The apostle Paul never got to vote for Caesar. When a new
emperor took the throne, Paul found out about it more or less along with
everyone else. The only action available to him was reaction: He could pray for the emperor and for the empire, speak
truth within the empire’s culture, and proclaim the truth to (or in the
direction of) the emperor. That’s how monarchies work.
Unfortunately for us today, we have no idea precisely what
advice Paul would have given to Christians living in a system like ours, with
the power to vote people in and out of office. Unlike Paul, we have more than
mere reaction available to us; we can take action to help form the shape and makeup
of our government. It’s an almost unbearable responsibility.
I believe that every part of life is subject to the dominion
of Jesus Christ. What does that mean for me in an election year? Simply that,
since I have the obligation of participation, I anticipate one day having to
account to my Lord for precisely how I participated in that system. I believe
one day I’ll have to stand before Jesus Christ and account for how I voted.
Because I have to take my future accountability into
consideration, 2016 creates some very real problems for me. It seems as though
very soon I will be given the precious opportunity to vote for the next
president, and that opportunity will be squandered on an impossible choice
between two unworthy options.
This is just where the sticking point is found. Let’s say
for a moment that you grant me the right to reject the (likely) democratic
candidate because I hold the belief that her past actions, her relationship
with the truth, and her attitude toward power all make it impossible for me to
support her. You may disagree with me (that’s your right, we’re all in the same
lifeboat of democracy here) but just allow me to begin with that premise.
What’s my alternative? The (likely) republican candidate is
a man whose personal and professional makeup seem to me to be a combination of
reprehensible hubris, shameless self-promotion, and sheer chaos. I find myself
bewildered by his supporters as much as by the man himself. Can this really be
happening?
So I engage in a discussion with my fellow believers. You’ve
probably done the same. If he’s nominated, should we vote for him? Some are
hoping for an intervention, or a miracle. But many of my believing friends are
planning to pull the lever on his name simply because they believe he beats the
alternative.
So that’s what it comes down to: An agonizing choice between
two terrifying alternatives; a sweat-inducing struggle to weigh two awful
options in the scales and see which one carries more baggage. Or, as it’s been
put several times to me recently, “It all comes down to the lesser of two evils.”
And there’s the rub. “The lesser of two evils” is a handy
phrase. But it now seems to me, after much prayer and consideration, that there
comes a point when two choices can both be so bad that, even if one of them is
slightly less bad than the other, neither one rises to a minimum threshold of
acceptability. If given the choice between getting hit in the face with a
banana cream pie or a chocolate mousse, I think I could pick one or the other.
But what if I had to choose between being pushed out of a plane without a
parachute, or being dropped into a shark tank with a raw steak tied to my ankle?
Now, when you factor in the obligation to vote as a Christian, as someone who knows I
will one day have to carry that decision with me into the presence of the Jesus
Christ, can I honestly say that either candidate has enough virtue – however negligible
or intermittent – to merit my vote? I can’t imagine saying to my Judge “I know
this guy made a mockery of his supposedly Christian beliefs, and everything he
ever said contradicted my convictions, and his personal life was a travesty of
hypocrisy, and his attitude toward humanity in general was the opposite of
everything You ever taught us, but I voted for him anyway, because I thought
the alternative would be even worse.”
In this situation I really can’t imagine that I’ll be able
to defend the strategy of embracing evil so I can avoid embracing evil.
A personal vote in a free society is a precious privilege
for the citizen as well as for the candidate; too precious to be given lightly.
It ought to be earned; we should stop using the phrase “cast my vote for” and
replace it with the phrase “entrusted my vote to” because that’s what’s really
taking place. Has either one of the front-runners earned a vote from me? Can I
entrust my vote to either one? I don’t see how. Sometimes, when faced with an
impossible decision, the only righteous course is to do nothing.
And doing nothing
is not a non-action, it is an act. It takes a deliberate act of the will to abstain,
to choose to remain silent in the face of accusations or to hold your hands at
your side when being beaten. I look into our immediate future as a society and
envision myself standing in a booth, looking at a slate of two possible
candidates for the highest office in the land, and deliberately refusing either
one of them the honor of my vote. Because I just can’t face my King, and admit
to him that I voted for either of those individuals to be my president.
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