Trinity Lutheran Church

For Whom Should Christians Vote?

I have been accused in the past of being too political in my sermons.  Interestingly enough, the people who agree with the teachings of Scripture never have a problem with what I say. It is always the people who have taken an anti-Biblical position in their political lives and then try to hide behind the division of Church and State to justify their sinful opinions. The reality is that the Scriptures say what the Scriptures say and sometimes a political party stands in defiance of what the Scriptures say. I don’t much care about political parties myself, but I do believe that every Christian is responsible to God to vote for people who will govern in a way that allows the Church to fulfill her Great Commission on this earth.  

This November will be an important time for the Church.  Christians need to get off their lazy keisters and vote for people who will make laws and enforce laws that protect and serve the Holy Christian Church.  Jesus told us to render onto Caesar what is Caesar’s and that means taking a prayerful and well-considered position at the polls. The people of Jesus’ day had no say in who Caesar was, but we do!  When you consider a candidate running for any office, don’t focus on who will give you the best tax advantage or who will make your life more comfortable in some way or another. Focus on who will do the following:

1. Enhance financial and political stability in this state, in this nation, and in the world.  The reason Christianity was so easily spread in the early days of the Church was the Pax Romana, The Roman Peace.  While Roman leaders were generally debaucherous pigs, they did an excellent job of creating a peace-filled world that was well-governed and well protected and, even though they did not intend this, they created a world that protected Christianity as a new intellectual idea. Of course, they later regretted that and tried to undo it with persecution but the camel already had his nose in the tent by then and they had to legalize Christianity in 313 AD.
2. Protect the rights of citizens to live their lives unimpeded by unnecessary governmental regulations so long as the laws of the land are obeyed. We neither want nor need politicians to be our nannies.  The purpose of the government is not to teach you how to live. That was your parent’s job and the duty of the Church. The government is to protect you from those who would impose their values on you by legislating your life. That is the beauty of the separation of Church and State. The State should preserve freedom of thought and personal practice in society and leave morality to the Church. In other words, in a free society, we do not need politicians telling us what kind of restrooms we should have in our public buildings or when or whether our children should be educated about LGBTQI+ issues.  In a free society, society will reflect the will of the majority and that is fair.  So, if people choose not to worship at Trinity or send their children to our preschool because we do not believe that children should choose their gender or because we do not embrace the LGBTQI+ agenda, that is their right and our issue with which to wrestle. It is not the purview of a politician or a judge to tell the Church how to address moral and religious issues.
3. Lead a life that is consistent with the norms and values God expects of all people, Christian or not.  So, if a politician is Muslim, I would not expect him to celebrate Easter, but I would expect him to defend my right to celebrate Easter. I would not expect him to eat a big breakfast during Ramadan or have hot dogs at the ballpark, but I would expect him to defend my right to do so. Finally, I would not expect him to be a perfect citizen, but I would expect him to be generally above reproach with respect to the way he treated people as defined in the Bill of Rights and by the common understanding of decency.
4. Be willing to die defending the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. I do not want a leader who is willing to set aside these foundational documents when they are either not convenient or not expedient for his agenda.  Our rights as Christians in this nation are inextricably connected to these two documents.  When leaders are cavalier with regard to them or treat them as historic oddities that are no longer relevant to the “modern world,” we Christians need to vote that leader out of office immediately. It does not matter if we agree with them on matters of policy, taxation, social justice, or whatever else. As soon as they begin to treat the Constitution and Bill of Rights with anything but complete reverence, out they should go because these documents are what legally protect our rights to live as Christians within this society.

So, when the Christian is considering the election coming in November, to take just the Illinois Gubernatorial race as an example, the question, for the Christian, is not whether Richard Irving will be tough on crime or not, or if Jesse Sullivan is a California carpetbagger, or if Governor Pritzker is really going to do something about the outrageously high taxes in Illinois. The question is which person do we believe will bring political and financial stability to Illinois so that we can more easily be about our business of proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus?  Which person will protect our individual rights to the death so that we are unimpeded by unnecessary governmental restrictions or bullied by vocal minorities with a non-Christian bias? Which person leads a life that best reflects the Christian values we are trying to instill into our children and grandchildren? And which person will defend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights whether their constituency or lobbyists like it or not. That is the person you should be voting for in November.  You may run a candidate through this metric and come out with a different name from your neighbor and that’s okay. None of us can see the future and none of us can see a candidate’s heart.  But I urge you to take some time to become informed about each candidate’s platform and think and pray before you vote because your vote is important for the work of the Church.