A Christian's Guide to Vote

It’s one week away from Super Tuesday 2024, where Americans will cast their votes to give their voice on who should lead our country, what resources will be used to do it, and what policies we will embrace. This is a freedom that many people in the world today and throughout history do not have so how should we approach the voting process as a Christian?

IS VOTING A BIBLICAL MANDATE?

A popular trend circulating around social media in many evangelical and Christian circles is that voting is a biblical mandate and God requires it of all Christians. No Pastor or church can claim to have perfect theology and know every interpretation and every answer to get from the Bible. With that said I am pretty convicted and comfortable making the unpopular to some statement that voting is not biblically required. I have yet to find a chapter and verse that says Christians HAVE to vote. With that said, you are not a bad Christian if you do not vote, but you are a bad American citizen. Can you be a bad American citizen and still be saved by Jesus Christ and spend eternity in a new heaven and new earth? Absolutely. But, I also believe we can be a good American citizen, vote and do so in a Christian way, so what does that look like:

1.   Pray for Guidance

This may sound so simple, but I have often not given enough time and effort to it in many election cycles. All over scripture, we see examples of Joshua, David, Daniel, Paul, and so many others seeking God’s wisdom and guidance before making tough decisions. Jesus has promised us the Holy Spirit to guide us, so why would we neglect the wisdom of our God that is so readily available to us when we are faced with choices that have big consequences?

2.   Educate Yourself on Issues

The reason why we vote on people and policies is because there are big issues inside our society that need to be addressed. If you do a Google search you are going to see a myriad of issues that our country is facing that voters are concerned about and want to have a voice in the action being taken. From abortion to immigration to healthcare to the economy to crime to climate change to gun control to gender affirmation and so much more, it’s unwise to think we can stick our heads in the sand and ignore what our communities are going through. The reality is we need to read about what our country, our cities, and our communities are facing and educate ourselves on what we believe about them.

3.   Use the Bible as Your Greatest Lens

Here’s the hardest part is its easy to let a news source, an influencer, a political party, or another source be your voice and your identity for what you believe about all issues. In the internet age we have become less educated on a wide-range of beliefs and more dug into our silos because we just find people who reinforce the bias we have. What true bible study and discipleship does is chip away our sinful and fleshly biases and shows us what Gods way truly looks like. When we make the bible a lamp unto our feet as the Psalmist writes then we start to see issues through God’s eyes and not just our political affiliation.

4.   Vote with Your Christian Conscience

The beautiful part of Christianity is that Jesus’ death on the Cross and resurrection from the grave makes salvation available to all. So Jesus died for Democrats, Independents, Republicans, and everything in between. So even though we are saved by the same grace and we are being transformed by the same Holy Spirit and the same Word of God, we may have different interpretations of how God’s love applies to America in 2024. The Bible was written across thousands of years in a completely different social context so applying it to a Democratic Republic in a digital age is not always a straightforward task. We have a duty that as we interact in our communities, in a political landscape, and through a voting process that we do so in a Christ-like manner, but we need to allow grace for a Christian brother and sister to disagree with our Christian conscience applied to American politics.

5.   Remember Who is in Charge

This is probably the hardest for us to accept because we want to be on the right side of history, we want to be on the winning side of the present. So if a candidate we vote for loses or a prop we vote for fails, does it mean that God is not in control and that we are losing ground? Absolutely not! God has always been sovereign and God always will be sovereign! God was in control when Daniel lived in Babylon, Paul lived in Rome, and when we live in America so if things don’t go our way, we don’t get worried or scared, we trust in the unfailing plan of the God of the Universe.

As a good American citizen, go out and vote this week. As a Christian, vote as someone who has been saved by Jesus and continuously transformed by the Holy Spirit, but after you cast that vote, remember that God the Father also sovereignly reigns over the entire universe...a universe that includes the United States of America.