A Personal Investigation into the Morality of Voting
“IN”, but “not OF”. These are the two contexts in which a disciple of Christ lives – IN the world; but not OF the world. (John 17:13-19) For more than two thousand years the Church has struggled to understand what this actually means; and has also struggled to discern how to actually live faithfully in these contexts – the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the World.
We don’t have voting rights in the heavenly realm. Voting is an activity in the kingdom of the World. Yet we also live in the Kingdom of God. This essay is not intended to give the “official” Christian stance on voting. Nor is its intention to stir up controversy and offense. But, rather, it is an honest, personal investigation of the following questions: For a disciple of Christ, is voting moral, immoral? Or, is voting a matter of “faith which you have as your own conviction before God”? (Romans 14:22)
However, what is shared in the Postscript I do believe is “what the Spirit is saying to the churches”; and therefore, I speak it in faith; and am open to it being spiritually judged according to the New Testament scriptures. “It is written: ‘I believed; therefore, I have spoken.’ Since we have that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak.” (2 Corinthians 4:13, Cf. Psalm 116:10)
