Scripture demonstrates that God’s people often must submit to and
participate in ungodly political regimes. Opting out is not an option.
I’m a Christian, and I intend to vote. You
will probably neither like my candidate, nor the fact that I participate in
this election at all. Perhaps you’ll say I’m a pragmatist, or that I’m just a
nutcase who will do anything to keep another candidate from getting into the
White House. Perhaps, too, that I’ve betrayed the church and Christ, and am
giving no thought to the future of the country.
Well, in voting this election, I read the
Bible and believe I’m in the company of Queen Esther, Daniel, and Mary and
Joseph. Let me explain. Esther, an upstanding Israelite maiden in the Old
Testament, was compelled to marry the king of Persia. This king had a previous
wife, Vashti, whom he lewdly objectified to entertain himself and his male
friends in a drunken revelry.
When Vashti refused to perform, he cast her
off as an example to the women of his kingdom. He then rounded up all the
beautiful virgins in his kingdom and put them through a beautification regimen,
similar to that of a beauty pageant. To determine which woman should be his
queen, he spent a night with each woman. The rejected women presumably became
permanent fixtures in his harem.
When it was her turn, Esther spent her
night with the king and won the title of queen. She married the king in good
faith and trusted God to be sovereign over the outcome. When she encountered
evil politicians who threatened to exterminate her people, the Israelites, she
used her unexpected influence to intervene with the king and save her people.
Esther’s Choice Wasn’t an Anomaly
Fast-forward through the Old Testament to
the book of Daniel. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon besieged Jerusalem and took
the Israelites captive as slaves. Similar to Esther, Daniel, a young Israelite
man, was selected for training in Nebuchadnezzar’s court. He dutifully embraced
his place in this new political regime, while maintaining a life of obedience
to God. He was in Babylon, but not of it. Daniel demonstrated his loyalty to
God when he rejected the command to worship Nebuchadnezzar. But short of
king-worship, Daniel served his king in good faith and even helped
Nebuchadnezzar in his political aspirations.
A little later in biblical history, Mary
and Joseph became the earthly parents of Christ. They also found themselves
subject to the political power of the Caesar Augustus, a brutal opportunist and
imperialist. Through no planning of their own, Mary and Joseph had a child
whose birth was at odds with the pagan regime.
Yet when Augustus ordered a census, Joseph
submitted to the law and went to register his family with the government. In
fact, it was this very son of Joseph and Mary’s who eventually admonished his
followers to “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s,” even when Caesar is a
corrupt, pagan leader.
Voting Is Part of Who Americans Are
But, you may say, Esther and Daniel didn’t
have a choice! They didn’t seek out the positions of queen and counselor. They
didn’t enter these situations angling for their “political preferences.” Joseph
and Mary never asked to birth and raise the Christ.
The assumption behind these questions is
that we God-fearing Americans do have a choice about whether we are politically
engaged. But do we really have a choice? When you were born, were you given a
choice as to whether or not you have a vote? America fought for more than a
century to make the individual citizen’s vote an inherent, protected part of
every American’s identity. To be an American is to have a vote.
Whether you were born an American or have
become a legal citizen of this country, your vote is part of who you are. Just
as Esther couldn’t dispossess herself of her beauty and maidenhood nor Daniel
deny his identity as Israelite slave and counselor, Americans cannot divest
themselves of their votes. Whether we like it or not, we are in “the harem.”
Refusing to vote does not magically remove us from this democratic republic God
has seen fit to place us in.
Refusing to Vote Affects the Election
So how do we reconcile this fact of our
identity with the upcoming election? When I read these stories of God’s people
in Scripture, I see discernment in their interactions with ungodly governments.
In marrying a promiscuous, misogynistic king; serving an imperialist, invading
king; and obeying a tyrannical, pagan emperor, these people were hardly
endorsing the character of their rulers.
In fact, no candidate in the history of
mankind is worthy of our endorsement or our vote. I would be surprised if the
majority of endorsements and votes for conservative presidential candidates
ever were—or should have been—based on a true belief in their pristine morals.
While the ideal is to elect a competent leader with outstanding faith and
character, Scripture demonstrates that God’s people often must submit to and
participate in ungodly political regimes. Opting out is not an option.
Those who don’t attempt to opt out often
see potential presidents as a silver bullet to the nation’s problems. When this
has happened recently, voters have demanded nothing less than a pristine savior
as the officeholder. Christians have no business putting this much faith in the
office. If this fantasy were realistic, a vote would indeed amount to an act of
worship, and Christains would be justified in refusing to vote. However, I
believe that to vote for a president is not to worship him or her. Instead of
being an act of worship, a vote, or refusal to vote, is a political choice.
But it is a choice we cannot choose not to
make. Abstaining from voting is a political act; it is a positive,
willful decision; it is neither a neutral political stance nor an erasure of
the fact that we exist in this system. If you abstain from voting because you
disapprove of the candidate’s morals, the power of your vote does not
disappear. You simply give that power to someone else who will vote.
Abstain if you must, but acknowledge the real consequences of your decision.
You cannot escape the reality that your willful decisions, no matter what they
are, will have an effect.
As for me, I will vote. Yes, it is hard.
However, I firmly believe that God is sovereign over my participation in this
election. This time around, it is undeniable that whoever becomes president of
the United States is a fallen human. In the past, even our most upstanding
presidents and leaders have needed prayer, but never before have I felt so
compelled to pray over my ballot as I cast it.
My prayer for all of us voting is this: in
God may we trust. I’ll see you at the polls.
J.G. Slavic
lives in North Carolina.
