Why should Christians vote in elections.... ?

[Ken]

Ken, which one kills less humans?

Which one honors Jesus more?

You can make both calculations if you wish.

How many people die through Republican policies versus Democratic policies? Gun violence, lack of health care, unsafe highways, air and water pollution, agricultural policies that promote unhealthy diets, etc. etc. And then foreign policy. Which suite of policies promotes a more peaceful word versus a more violent world.

As for honoring Jesus? We know what sort of acts he emphasized. Healing the sick caring for the poor, redistribution of resources, witnessing for peace and nonviolence both locally and globally.

When Jesus came to the earth. Did he institute a government doing these things?

I'm not sure what your point is.

No one other than a few ultra-right Christian-nationalists are advocating for the creation of Christian nationalist state.

But one can certainly look to what Jesus' priorities were with respect to society, and make judgments about which party or policies best advances them or conflicts with them.

[Ernie]

What I said was that if you want to engage in policy, then voting is a minimum starting point. That is the one place where all citizens are guaranteed the ability to express their policy preferences.

What do you mean by "engaging in policy"? Perhaps you could picture for us the scale as you see it from minimum engagement to full engagement.

[Soloist]

Ken I really don’t think it’s that simple.

The mesh is complex and your choices ignore future consequences of certain choices.
You obviously think it’s important to care for society in a particular way and to some degree I would agree with what you wrote. The catch is that Jesus also spent a great deal of time teaching repentance from sin. Both governments promote different kinds of sin and both promote good things. Both sides promote killing and both sides distort truth.
The choice is a package with things you do not agree with and do not support. I could support Jesus but I’m not going to go and write in His name as we both know that’s silly. I can state negatives of either side and I’ve been accused of being a democrat here and called a communist. I’ve also been accused of being hateful and accused of voting for Trump.
I have never belonged to either party and the only election I ever voted in, they didn’t even count my vote at all.
Did I research it well? No I didn’t. Even if I spent hours reading I doubt I could really make a well informed choice and I firmly believe to vote for someone I share in the bad choices they make or the evil policies they do. I will not make a bed and I will not sleep in it… if you understand…

[Ken]

What I said was that if you want to engage in policy, then voting is a minimum starting point. That is the one place where all citizens are guaranteed the ability to express their policy preferences.

What do you mean by "engaging in policy"? Perhaps you could picture for us the scale as you see it from minimum engagement to full engagement.

Take some specific policy that you personally are interested in, or you collectively as a church are interested in. It doesn't really matter what it is. But say it is a policy with which you are interested in engaging in:

middle east peace
abortion
protecting the environment (God's creation)
healing the sick
etc.

I would suggest that engagement at the low end is simply voting for the candidate or policy that you think best matches your policy preference. That is essentially what voting is about. Expressing your policy preferences through voting. It requires a trivial amount of effort. The majority of voters have pretty low levels of engagement.

At the middle level on the spectrum of engagement would be things like donating money towards a specific cause, personally campaigning for a specific policy, lobbying your legislators for the policy change you want to see (writing letters, calling), joining interest groups that share your policy perspective. All of those acts of engagement cost much more time and/or money than simply voting.

And the high end of the spectrum of engagement would be devoting full time efforts towards your preferred policy outcome such as dropping your other pursuits or career to become a full time lobbyist or activist, running for office, etc.

Note: I'm drawing a distinction here between POLICY issues and other issues. Lots of people are engaged in all manner of issues that have nothing to do with government policy. In which case none of this would apply and you might make a completely different scale of engagement. For example, I have a mid-level engagement with gardening. I put out a garden every year and put some thought and effort into it. But I'm nowhere near as engaged with gardening as some people I know who are fairly obsessed with it. Same with biking. I bike for fitness and recreation but I'm not obsessed with it so I'd rate my level of engagement as medium. Neither of those are policy issues so voting or not voting isn't part of my scale of engagement for gardening or biking.

[Josh]

You can make both calculations if you wish.

How many people die through Republican policies versus Democratic policies? Gun violence, lack of health care, unsafe highways, air and water pollution, agricultural policies that promote unhealthy diets, etc. etc. And then foreign policy. Which suite of policies promotes a more peaceful word versus a more violent world.

As for honoring Jesus? We know what sort of acts he emphasized. Healing the sick caring for the poor, redistribution of resources, witnessing for peace and nonviolence both locally and globally.

When Jesus came to the earth. Did he institute a government doing these things?

I'm not sure what your point is.

No one other than a few ultra-right Christian-nationalists are advocating for the creation of Christian nationalist state.

But one can certainly look to what Jesus' priorities were with respect to society, and make judgments about which party or policies best advances them or conflicts with them.

We believe we should follow Jesus’ example, and he explicitly avoided politics even though that was the expectation of what the Messiah would do.

[Ken]

When Jesus came to the earth. Did he institute a government doing these things?

I'm not sure what your point is.

No one other than a few ultra-right Christian-nationalists are advocating for the creation of Christian nationalist state.

But one can certainly look to what Jesus' priorities were with respect to society, and make judgments about which party or policies best advances them or conflicts with them.

We believe we should follow Jesus’ example, and he explicitly avoided politics even though that was the expectation of what the Messiah would do.

