By: James Sherk

30 July 2003 Christian Political Participation: Why Christians should Vote

In the United States all citizens, believers and non-believers alike, have a democratic voice in the election of the political leaders who administer the secular state. Clearly, Christians should use this power to support candidates whose positions on the issues are most consistent with God's Word. This duty will be exercised again in 2004, with the national ballot pitting President Bush against a Democratic opponent, and several minor party candidates. Should Christians vote for one of these candidates or just stay home?

Separation of Church and State Does not Mean Christian non-Involvement in Politics
Christians in the United States live in a mostly secular society, and the institutions of the American government are organized upon secular premises. Nothing in the Bible indicates that the Lord wants Christians to use the coercive power of government to spread the gospel. Indeed, Christ's injunction to give to Caesar what is Caesar's , and to God what is God's implies just the opposite. Christians can and should support the separation of Church and state. Christ clearly states that His "Kingdom is not of this world,"(1) and Christians should not attempt to use political authority to create Christ's kingdom on earth. Only God has that Power, and it will occur at His appointed time. In fact government has manifestly failed as a tool of evangelization - witness the collapse of state supported Christian churches in Europe - and the New Covenant does away with the notion that sin should be illegal.

Nevertheless, does not mean that Christians should not participate in the political process. While on many political issues God has not revealed a spiritually correct position in the Bible for Christians to support, God has revealed His truth to us in the Bible. A Christian worldview based on the understandings of God and man revealed in the Bible should affect the way in which Christians approach some of the major issues of the day, particularly abortion and homosexual marriage.

The Atheist Roots of the Progressive Philosophy
The philosophical differences between Republicans and Democrats are not window dressing. Their world views, the progressive ideology of the Democratic Party and the conservative philosophy of most Republicans, have far reaching consequences. The central tenets of progressivism conflict with Christian faith. The intellectual and philosophical foundation of progressivism lies in the belief that God does not exist, and thus that man can shape his own destiny. Whitaker Chambers eloquently expressed their philosophy, writing that

It is the vision of man mind displacing God as the creative intelligence of the world. It is the vision of man's liberated mind, by the sole force of its rational intelligence, redirecting man's destiny and reorganizing man's life and the world. It is the vision of man, once more the central figure of Creation, not because God made Man in His image, but because man's mind makes him the most intelligent of the animals ... The vision is a challenge and implies a threat. It challenges man to prove by his acts that he is the masterwork of creation... It challenges him to prove it by reducing the meaningless chaos of nature, by imposing on it his rational will to order, abundance, security, peace. It is the vision of materialism. (2)

Even though they may not realize it, the guiding philosophy of the Democratic Party denies the existence of God. Certainly this does not mean that every progressive Democrat rejects Christ, or that a true Christian cannot in good conscience vote for a liberal Democrat. However, the materialist vision of reality, and thus the appropriate role of government in society, heavily influences the policies of many Democrats, including all nine Democrats running for President in 2004.

Partisan Differences on Gay Marriage and Abortion
Under progressive principles, since God does not exist, man consequently controls his own destiny, and man thus has the ability to choose how to best order his life. Man need not allow "outmoded" biblical principles to stand between him and his capacity to engineer a new society as he sees fit. The issue of homosexual marriage illustrates the consequences of this progressive vision. Christians know that God established marriage between one man and one woman and condemns homosexuality as a sinful abomination on par with adultery, idolatry, and theft.

Progressives see nothing wrong with homosexual behavior and see no reason why they should not re-order society by allowing homosexuals to marry. Three Democrats campaigning for president support full gay marriage and the remaining six favor creating legal civil unions between homosexuals, which would grant homosexuals all the legal incidents of marriage, withholding only the formal name marriage. By contrast, President Bush opposes both these initiatives. A servant of Christ should carefully consider the implications of voting for any of the Democratic presidential candidates in 2004. While the government cannot reshape a homosexual's heart - only Christ can - Christians should oppose using the government to extend special legal recognition and protection to such abhorrent behavior, or using the coercive power of the state to redefine and reshape the institution of marriage.

