Voting Outside the Poll Booth

November 4th. The big day is here. I have had so many people ask me how I'm voting this year. And to be honest, I'm not receiving a very favorable response to my answer: I'm not voting. At least not in a poll booth. I recognize that many of you who I deeply love will completely disagree with this choice. And that's okay. It's always good for us to think about other convictions and ideas. I just ask you to consider even as I have been considering. So, for all of you who have wanted to know, and for those of you who didn't, here's why:

I have had an increasing concern in recent years about the hope that the Christian right (of which I would have called myself a part) has placed in the government of man. I stand here today, dear Christian friends, sadly realizing that many of us have been deceived by misplaced hope. (http://www.gregboyd.org/blog/true-believers-and-the-religion-of-politics/)

Let me take the issue of abortion as an example. I am pro-life. That being said, I do not believe that voting pro-life makes me anymore pro-life than someone who votes pro-choice. How can I say that, you may ask? Well, what do I do to be pro-life outside of checking a box to support a governmental leader who is pro-life? How am I serving the Lord by being involved in the lives of unwanted children after they are rescued from abortions? Am I willing to take in a pregnant teenager whose parents kick her out and help her through a pregnancy? Being pro-life does not mean checking a box once every four years and considering my duty to stand for the sanctity of life complete. You see, beloved friends, our God's kingdom is upside down and it is evidenced in us not through using the top down, rule enforcement of the world's government, but through the self-sacrificing servanthood that Christ has called His disciples to live out on behalf of the world.

As believers in Christ, we know that we cannot legislate the human heart. Without revelation of the reality of our desperate state, we have hearts of stone, hardened to God and unable to please Him. Our nation, and truthfully, our American church, needs to see our desperate need for God to move in our individual and corporate lives and repent.

Now, don't get me wrong. I do not, by any means, think it is wrong to vote. I have just personally been convicted to exercise my kingdom authority in prayer this year, recognizing that I am not a citizen of this world or a member of this world's kingdom. My God is the God who establishes and deposes kings. No matter who rules our country, He reigns. And I want to live loving Him, knowing Him and making Him and His ways known as I wait for a better country where I am already a citizen.

...All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.
(Hebrews 11: 13-16)

My hope that the poor would be cared for comes not from the platform of any potential president but from my hope in Christ that He would remind His church of her calling to love and care for the poor and oppressed. My hope for the environment comes not from better policies, but from my hope that Christians like myself would be a good steward of that which God created and blessed us with. My hope for combating terrorism is not in military efforts, but in praying that God would send laborers into the harvest fields who would give their lives for Christ to be revealed. The solutions in God's kingdom may seem illogical and they may take a lot longer- especially if we, as the Church, do not wake up from our slumber. Guaranteed, they will take blood, sweat, tears, and persevering prayer. And, if I'm going to be brutally honest, I have a lot more faith that the government could change things than I do that the church will. But I have hope, dear friends. Hope that we as the church will once again give Jesus everything and stop living like our comfortable lives of luxury are really what He intended. I don't say these things lightly. This conviction and process begins with me.

I found great wisdom (and honestly, tremendous conviction) in this quote from Pastor Greg Boyd: "How we need to be freed from the illusion that we’re doing anything kingdom by voting a certain way every couple years! How we need to wake up to the truth that we vote for or against the Kingdom every day of our life. We vote by how we spend our money and time. We vote by where we live, who we hang out with, the kind of car we drive and the kind of clothes we wear. In the Kingdom, we vote with our lives, not in a booth expressing our opinion about what Caesar should do." (http://www.gregboyd.org/blog/)

The hope for America is not in Obama or McCain. It is in the repentance of the church of Jesus Christ. We have forgotten our mission and have been lukewarm about our Lord. May we humble ourselves, fall on our knees, and cry out to God for mercy, that He might heal our waywardness and the wickedness of our land.