My Simple Plan for Deciding How to Vote

Saturday evening a friend told me she’s looking for a new church because her current pastor preached a sermon on how a Christian should decide for whom to vote. The preacher, she said, made an effort to keep his criteria generic -- not favoring one political party over the other -- but somewhere during the sermon he tipped his mitt and my friend saw he was really saying, "vote Republican." When she called him on it privately, he admitted his preference and she went church shopping.

Ironically, she and I had once been members of a different church where the pastor was criticized for leaning too far to the left. She left that church for a different reason, but many other long-time members left because the preacher there failed to endorse the Iraq invasion. I guess everyone wants to believe God agrees with them.

It’s the job of the Internal Revenue Service to make sure non-profits like churches don’t shill for one candidate over another, or for a particular political party. Unfortunately, under this administration those rules have been skewed to favor one side over the other, but I’d better not say more on that subject since Christian Heartbeat also is a non-profit subject to those same judgments.

I’m not suggesting that churches or individual Christians should isolate faith from politics and paste a happy face over the radical face of Jesus. Since God is a God of relationships, God is political by nature. Same was true of Jesus. In fact, being politically incorrect is what got him killed. The failure of the church to follow courageously in Jesus’ footsteps is part why it seems so irrelevant today to so many people.

So, getting back to the preacher who outlined some basic principles for voting but couldn’t help showing his prejudices, here’s my quick and non-partisan one-two-three on how to bring your faith to bear in casting your vote:

One: Know your own prejudices and don’t try to pass them off on God. So often people start with hearts full of hate and bias and then search scripture for ways to attribute them to God. If you’re a socialist who hates the rich you can find passages that support your feelings. If you’re a homophobe who hates gays and lesbians you’ll find passages to support you. Know yourself and don’t say your attitudes come from God when they really come from your own dark heart. We should all be able to agree that Christians shouldn’t cast votes motivated by hatred.

Two: Keep it simple. Throughout history great trends and great issues like life and death, peace and war, wealth and poverty have divided humanity, and for the most part broken God’s heart. To God the choices are clear as crystal waters, but we always try to muddy everything. So in Israel and Palestine both sides say they favor peace over war but each has its nuanced argument for why the other side makes peace impossible. Keep it simple and quit saying, “yes but.” Keep it simple and choose. You are either for peace over war, for life over death, for the right of all people to materially sustain themselves, or you are not. Jesus says you’re either with me or against me. Don’t make excuses; stand up and be counted.

Three: Know who God is. Have you ever put together a puzzle without first seeing a picture of how it should look once completed? It’s almost impossible yet many Christians approach their faith that way. They take the little pieces in the form of proof passages, assemble them as they see fit and sit back feeling satisfied. Unfortunately, what they’ve created looks nothing like God. If we read the entire scripture we come away knowing some specific things about who God is. First of all, God is the God of all people. Any time two people stand against each other, it’s two of God’s children facing off. Doesn’t matter what faith, if any, either person claims. Second, God is the God of love. If I have to explain that one, you really don’t know your Bible. And third, God is the God of compassion. Any time one human causes another pain or looks down on them as less than themselves, God’s heart fills with sorrow. If you’re asking yourself, “what would Jesus do,” or how would Jesus vote, start with the full picture of who God is.

I’ve avoided discussing the specific issues of this election. If you read between the lines, like my friend did listening to her pastor’s sermon, you may think you know how I’ll cast my vote. But I’m not asking that you vote like me; I am asking that you be true to God’s true principles. If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that we’ll never change this world until we each take personal responsibility for knowing God’s will, and then step forth in courage to do it.