Religion and Politics: How Should a Christian Vote?

Religion and Politics # 3
“How Should a Christian Vote?”
Isaiah 55
Rev Cynthia O'Brien
Smith Memorial Presbyterian Church

ISA 55:6 Seek the LORD while he may be found;
call on him while he is near.

ISA 55:7 Let the wicked forsake his way
and the evil man his thoughts.
Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him,
and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

ISA 55:8 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,"
declares the LORD.

ISA 55:9 "As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Romans 11-12

RO 11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!

RO 11:34 "Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?"

RO 11:35 "Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?"

RO 11:36 For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.

RO 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.



Here’s a story from Ed Dionne Jr. of the Washington Post. It was Election Day, and Mrs. O’Reilly was being taken to the polls by her son. Mrs. O’Reilly always voted straight Democratic. Her son, a successfu member of the upper middle class had become an Independent and voted for many Republicans.

They had a routine every election day. He asked his mother ho she would vote. As always, she answered “Straight Democratic.” The son was exasperated. He said, “Mom, if Jesus came back to earth and ran as a Republican, you would vote against him.” She snapped back at him, “Aw, hush, why should He change his party after all these years?”

I promised I would not try to answer the question, “Who would Jesus vote for?” and that I wouldn’t endorse any specific candidates from the pulpit. In a way, I wish I could, because I know most of the local candidates, or at least I’ve met them. But my goal today is to answer the question, How Should a Christian Vote?

Which presupposes that we are actually involved, whether we vote in a booth or by mail, we make the effort to register to vote and we actually do it. In my younger days I sometimes let an election slide by because I didn’t think my vote mattered. Or I just didn’t know who to vote for. For a couple of years I simply voted no on everything that would cost money. In all those instances, I was wrong.

A Christian’s most important citizenship is in the kingdom of God, but we are also to follow Jesus’ call to love our neighbor. We don’t just honor the government, we get to help choose the government. That is an awesome and godly task.

How should a Christian vote?

Let’s consider these words from Scripture. In the Old Testament, the prophet Isaiah
said,

ISA 55:8 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,"
declares the LORD.

ISA 55:9 "As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

This is one of my favorite scriptures. It speaks of the mystery of God’s ways and reminds me that I do not have God all figured out. This is the God that Abraham Lincoln spoke of, when he said,

“Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.”

This is why it’s dangerous to say things like “The GOP is God’s own party” or “Jesus is a liberal.” It’s more important to say, with humility, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so God’s ways are higher than our ways.”

But we still have to make decisions, and God does give us guidance. So we take the rest of the Isaiah text to heart:

ISA 55:6 Seek the LORD while he may be found;
call on him while he is near.

How should a Christian decide? Here is the answer: Prayerfully and thoughtfully.

When I’m making decisions, whether it’s on candidates or issues or any personal decision, that’s a time to seek the Lord and ask God to guide me. You may have prayed for wisdom or guidance. Sometimes you don’t feel like you get an answer and you have to decide whether to wait, or make the best decision you can. One missionary I knew said that if she didn’t get an answer, she waited and didn’t even make the decision until she was sure she knew what was right. Others say, God has placed his Holy Spirit in you and because of that, you’ll make a good decision. What’s important is that we seek God and call on him and ask him to help us.

There’s a promise in the Bible about that. James 1:5 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. Another favorite verse is Jeremiah 33:3: 3 `Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.' We can trust God to help us make choices.

CHILDREN come up for a story. I am giving each of you a one dollar Presidential coin. This coin has these words on it. In God we trust. During the Civil War, in 1861, people in the United States were fighting each other, the northern states verses the southern states. Many people turned to God, prayed to God for peace and asked God for help. And some said that it was important for the United States to show our faith in God by putting something about God on our money. So the Secretary of the Treasury arranged for these words to be on our coins: In God we trust.

When you look at your money, remember that we trust in God, and you can trust God to love you and help you.

If that weren’t already on our money, it would never be put there today. Times are changing. Our nation is a more pluralistic society than it was 100 years ago or even 50 years ago. But that doesn’t change our foundation as Christians. We are still citizens of the kingdom of God. We still have the freedom to make decisions informed by our faith. So we pray when we are making any kind of decision, and we ask God to guide us.

Then there’s another part of deciding. We decide prayerfully, but we also decide thoughtfully. We learn all we can before we make our decision.

There’s an old Middle Eastern saying: “Trust Allah, but tie up your camel.” The less colorful version of that saying, and less correct is “God helps those who help themselves.” But I prefer the one about the camel. You place your trust in God, and you also do the responsible thing. So let’s say you are hiring a new employee for your business. You might pray and ask God to help you select the best person. But you also read the resumes, check the references and interview people. When you come down to the decision, you’ll probably make a good decision, because you have done the research and you have asked God to guide you.

Many people want to educate themselves about the candidates, but they don’t know how to do it.

I was at the bank the other day and I told the teller about the sermon that I was working on. She said she’s having a really hard time with all those horrible TV commercials. I told her to turn off the TV. Because those ads are largely designed to give you a negative view of their opponent, rather than solid information you can use to make an informed decision. Campaigns use them because, unfortunately, they work.

I saw one of our elected officials on Friday who is running for re-election, and I said “Thank you for running a positive campaign rather than negative ads, even though your opponent attacked you.” And my friend was really upset and said, “Well, some of those statements were outright lies, so now we have to answer it.”

Outright lies? How can that BE? It’s on television, isn’t it? :-) We have a responsibility to test everything we read and everything we see on television to find out whether it’s true.

So when we vote, we vote prayerfully, trusting God to guide us, and thoughtfully.

RO 11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!
RO 11:34 "Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?"
RO 11:35 "Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?"
RO 11:36 For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.


Next week I’ll preach on the values that are most important for our common life, and how we can live out our values in such a way that our community will be better because you and I live here.