.”
“Racist.”
“There’s nothing smart about you.”
“The worst president we’ve ever had.”
“Liar.”
That’s a smattering of the insults the presidential candidates lobbed at one another a week ago. My oh my. What a year.
According to the Census Bureau, 67% of eligible voters have registered to vote. 53% of eligible voters voted in the 2018 election.[i] Given the challenging choices we have to make, I understand why 47% of eligible voters would sit out elections. There is no shortage of decisions that leave us scratching our heads as we choose between bad and worse. Furthermore, I would be the first to caution us that our hope is not in government or any political ideology, but in Christ the King.
Despite these cautions, Christians ought to fulfill our civic obligation and vote. Just as we ought to stoop down to pick up that wrapper on the sidewalk, we ought to take the time to vote. We don’t vote as those with our hope vested in the results, but we do vote as those who love our neighbor and honor the nation God has called us to be faithful citizens in.
Here are five reasons to vote:
1. Voting demonstrates our responsibility for what we have been given.
Stewardship is a big deal to God. Jesus talks about the stewardship of our time, our finances, and our gifting. I’m confident that if he spoke to us as Americans, he would encourage us to steward the responsibility of voting well. Throughout the book of Acts, we see Paul stewarding his Roman citizenship. At one point, as he is arrested, Paul leverages his citizenship for the gospel, “Paul replied, “I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no obscure city. I beg you, permit me to speak to the people” (Acts 21:39). In world history, few have had the opportunity to vote; let’s steward that gift well.
2. Voting acknowledges our submission to God.
In Romans 13:1, Paul explains, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” So, when we properly demonstrate our subjection to the governing authorities, we are also affirming our submission to God. Voting indicates our willing acquiescence to the governing authorities.
3. Voting demonstrates care for our leaders and gives us an opportunity to pray for them.
As Paul says in 1 Timothy 2:1-2b, “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions…”
4. Voting speaks for those whose voice is not heard.
Just as Jesus consistently sees those unseen by the world and honors them (the woman who was bleeding, the demoniac, the widow who gave her last mite, etc.), so we vote for those who tend to not be seen by those in power.
5. Voting Christianly puts the interest of others over our own.
As Paul says in Philippians 2:4, “Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”
My friend Micah Watson reflects on the unique position we are in as Christians in America:
The advent of constitutional democracy, then, complicates things for the contemporary believer. For when we apply Romans 13 to our political situation, it’s not simply a matter of submitting to an external political authority. As citizens in a constitutional democracy, “we the people” are the authority, even if the practice has never quite lived up to the theory. Thus we’re in a curious position relative to most of Christian history. We are called to yield to authority, yet we also wield authority. To complicate matters even further, we share that authority with nonbelievers whose conception of the earthly good life will overlap with ours in some ways, and sharply diverge in others.[ii]
Voting, in other words, is both faithful participation in the yielding and the wielding of authority we have been given.
While our hope is not in America the new Israel, or America, the Kingdom of God, our firmly rooted allegiance to the King of Kings and in his kingdom presses us into faithful participation in this nation he has called us to live in.
Let’s be those who do the hard work of voting: for the glory of God and the good of our neighbor.
Photo by Phillip Goldsberry on Unsplash
[i] https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-americans-vote-and-how-do-voting-rates-vary-state/
[ii] https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/why-christians-should-vote/