The Ethics of Voting: A Christian Proposal

Posted By Matthew Steven Bracey on Oct 10, 2016 | 2 comments

American citizenship is not a chance designation.[1] It’s the intentional calling of a sovereign God to those who have it. When and where we find ourselves living life is no surprise to God. Part of the Christian’s task in discipleship is discerning how best to fulfill this responsibility. While everyone can’t do everything, we can all do something: we can vote.

Considering the Contest

One of the first questions we have to consider is the contest. Is it for a local or state office, congressional, or presidential? We’re often tempted to focus almost exclusively on the presidential race, but let’s not forget these others. In many ways, they’re just as important, if not more.

In considering whom to vote for, we should recognize that rare are the scenarios where a nominee, whether in his or her character or policies, completely accords with ours. In the presidential race, despite our votes in the primary, our preferred candidate probably wasn’t chosen for the general election. Such scenarios shouldn’t spell retreat, though. While we can’t control the nomination outcomes, we can control our response to them.

Knowing the Issues

Responding wisely will mean that we know the issues. It will mean knowing the nominees’ positions on them, and asking, “What will the overall, long-term effects of his or her policies mean for our future?” While these categories aren’t mutually exclusive or exhaustive, they’re a start:

• Constitutional Law Policies: How does a nominee interpret the American founding and the Constitution? What does he or she believe about the Bill of Rights, checks and balances, federalism, religious liberty, representation, rule of law, and separation of powers? Is a nominee friendly, indifferent, or hostile toward religious institutions like churches, denominational ministries, and schools? Would he or she want to abolish tax-exemption for religious institutions? What is a nominee’s position toward capital punishment and gun rights? What type of justice would they appoint to the Supreme Court?[2]

• Domestic Policies: What are his or her positions toward education, the environment, the police, poverty, and race relations? Does the nominee inspire order or violence, unity or division?

• Economic Policies: Are a nominee’s policies friendlier toward capitalism and free market economics, or socialism and government-controlled economics? Which system encourages greater human flourishing by creating more incentives, inspiring more innovation, and producing more jobs? What about their views regarding the role and size of government (also a constitutional question)? How and what do they want to tax?

• Foreign Policies: Are a nominee’s policies more imperialistic, isolationist, or something in between? What are their beliefs regarding international trade, the military, torture, and war?

• Moral Policies: What does a nominee believe about family issues like marriage, divorce, and adoption; life issues like abortion, euthanasia, and physician-assisted suicide; sexuality issues like birth control, LGBT rights, and pornography; and other moral concerns like gambling, legalized drugs, and prostitution?

Part of our responsibility as citizens is to discern how Biblical principles apply to these issues in our historical moment—what’s often called public theology. While well-intentioned Christians may differ on specific applications, Scripture is sufficient for all of life’s needs. We also have a responsibility to know the nominees’ positions. In discerning this, we shouldn’t rely on any one source, but consult several, both favorable and critical of our personal leanings.

We won’t find an ideal nominee. Our positions will differ from his or hers here and there, and perhaps even on some key issues. What, then, do we do? We realize that this dynamic is part and parcel of voting in a democratic republic. It’s a tension that Christians, to some degree, have encountered throughout American history. However, most didn’t withdraw from the process, but faced it squarely. With this in mind, we should begin to ask what is and what isn’t negotiable. While every issue matters to some extent, not all of them are as important as others.

Answering these questions will require some work and wisdom on our part. But we must do it, carefully and prayerfully, in our stewardship of citizenship before our sovereign Lord and Ruler.

Choosing a Nominee

We can hope that our choice of nominee will be clear and easy. But what if all realistic nominees are bad choices, as in this election? Regrettably, because we live in a secular, post-Christian America, this may increasingly occur as we think about the future.

Some have suggested we shouldn’t vote for a bad nominee, period. Such a vote, they argue, reveals a lack of integrity and principle. It amounts to the approval of bad people with bad policies. Instead, the best way forward is either not to vote, or to vote for a third party or write-in candidate.

