I wrote the other day that if Jesus walked the earth today, I don’t think He’d vote.  When I did that, I forgot something very important.  It’s the unwritten code of Christians.  Peggy, my cHesed sister, reminded me of it in the comments.  It’s this:  when we say we think that Jesus would do this or that, by implication we often mean that other Christians ought to do this or that.   Most often that’s true.  Jesus is our model and we, who are serious disciples of Jesus, want to do what Jesus would do.  However, I don’t believe it’s true when it comes to voting and I’ll explain why.

So, first of all, I’m standing by my assertion that IF Jesus were here today (instead of 2000 years ago) he probably wouldn’t vote.  There are a number of reasons for this, and if you’re interested you can read that earlier post.  But primarily I believe that Jesus put relationships first.  If he were to pick a candidate, vote for a candidate then it would be all over.  For ever and a day, people would use that information as a weapon.  It would be power used for the wrong purposes.

Here’s the thing, though, Jesus lived and walked the earth during an entirely different age.  He lived during a theocratic empire.  So the option to vote was not available.  I’m doing what we in the LightHouse fondly refer to as MSU.  That is, Making Stuff Up.  Yes, I’m doing so with a lot of fairly decent assumptions (or so I like to think).  But it’s still, in the end, Made Up.   A Fairy Tale of the first order.  We have to look at what Jesus did do.  He didn’t vote, but he didn’t have the opportunity.

Here’s what He did do.  He turned His back on using power.  He rejected power in favor of transformational relationships.  Here’s what I’d like to suggest.  There is a way to be a disciple of Jesus and an active responsible  member of our representative government.  That is to stop.  Stop being manipulative. Stop striving to be correct.  Stop accruing power.  Be humble.  Vote your own conscience and allow others to vote theirs.  I remember when I was a child it was considered impolite to discuss whom and what you were voting for.  I recently discovered to my great surprise that my grandparents were staunch Republicans and were convinced that the election of FDR would lead to the downfall of the United States in 1940.  I never knew who they voted for, but what they stood for was another thing entirely.

Critique the system, the candidates, the platforms … but your vote is your own.  And perhaps your choice should be a private matter.  Here’s a great example of that from fellow Scriber Charles Lehardy:

I like Barack Obama. He is bright, refreshingly articulate, a moral and genuine Christian man with a sincere desire to bring change to America. As a conservative Democrat, I disagree with Obama’s vision for American on a number of points, but find I agree with him on a great deal. I don’t know yet who I’ll vote for and I won’t be using this space to lobby for my favorite candidate.

Weighing pros and cons, articulating what is important to ourselves, etc. is one thing, manipulating that and declaring it to be “the will of God, ordained by Scripture,” is another thing entirely.  It smacks of subordinating Love and transformational relationship to power.  This creates not the Kingdom of God, but a fiefdom of men.  More laws will not create a more moral populace, neither will more money.

So yes, we should vote, and we should (as much as is possible) vote our consciences.  Will we find candidates who represent our values?  It’s not likely that a politician will do that 100% especially on narrowly defined issues, however, chasing power and wealth, using them to further our own ends will not bring about Kingdom ends no matter how much we’d like to think it will. Even God knew that transforming hearts takes more than Law, it takes Love.