As a pastor on sabbatical, I have been given the freedom to lay aside many of the burdens of the pastorate to focus on rest. Resting is difficult in the current climate. It is like trying to take a nap during a thunderstorm. You may be able to fall asleep, but most likely, you will also be woken up more than a few times. While I am supposed to be staying away from the things that will add stress to my life, I am also aware of the many burdens weighing on our culture; I am concerned about how these things are pulling against the unity of our church. I wanted to address you all on the topic of the election specifically, because I am worried about how divisive the conversations around politics has confused who we are as the church (and with everyone voting early, this is an issue NOW, not when I return).
Let me start by making it clear that the pastors of Communion Church believe that our main role is not to talk politics, but to remind you of what God has clearly stated. As THIS article states, it can be a distraction from the gospel for the church to spend too much time arguing over temporary things:
You’re a herald of the King of Heaven, and as such, you hold a special authority and charge to speak for him. So say what he says, no more and no less, and remind your people that this world is not all there is—no matter how much this world may want to make them forget that.
That said, we are also citizens of this world, and if God didn’t want us to engage this world, we would all be ransomed at conversion. We must think through how our commitment to Jesus affects what we do at the ballot box. Pastor David Platt has just written a book to answer some of the major questions Christians pose in regards to their vote (the answers to these questions are also taken from his book):
1. Does God call me to vote?
God calls us to steward our vote for the sake of His commands, including His commands to do justice, subject ourselves to and support government, seek the welfare of our nation, and love our neighbors as ourselves.
2. Who has my heart?
The most important decision we can make is to yield our hearts to Jesus, placing all of our trust, allegiance, and hope in Him.
3. What does my neighbor need?
The driving force behind how we vote is supreme love for God and selfless love for others, both in our nation and throughout the world.
4. What is the Christian position?
We work to know the Christian position on issues that are clear according to God’s Word, in order to form a Christian position on less clear issues that require our wisdom.
5. How do I weigh these issues?
Before voting, we weigh issues in terms of factors like biblical clarity and practical consequences.
6. Am I eager to maintain unity in the church?
No matter how we vote, we are eager to maintain the unity of the church around Jesus and His Word, not around our personal political convictions.
Platt then ends the book with the question: So how do I vote? In this chapter he creates a chart based on biblical clarity and practical consequences and encourages charting all of the major issues and then using this to determine what matters most and where you are willing to compromise in how you vote. Jonathan Leeman (who has an excellent book on politics) wrote a blog post presenting some similar ideas of how to weigh the issues at hand. He then ends the article by saying:
How then should you ethically evaluate the different candidates on offer in the next election? That hard work is now over to you.
That is how he ends the short version. In the longer version, he ends by saying:
The citizens of a democracy, including its Christian citizens, need to be able to make objective moral arguments and to do so with vigor, yet still leave some room for disagreement and the possibility that one might be in the electoral minority. Part of what makes room for disagreement possible, even as we use the language of sin and righteousness, is to acknowledge the limitations of our moral evaluations and strategic judgments.
I also believe that our moral evaluations should ordinarily quarantine themselves to the language of “should not” rather than “should.” I recently read another writer’s paper which laid out three categories of possibilities for the 2020 elections in the United States: Christians saying we should vote for Joe Biden; Christians saying we should vote for Donald Trump; and Christians saying we should leave every person to his or her own conscience.
For my part, I don’t think we ordinarily possess the moral license to offer moral “shoulds” because there are almost always several permissible paths a Christian can walk. At most, from time to time, we might say “should not” to one path or another.
His point, which I would echo, is that we need to be very careful with how tightly we hold to our ideologies and use our language. There is not a singular Christian position on most issues because issues are layered and, in a sinful world, require us to consider many variables in order to come to a conclusion. There are some things that we, along with the Word of God, can say ‘should not’ to, but the weight with which each Christian weighs the variables will determine the outcome of their decision-making process. We should be discussing these processes and variables together, as the people of God, to sharpen our thinking and to help us find some humility in our own position.
You can tell by this point, that I am not going to tell anyone how to vote. This is not because I don’t have my opinions, but because it incorrectly attaches faithfulness to a specific candidate and I think that this poisons the church. What I hope that this post does is takes the weight from you that says: if you get this wrong, you are not acting in a Christian manner. We should take our civic duty seriously, researching candidates and understanding the issues, but at the end of the day, we do our best, trusting that God has it under control.
When I return, I will be preaching on Power in Weakness, a reminder that the power structures of this world do not have the supreme authority and that we have been called to a better way. Until then, let us all work on loosening our grip on our own political positions, recognizing the damage that it does to our witness as Christians. Let me end with a story to that end:
The author of the book I mentioned above, David Platt, knows how politics can split a church. He pastors in the suburbs of Washington DC and made news a few years ago by praying for the president when Donald Trump showed up at his church (there is more to the story along with the prayer HERE). Platt’s willingness to pray for the president caused a controversy, which he then addressed in a follow-up letter to his church. In response to this letter, there was a new controversy. Platt addresses this in his book, saying:
On Sunday, I made a lot of people glad while those on the other side of the aisle were mad. On Monday, however, I turned the tables – everyone who had been glad was suddenly mad. In less than 24 hours, I managed to be labeled both a far right-wing conservative and a far left-wing liberal.
Anyone who has ever spoken of or posted a political opinion on social media knows what this backlash looks like. There is a reason why politics and religion are often banned conversations in the workplace. The issue is about more than avoiding a fight; how we disagree says a great deal about what we ultimately value. Platt describes his reaction this way:
As I watched everything unfold, I couldn’t help but draw one conclusion about the church amidst the political climate in our country: we are sick. We are so quick to accuse, belittle, cancel, distrust, disparage, deride, and divide from one another… We are swimming in toxic political waters that are poisoning the unity Jesus desires for His church, and we are polluting the glory Jesus deserves through us in the world.
Our relationship with politics is broken; we have given far too much value to who holds temporary power in a temporary world. God’s sovereignty will not be the least bit diminished by who wins the upcoming election, but our Christian witness will be affected by the power we give to politics and how we treat those with whom we disagree. While the Bible isn’t clear on who we should vote for, it does say quite a bit about loving our neighbor and even loving our enemy. If we can focus on what the Bible prioritizes, the things that divide us will take their rightful place as background issues in God’s grand plan of redemption.