OPINION:
As one who has spent much of my life working with grassroots Christian activists, I am up to here with secular journalists, Hollywood producers and religious pundits commenting on evangelical Christians and their opinions on matters of elections and government.
Articles and news stories abound about which candidate evangelicals will — and should or should not — support in this year’s presidential primaries and caucuses. Journalists are adept at eliciting opinions and quotes from these voters as to who they (or perhaps even God) want to win. I suggest my fellow evangelical voters be more circumspect and circumscribed when speaking for God.
Christians throughout American history have voted for candidates who they felt would best govern America, and all of those candidates have been sinners — none perfect — all in need of redemption by the blood of Jesus Christ. Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison owned other human beings, for goodness’ sake.
And Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson made a mockery of their marriage vows.
No president is perfect, and none ever will be.
Can God use a government official to effect his purposes? Of course. Scripture and history provide many examples: Joseph, Moses, Deborah, Daniel, Cyrus, Lincoln, Churchill, Havel; the list goes on. And the opposite is true as well. Evil leaders have persecuted God’s people.
But does God “anoint” any one candidate over others? I think not. His anointing, rather, is on his followers to represent God as they live their lives. God’s candidate, therefore, would be the American voter himself or herself and the positive effect we can have on the rest of the world, including choosing the best leaders we can.
The Washington Post had a recent article saying that Christians feel “a lot of times” that the government is not their friend. I agree, but this is not new. The government has always been out to get God’s people, dating back to the Crucifixion itself, as government despises any threat to its power. If you don’t believe the government is out to hamper active faith, just ask Christian adoption and foster care agencies.
In his first letter to Timothy, the Apostle Paul encouraged his readers to “pray for those in authority … that you might lead a quiet and peaceful life” (emphasis mine); i.e., that their leaders would do a good job and, basically, not persecute them. Paul’s readers lived under totalitarian Roman rule, and thus, prayer was their only recourse against evil government.
Today, I feel confident Paul would encourage good citizenship, including and beyond prayer, just as he relied on his own Roman citizenship to enable his ministry for Jesus. Why pray for a leader and not exercise your constitutional right to help choose that leader?
Do those who write about evangelicals even understand the people or the term? The word evangelical comes from the Greek “good news.” Paul wrote that he was “not ashamed of the good news. It is the power of God for salvation” (Romans 1:16). And Paul shared that good news with all his heart, all his mind, all his soul, and yes, with persecution, with all his body.
Please do not define me or my fellow evangelicals in terms of how we vote. We follow Jesus Christ, not man. We live by the Bible, but we want the country governed by the Constitution. Jesus will never be on the ballot. We have to choose the person who we think will best govern America.
And if we support one candidate over others or dislike one more than others, then perhaps it is as simple as seeing (or not) something in a person’s policies on which we find agreement.
On the other hand, if we favor a mixed slate of candidates, please do not interpret that as a division among evangelicals as a whole when it’s simply preferring different candidates.
Finally, should anyone, evangelicals included, conclude that God is on the side of any candidate? In advising my fellow believers or answering that question for myself, I would rather follow the lead of one of our most outspoken Christian presidents, Abraham Lincoln: “My concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side.”
• Joel Vaughan is chief of staff at Focus on the Family.
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