Similarly, the Christian view on access to abortion stems from the Christian understanding of the nature of man. Christians know that all humans have an eternal soul, are created in the image of God, and are created and known by God in the womb, before birth. In the words of David "You knit me together in my mother's womb." (3) We are all children of God, and even unborn human life possesses intrinsic moral worth. Children in the womb have souls, given to them by God, and no man or woman has the right to terminate that life, regardless of how unpleasant the consequences of carrying the child to term might be. To the Christian, abortion is murder and must be outlawed, as all other forms of murder are. Progressives are not bound by this understanding. In their eyes, humans derive much of their worth not from God, but from their power to reason, and an unborn child who lacks this faculty can thus be aborted with a clear conscience.

Every Democratic nominee for President in the past two decades has supported legal abortion on demand. In 2004, all nine Democratic candidates have pledged, if elected, to appoint Supreme Court justices who will uphold Roe v. Wade and ensure that the courts will continue to find a "right" to abortion in the "penumbras and emanations" of the constitution. President Bush, on the other hand, supports the right of the unborn child to his or her life, and has promised to appoint Supreme Court justices in the mold of Justices Scalia and Thomas - who both oppose Roe v. Wade. Any Christian should carefully consider his actions before he or she votes for a candidate who pledges to allow over one million American children to be legally aborted every year.

This is not to condemn Christians for voting for liberal candidates, or to say that the Bible commands the followers of Christ to vote for conservative Republicans. Nonetheless, many Democrats, irrespective of their personal faith, support policies grounded in the progressive philosophy - policies which Christians have a duty to oppose. The state remains secular and separate from the Kingdom of Christ, but it should not permit the murder of a million children a year, or redefine marriage to embrace homosexuality. Sincere Christians who support progressive candidates should prayerfully consider the wisdom of that decision.

High Stakes, Real Opportunity
Christians can and do exert real influence at the ballot box. Exit polls from the 2000 election indicated that the more frequently a voter attended worship services, the more likely they were to vote for Bush. Voters who attended church more than once a week voted for Bush by a margin of 63% - 36%. Voters who never attend worship services voted for Gore by 61% to 32%, and 6% for Nader. In fact, after ethnicity, church attendance is the best demographic indicator of which candidate a voter will select - ahead of income, age, and gender.(4)

Many Christians feel that they cannot affect the America in today's secular society. They see themselves surrounded by a culture that embraces sin and rejects God, and wonder how they can possibly do anything about it. Ultimately, they are right - only God working through the Holy Spirit can change men's hearts. Yet, the Lord can also use Christians to fight abominations like legal abortion and homosexual "marriage."

Enhancing the opportunity for Christians, America's political system provides them with the ability to disproportionately influence the outcome of elections. While nearly all adult Americans have the right to vote in every election, many decide not to. In Presidential elections, only about half of all eligible Americans vote. That number drops to around one third in midterm elections. Every voter who turns out in a Presidential election effectively has two votes, and three in a midterm election. As such, a motivated minority that votes in large numbers can greatly affect the results of the election. With low voter turnout in America, getting supportive voters to the polls can have a greater effect than trying to sway the small minority of undecided voters. This is why senior citizens and NRA members have such political clout. They vote in disproportionately high numbers, and so politicians pay disproportionately high attention to their concerns. Christians could do the same, but in recently have chosen not to exercise this power.

The 2000 Presidential election ended in a near electoral stalemate, with President Bush winning the decisive state of Florida by only 537 votes, while three pro-life Republican Senators lost their seats by less than two percentage points. Based on voting patterns from 1996, Republican strategists expected 19 million evangelical conservatives to vote in 2000. In fact, only 15 million did so. A staggering four million Christians demonstrated their apathy and stayed home on Election Day. These Christians nearly handed the presidency to Al Gore, a man dedicated to keeping abortion legal and using the power of the state to de-stigmatize homosexuality. When Christians do not vote, they sanction the election of candidates such as Gore.

Christians who have not registered to vote should do so. American Christian organizations, such as Priests for Life and the Christian Coalition, have joined to launch "National Christian Voter Registration Sundays" on Sept. 7 and Nov. 9 in 2003 and Jan. 18, 2004. For Christians who have registered to vote, they should remember to go to the polls on Election Day. Christians have a duty to oppose the progressive effort to use the coercive power of the state to reshape society in man's image.

2. Whittaker Chambers, Witness, ©1952, Regnery Publishing Inc., pages 9-10. In this passage Chambers was speaking specifically of Communism, but he later explains that liberals and progressives also share this vision.

3. Psalm 139:13(NIV).

4. Voter News Service 2000 election exit poll, available from CNN online at http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2000/epolls/US/P000.html