The Welfare of the City: A Rationale for Voting in Public Elections
Few things in American culture energize and divide people as much as their political views, and tensions escalate the closer we draw to Election Day. Roadsides are littered with blue and red signs, media outlets are overrun with political attack ads, while talk radio hosts and mainstream news reporters exchange political barbs daily. With one week to go, 44 million Americans have already stood in long early voting lines to cast a ballot for the candidates of their choosing.
But not all evangelical Christians are caught up in the mayhem. According to recent voting research led by George Barna through the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, 41 million Americans with a testimony of being genuinely born again do not plan to vote in this election cycle. Considering the fact that only 7 million votes separated the two presidential candidates in the last election, the absence of this voting block at the polls has significant implications for the outcome on November 5.
According to Barna, the top reasons that Christians offer for their unwillingness to vote are a lack of interest in politics, a disdain for all of the major candidates, and the feeling that no candidate reflects their most important views. Barna explains, “A lack of confidence in the process, frustration with the choices, and a general apathy toward the political sphere have left millions of believers on the sidelines.”
I would add something here, however. A believer’s reticence to vote is often more profound than a mere lack of confidence, or frustration, or apathy. Genuine believers often do not vote because their consciences will not allow them to cast a ballot for a candidate whose personal life and political views are not in keeping with true biblical ethics. After all, to quote Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms, “To go against conscience is neither right nor safe.”
Other believers disagree, explaining that their vote is not a wholesale endorsement of any candidate, but a strategic way to encourage the best possible moral outcome. If our conservative posture does not allow us to vote for either candidate, then voters with fewer moral scruples will be allowed to choose the leaders that will make the laws under which all of us will be governed. “I’m not happy with any of the choices,” a voter might say, “but I’ll vote for this candidate if only to help slow the spread of abortion rights.”
But some believers will push back against this way of reasoning. We are not of this world, they will say. Our citizenship is in heaven (Phil 3:20), and the only real impact on society is the gospel that we proclaim. Furthermore, God is the source of all political authority (Rom 13:1), the one who “removes kings and sets up kings” (Dan 2:21). So, we should just leave human government to itself and focus on the work of the church.
As a pastor, I resonate in many ways with this last point of view. My calling is to proclaim the salvation of God through Christ and the word of God that transforms lives. Society is not going to be saved through any political process or candidate. Rather, the gospel will prevail no matter what human government is in power. The NT church flourished under both religious and secular governments that tried to violently stop it. In that hostile political environment, Paul and his mission team were actually accused of turning the world upside down (Acts 17:6). So, we dare not risk giving the impression that our hope for our nation is invested in politics, lest we betray our belief in the power of the gospel of Christ.
Yet, I still think that there is a strong rationale for going to the polls, for taking part in our nation’s democratic process, and even for believing men and women to seek political office.
In Jeremiah 29, Jeremiah writes a letter to the Jews who have already been taken captive into Babylon. They are exiles in a foreign culture, surrounded by paganism. How does God, through the prophet Jeremiah, instruct his people to behave in this new environment?
Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 5 Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. (Jer 29:4–7)
I see a parallel here between the exiled OT people of God and NT believers living in a world that is not their true home. God could have told his people to circle the wagons and invest only in their own affairs, to keep themselves isolated from the political goings on of their host nation. He could have told them to start proselyting their Babylonian neighbors. But instead God told them to pursue, literally, the shalom—the peace—of the city where they were divinely located and to pray for its peace, just as they had been told to pray for the peace of their own city, Jerusalem (Psalm 122:6).
And he told them to seek this peace for the city in part by living their lives just like they would if they were in their homeland. Shalom is rest as well as wholeness. The people of God are being told here to have an invested interest in the health, prosperity, and happiness of the city. For if nothing else, they themselves will know greater peace when the city they live in knows peace.
Participation in the political process, then, is a way in which believers can show love to those around them by doing what they can to support the greatest good for their society, to promote its peace and to pray for its peace, as we seek to advance the gospel that offers true peace with God. As believers, we understand better than the culture at large what true peace looks like. True peace can only be known when righteousness reigns. Our votes can be used to encourage peace and righteousness to flourish, to help protect ourselves and our neighbors from evil, or at least to slow the evil.
After all, why would we pray for the Father’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matt 6:10) yet be unwilling to play a part in seeing his will accomplished? And we should also bear in mind that by not voting when we could we are still influencing the political process.
Voting does not mean that we must violate our conscience or put our confidence in a political process. But it does provide a way for us to live at peace and promote peace in the society where God has placed us to advance the gospel of peace.
