To me, that a Christian should vote is axiomatic.  Several key points: 

(1) As Christians we are privileged to live in a democratic-republic, where the citizens vote to elect representatives who make the law by which we are governed.  In normal circumstances, failure to vote “is to abandon one’s share of responsibility for the maintenance of the state as a just state and therefore a dereliction of one’s duty as a Christian.” 

(2) The Christian should keep as fully and reliably informed as possible concerning the political, social and economic issues of the day.  This necessitates careful reading of newspapers, critical listening to TV and radio broadcasts and engaging in reasoned and balanced discussions about these major issues.

(3) Christians should engage in a critical evaluation of government, its policies, and its agents in light of God’s revelation.  The Bible becomes the grid through which the Christian evaluates the state’s actions and policies; the believer is willing to call the state to righteousness in light of God’s Word. 

(4) The Christian should work for just and righteous laws and oppose those policies and decisions that are unjust and unrighteous.  Working for justice and righteous in government at all levels is part of our calling as Christians. 

To provide the maximum impact for righteousness in government, a proper and balanced perspective is needed.  This necessitates ridding ourselves of what Chuck Colson calls a “starry-eyed view of political power.”  Some Christians think that by marshaling a Christian voting bloc, Christ’s kingdom on earth can be established.  The external and limited good that political power can achieve should not be confused with the internal and infinite good that God’s grace produces.  Further, there is danger in what Colson calls the “political illusion,” the notion that all human problems can be solved by political institutions.  This belief is idolatrous because the Bible declares that the root problem of society is spiritual.  What the Christian seeks through government is justice, not power.  Our goal is to move the culture toward the righteousness of God’s revelation.  The job of total spiritual transformation is the role of Christ, through the church, not the state. 

How then does the Christian decide what to support and what to reject in politics?  How does one decide whom to support in elections?  For what kinds of laws should the believer work and fight?  There are five major principles that can guide Christians as they make such decisions:

1. The preeminence of religious liberty.  Any candidate or legislation that restricts the practice of religious faith should be resisted.

2. The protection of life as sacred.  Candidates or legislation that treat life frivolously or that seek to destroy it (e.g., abortions, euthanasia, infanticide) should be resisted and defeated.

3. Provision of justice for all.  Candidates and legislation must reflect God’s concern for justice and equity.  The book of Amos is convincing evidence that God desires government to promote laws that protect the poor and disadvantaged from exploitation and oppression.
 
4. Preservation of the traditional family.  One of the clear teachings of the Bible is that the family is a critical institution to God.  Legislation that negatively impacts the family should be rejected.  For example, tax legislation that promotes single-parent families or penalizes a father for living with his family is counterproductive.  The promotion of same-sex marriages runs counter to God’s revelation and should be rejected.

5. The promotion of Judeo-Christian values in education and legislation.  For example, values of honesty, integrity, personal responsibility, and accountability can be easily undermined by a leader who wantonly lies and shows disrespect for the law.  Fraud, bribery, and corruption undermine public trust and confidence and are terribly destructive.  Education must reinforce the values of parents and not undermine their authority (Deut. 6:1-10).

Christians, then, as salt and light (Matt. 5:13-16), should seek to effect righteous change in the culture through the political process, not because the kingdom comes from Washington, but because God expects us to be serving and waiting (1 Thess. 1:9-10).  Christians walk a careful balance between understanding the Christian obligation toward the state and seeking to influence that state for righteousness and justice.  The two spheres of the Christian’s life--the church and the state--must be kept in balance.  Each has a divine job to do; neither should encroach upon the responsibility of the other.

See James P. Eckman, Biblical Ethics: Choosing Right from Wrong in a World Gone Wrong (Crossway, 2004), pp. 56-58.

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ELECTIONS, LAW AND POLITICS

As we approach election day on 2 November, all indications are that there will be legal challenges to the process.  The result might be that we will not know who is the next president that night.  Further, there may be multiple Florida’s this year.  How should we think about this?  Several thoughts.

