OPINION: Vote how you think is best, but watch your mouth in discussion

Years ago I remember reading a book by Elisabeth Elliot (Through Gates of Splendor?  Passion and Purity?)  in which she describes her future husband’s devotional life. Almost in passing, she mentions his decision that he would not vote in elections. I remember thinking at the time that it was a silly, almost irresponsible take on how to live as a Christian in the United States. Why on earth would someone abstain from voting? Aren’t we called to do what we can to bring God’s kingdom here? In the last 20 years, though, that perspective has started to make a little more sense to me. Political rhetoric has grown increasingly ugly to the point where we tolerate insults and vocabulary words out of leaders that would have earned us a mouthful of soap or a trip to HR. It’s one thing for a word to escape out of frustration, pain, or despair. It’s another altogether to utter a word, vulgar or not, that demeans another person. Jesus declared, “...And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell.” (Matthew 5:21, NLT). Those words alone ought to give us pause when voicing our disagreements.

Somehow along the way a large percentage of voters who claim Jesus as their Lord decided that we face an evil so great that we must ignore the very words of Christ to fight it. We’ve decided that his teachings are too weak for the times we face.  Love your neighbor: the parable of the Good Samaritan gives feet to that command. If that’s not clear, later in Matthew 5 Jesus even says we are to love our enemies. I have a feeling that a political party based on loving one’s enemies would gain very little traction. No, there’s a sense that we’re facing too great an evil to trust Jesus’ teaching with our politics.  It’s wrong.

Why do we think that the challenges we face individually and collectively cannot be solved unless we ignore Jesus? I don’t have a good answer. I’m not arguing that we must follow Jim Eliot’s example and disavow the political process altogether. We have the freedom to influence the way our region and nation organizes itself. I’m not going to argue that voting for or against a candidate is the only faithful option. It’s not for me to write off millions of people who hold similar beliefs to mine because they understand faithfulness in civic duty differently than I do.

It’s not for me to tell anyone who to vote for; I know that most people are trying to be faithful as best they understand faithfulness. I am worried, though, about how easily we ignore the hardest commands of Jesus while trying to impose our understanding of faithfulness on others. He aimed his harshest language at people who used religion as a means to seek power and at people who ignored the needs of their neighbors. The question isn’t whether or not we help our neighbors, it’s how we think that’s best accomplished. We can’t work together to make our world better if our mouths are full of vulgar insults for people who disagree with us.

I fear we’ve backed ourselves into thinking we only ever have two options. We never have to hold our nose and vote; there’s always a write-in option. We never have to vote straight down a ticket; there’s usually someone from another party (or an independent) who is better qualified for an office than the candidate from our preferred party. We never have to shrug our shoulders helplessly; there’s always a way to hold leaders accountable for their behavior. When the Son of Man comes in all his glory, I don’t think he’s going to be impressed if we’ve already separated ourselves into right and left. Instead, Jesus will demand to know why we let any leader who shows none of the fruits of the Spirit convince us it was good and holy to ignore his words. Many Bible publishers include the words of Christ in red to highlight and honor his teaching. The words in red are the lens for understanding the words in black. We will never face an evil so great that we have permission to ignore Jesus, to decide that the red words are not applicable to this moment.

When the dust settles after yet another ugly, divisive political season, God will still be about the business of making all things new. We will still be called to love our neighbors, enemies, and friends. We will still be called to care for unlovely people because God loves them even when we don’t. We will still be called to allegiance to God’s kingdom despite what happens around us. If you’re like me, stuck in the miserable middle, take heart. Whenever we feel like we don’t know what to do, we have instructions on how to carry ourselves while we figure that out. I suggest starting with the red letters in the Gospels. 

Mary Beth Eberle is the pastor at Grace UMC.