Jesus was not a politician. That is true. But I see no evidence that he taught his followers to avoid politics. To the contrary. He preached to a very diverse group of people (including politicians) and I see no evidence anywhere that he encouraged people to drop engagement in politics.

During the time of Jesus, the Holy Land was the Roman Province of Judaea. Under Roman rule, sovereignty of the region pertained to Rome. But under the Roman Empire, provinces were more or less allowed to govern their own affairs as long as they paid their taxes. So every town and village Jesus ever visited would have had local politicians, village leaders, and so forth. Many were also religious leaders but not always. There is evidence that Jesus opposed participation in the violent Jewish insurrection movements that were occurring around that time. But no evidence whatsoever that he taught against Christians participating in the governance of their own communities. Which is what politics is. In Jesus' time it would have been things like organizing the digging of village wells or the operation of village markets. Resolving disputes between people, maintaining property records and so forth.

[Bootstrap]

Jesus was not a politician. That is true. But I see no evidence that he taught his followers to avoid politics. To the contrary. He preached to a very diverse group of people (including politicians) and I see no evidence anywhere that he encouraged people to drop engagement in politics.

Politics was quite simply not what he talked about. In either direction.

In today's society, even Christians are often so obsessed with politics that political affiliation becomes a primary identity and a primary lens for viewing the world. I think Jesus would clearly tell us to seek first the Kingdom of God. 365 days a year, not just on election day.

I don't think the Bible tells us to vote. I don't think it tells us not to vote. I think we need to reason from other things ... for instance, Christian appeals to secular authorities.

[Grace]

I will respond to some of your points.

4. I see nowhere in the NT that suggests in any concrete way that we can truly be "Dual Citizens" - with something like a foot in both the Heavenly Kingdom and an Earthly polity. That would require divided allegiances. We cannot, as Christians, have divided allegiances. To say "Jesus is Lord" has physical and cosmic implications far beyond my interior/emotional life of personal sin and temptation. It means He is our King in every facet of life; and no man can be subject to 2 different masters. Incidentally, that's why even in our "liberal" LMC congregation, we were taught to never say the Pledge of Allegiance or stand for the National Anthem.

I agree that as Christians we belong to a heavenly Kingdom and not an earthly kingdom. And even though our hearts and souls belong to the Lord, we are still on this earth and because we are on this earth we participate with aspects of the world around us. Government is one of those aspects. We have government issued social security numbers, we pay taxes to the government, we follow the government’s laws etc (Romans 13). Just because we participate in something pertaining to the government, doesn’t mean we have an allegiance to that kingdom. And that could include voting if someone sees fit to do that.

10. Romans tells us that God ordains government. Elsewhere the Bible suggests that God is actively involved in raising up and laying low specific rulers of nations.

11. Do you believe that to be true today? If yes, then why do you need to vote? Do you truly think God needs or even desires to act through a fiction of Primary, General and Electoral voting in order to enact His will? Do you think that sometime in the 18th Century and specifically in European countries, He decided to raise up leaders by method of Popular decision when for most of history He had chosen other means?

I agree that God ordains governments and is actively involved in raising up and laying low specific rulers of nations. So in the case of the United Sates, how do we know that God didn’t ordain a government that allows its people to have a say (by voting) in choosing leaders? How do we know God doesn’t use people as His instruments (voting) to choose leaders? After all doesn’t God have the power to move the hearts of the people to put into power that He wills? If we truly believe God ordains governments according to the Bible, are we telling Him that the representative government He ordained here in the United States was wrong. Do we have a right to condemn and judge fellow believers who do vote?

12. Or, do you believe that God doesn't raise up specific leaders today? Do you think His ordination of government is a general one and He lets the nations have the leaders they so desire?

God Left the nations have the leaders they desired in the Old Testament. Has He changed his mind?

BTW, I have voted in the past, especially on the local level, like for township supervisors, local school board members, etc. I have not voted recently. I just don’t think voting, is giving your allegiance to a "worldly kingdom" and is somehow evil. We believe the Bible (and rightly so) that God ordains governments, yet we then say we believe the current representative government God ordained for this nation is not of the Lord. I find that a bit confusing.

If we truly believed that any government involvement is not for Kingdom believers, we wouldn’t have social security numbers, wouldn’t pay taxes, wouldn’t have driver’s licenses, wouldn’t fly beings the government screens us, wouldn’t drive on government funded roads, would not accept government issued deeds for our land, etc. And I don't see that happening.

[JayP]

Ken,

Your views on politics explains much.
For example, how one day Maryknoll nuns are teaching poor children and the next they are carrying guns for Communist rebels.
It’s a slippery slope, but always heads downward.

[Ken]

Ken,

Your views on politics explains much.
For example, how one day Maryknoll nuns are teaching poor children and the next they are carrying guns for Communist rebels.
It’s a slippery slope, but always heads downward.

How do you get from anything I wrote here to Maryknoll Nuns participating in a communist insurrection?

Connect the dots. I'm really curious how based on what I wrote, your brain took you from voting to engaging in communist insurrection.

I don't even suggest that people should necessarily engage in politics. Only that voting is the lowest level of engagement.