• First, that there are imperfections in voting is a given.  There will be probably 110 million votes cast on 2 November.  The charges about these imperfections and difficulties are couched in the language of liberalism: talk about voters’ rights, but no talk about voters’ responsibilities and dark warnings of victimization—“disenfranchisement and intimidation.”  The issue again in Florida is the punch card system of voting.  Only 12.4% of America’s registered voters live in jurisdictions that use punch-card systems of the sort Florida made famous in 2000.  For example, there are 72% of registered voters in Ohio that will use punch card systems.  George Will writes, “Granted, punch-card systems, like everything else in life, are not infallible.  They can--remember Florida’s hanging and dimpled chads--inadequately record the intent of the voter, particularly one who is careless about the task of handling the simple punch-card mechanism. . . .  How does invalidating such a vote constitute, as is now commonly said, ‘disenfranchisement’?  When poll taxes, meretricious literacy tests, hostile sheriffs and mobs stood between blacks and ballots, blacks were disenfranchised.  To be disenfranchised is to have something done to you, not to do something to yourself.”  Will concludes: “Can liberals accept that an undervote usually reflects either voter carelessness, for which the voter suffers the condign punishment of an unrecorded preference, or reflects the voter’s choice not to express a preference?  No, otherwise they would not be liberals: obsessive about rights, blind to responsibilities.”  Last Monday, a Colorado judge upheld a new requirement that voters are responsible for producing identification before being allowed to vote.  And Florida’s Supreme Court rejected the argument that voters are disenfranchised when provisional ballots they cast in the wrong precincts are not counted.  Conclusion: Voters are responsible for proving who they are and knowing where they are supposed to vote.  Finally, the courts are linking voting rights with voters’ responsibilities. 

See George Will, Washington Post (21 October 2004).

• Second, many experts are now predicting that this election could be shaping up to be the most litigious in US history.  Richard Hansen, election law professor at Loyola Law School in LA, argues, “Bush v. Gore really let the genie out of the bottle.  Election law has become just another part of the political strategy of the parties.”  Nationwide the Democrats have more than 10,000 lawyers standing by at the polls in battleground states to identify and address voting problems, particularly in the heavily minority precincts that saw a disproportionate number of ballots discarded in 2000.  About 2,000 lawyers will be stationed in Florida alone!  Republicans say they will have lawyers covering 30,000 precincts who will be prepared to challenge at the polls the eligibility of voters whose registrations seem suspect.  The GOP has assigned its state party organizations to lead the effort.  But this effort is not confined to the two parties.  A coalition of civil rights groups has put together an “Election Protection” program to deploy 6,000 lawyers and law students to assist minority voters.  The Republican National Lawyers Association has trained about 1,000 lawyers to watch out for unlawful activities at the polls.  We are facing the strong possibility of a growing electoral chaos in our democratic republic.  We demand perfection and we demand meticulous scrutiny of our electoral process.  But the reality is that we have fifty different states and the District of Columbia running the elections, something prescribed by the US Constitution.  (Elections are a function of the states.)  But there is no uniformity and the whole process depends in most states on volunteers.  As a nation, if we are going to insist on perfection, then we must amend the US Constitution, mandate national standards for all polling places, man those stations with certified lawyers, and pay them.  There is no possibility of attaining perfection in the electoral process.  To couch all electoral issues in terms of voters’ rights and ignore voters’ responsibilities is to set an electoral standard that is impossible to achieve.  Chaos is the potential future of our democracy. 

See Jo Becker, Washington Post (20 October 2004).

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BILL O’REILLY: GUILTY OR INNOCENT

Fox news star Bill O’Reilly has been charged with sexual harassment.  Andrea Mackris, who was once O’Reilly’s associate producer, has accused her former boss of pressuring her to have telephone sex with him.  She says O’Reilly repeatedly made these requests both in person and over the phone, conversations which she apparently recorded.  Two comments:

• First, if the allegations are true, there is no excuse.  His behavior is reprehensible.  According to her account, he said he would destroy any woman who retaliated against him.  Her charges give the appearance of a man drunk with power and with fame.  He used both to get what he wanted, even in sexual power.  The picture is one of an all-powerful man taking advantage of a totally powerless woman.

• Second, there are some serious caveats about this case.  Consider these facts: On 13 April 2004 Mackris went to O’Reilly’s hotel room to watch the President’s press conference on the TV.  At that time she was not even working for Fox, but CNN.  In fact, in the telling of her story, she went back to work at Fox and got both a choice assignment and a salary increase because she was the object of O’Reilly’s fantasies.  She argues that a quid pro quo existed.  But there is absolutely no evidence that she ever went to Fox’s human resources department to complain about O’Reilly.  Columnist Richard Cohen, contends, “She never seemed to realize that by not complaining and, more specifically, by going to dinner with him, to his hotel room, and then, upon returning to Fox News, accepting assignments and a salary increase not given to others, she was hardly telling O’Reilly that she found his behavior thoroughly repugnant, as she says in her lawsuit.”  Cohen continues, “lawsuits such as Mackris’s infantilize women.  They portray women totally as victims, without remedy or recourse at their disposal.  It insults common sense.  It rewrites nature. . . . If [O’Reilly] did it, it is wrong--just plain wrong.  But it is also wrong to be even a bit complicit and then act as if she played no role whatsoever in the oldest game known to mankind.”

See Cohen’s editorial in Washington Post (21 October 2004).

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