The question of whether to vote for a bad nominee has always been a question of degree, though. Few voters have agreed completely with those for whom they voted. A vote isn’t necessarily tantamount to an endorsement of a bad nominee’s practices or policies. A vote may not signify a mark of approval or support, but an attempt to avoid an even worse result.

This, therefore, leads others to suggest we can vote even for a bad nominee, (1) if the nominee has a legitimate chance of beating an even worse nominee, and (2) if no other viable candidates have emerged. If a third party (or write-in) candidate with a realistic chance of success offers better prospects, then he or she may very well be the best option. But if such candidates are simply not competitive, then a vote in their favor will increase the likelihood of the worst nominee getting elected. If we can’t make the difference we’d prefer, we can at least work against the one we don’t. Usually one nominee will be discernibly worse than another.

As to the prospect of staying home and not voting at all, I believe that this could establish a harmful precedent for the future. No matter how bad things may seem now, they can always get worse. And if present and future generations of Christians follow this path, the removal of their vote could hasten that realization, resulting in an even worse future. Instead, we must offer people advice and hope for the future. Most assuredly, the world of the future will look different than ours has, and they must be prepared to face it with all of its challenges. We might consider, for example, how Christians in highly secular, European democracies have approached this struggle. They’ve been encountering these tensions for far longer than us.

Life doesn’t always give us easy choices. Sometimes it offers a Nazi at your doorstep days after you’ve hidden Jews under your floorboard. Sometimes it squeezes you between a rock and hard place, between the devil and the deep blue sea. But that’s the business of ethics in a fallen world. With all of the hard questions, competing options, and changing variables, discerning the right path can be difficult. Whatever we do, though, when we’re stuck and no choice seems like the right one, we should follow the advice that Leroy Forlines gives in Biblical Ethics: we do our best, and we don’t regret our decision.[3]

Some can’t stomach the prospect of voting for the “lesser of two evils.” However, this is an imprecise, unhelpful articulation of the view that says we can vote for a bad nominee. It’s not as if, when deciding how to vote or whether to vote, one path is evil, and the other righteous. Decisions and outcomes are more complicated than that. Therefore, it’s not that some of us will vote for the lesser of two evils, and some of us won’t. We’re all facing poor prospects and whether we vote or not, whatever path we choose will help set into motion certain outcomes, some good and some bad. However we respond, we’re not choosing the lesser of two evils per se, but what we believe in the aggregate is the least problematic path forward.

Thinking about November, well-meaning Christians will undoubtedly disagree about what to do. As this occurs, we shouldn’t look down on those who don’t share our opinion—whatever it is. We shouldn’t malign each other as though some have no spiritual integrity or principles. That’s simply not true. We’re all doing the best we can to apply Biblical principles to all of life. Instead, we should look on one another with charity, and not condemnation. We should remember that we’re not each other’s enemies. We’re the Body of Christ.

Conclusion

Political pundits are saying that this election season defies all the rules. What has worked isn’t. What shouldn’t work is. No doubt this is a bizarre, unique cultural moment in the history of our republic. Despite the absurdity of it all, we can be thankful that it’s forcing a conversation among Christians about civic responsibility and public theology.

Whoever wins the election next month, we should remember the Biblical function of governing authorities. While God can use them to accomplish good as instruments of His common grace, they can also abuse their power. We hope and pray for the best—as Christians, we should pray for whomever gets elected in November—but we don’t lose our confidence in God if things go bad. Whatever happens in this world, God hasn’t called us to retreat from it, but to seek its renewal.

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[1] This article first appeared as Matthew Steven Bracey, “The Ethics of Voting: A Christian Perspective,” The Brink Magazine, Summer 2016: 38-42. It has also appeared on The Brink Online. This version on the HSF is adapted from these publications.

[2] See our articles on the late Justice Scalia: “Scalia: Man of the Law,” and, “Scalia: Man of Faith.”

[3] Leroy Forlines, Biblical Ethics: Ethics for Happier Living (Nashville: Randall House Publications, 1973), 160; see also 157-160.

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