Why vote? A vision for formation and faithful presence
’Tis the season, everybody! And these are the season’s greetings we hear echoing from yard decor to social media to the thousand texts per day we’re all receiving on our phones to the mountain of mailers stacked on our kitchen counters:
“Make your voice heard!”
“Protect democracy!”
“Your vote matters!”
“Be the change!”
“Exercise your right!”
“Every vote counts!”
“If you don’t vote, you can’t complain!”
Some of these slogans may move you more than others, but I think we have a reason to vote beyond these. Our participation in the electoral process 1) forms us and 2) trains us. Now, into whose image we are formed and toward what end we are trained may vary widely, but the fact is that the act of voting is shaping each voter into a person with a certain vision of who they are and what should be called “good.”
I often find my heart turning toward Psalm 37 when election season rolls around. Verse 3 in particular has given me a vision for what “faithful presence” (a term coined by James Davison Hunter, I believe) can look like: “Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land, and befriend faithfulness.”
Jesus embodied perfectly this dance of trust and action, letting yourself be fully in the place where you are in a way that is faithful to God, who he is and the ways of his Kingdom, and not of this world. So this year, as in the past several years, in preparation for researching ballot initiatives and candidates, I go verse by verse through Ps. 37 in prayer, considering Jesus’s words and his life, death, and resurrection, and ask:
Where is fear welling up in me in response to what is going on in the world and in my community? (v. 1)
How have I trusted in you and done good in the land I’m dwelling in *outside* of voting? (v. 3)
What would it look like for me to “befriend” or “cultivate” faithfulness? Where are you wanting to break up some hard ground? (v.3)
Where am I tempted to put action before trust? (v. 5)
What would waiting on you look like in a political context? (v. 7)
What issues, ballot measures, attitudes in the public square, etc. make me angry? (v. 8)
What would meekness look like in public square? Do I actually believe it could lead to abundant peace, and whose definition of peace am I working from? (v. 11)
What “arrows” are pointed at the poor and needy in my community? (v. 14)
What do I seek as my heritage? (v. 18)
Where are you growing me in generosity toward my family? Church? Neighbors? Community? (v. 21)
How is your faithfulness bringing joy and blessing? (v. 25-26)
Are there places where I am grasping for my inheritance in you without submitting to your ways? (v. 34)
As I look to the whole story of Jesus, what do I see as the “future for the man of peace?” (v. 37)
Who or what is my refuge? (v. 40)
Am I making this voting thing harder than it needs to be? Guys, that’s a real possibility. Ask anyone who knows me well: I am very, very good at that.
But I truly believe that we are being invited into something more than scanning our ballots looking only for R’s and D’s or holding always/never positions on tax issues and ballot initiatives. Rather, we can know the Risen Christ as he meets us in the stuff of our everyday lives, including, on this particular day at least, filling out our ballots.
Is voting also a privilege, a responsibility, a civic duty, and a cause for thanks? Absolutely! Not every person living in America or every believer around the world has access to this kind of engagement, and I am grateful. But voting can be more than that. If voting is a practice that can give me the opportunity to not just to make my voice heard but to consider who Jesus is and what he is doing in my heart and in the world, then I will take the slow and more complex route of civic engagement. Perhaps the circles will all be filled in the same way in the end, or perhaps not. But if formation into the image of Christ is the goal of the Christian life, then let’s not leave a single part of our lives unyielded to the Potter’s hand.
In tandem with formation, voting also trains us in a vision of what is good and how we move through the world in pursuit of that vision. And in seeking obedience to Christ and an ever-deepening allegiance to his Kingdom, I find voting to be a helpful tool in training my eyes, heart, and hands toward what he calls good.
Volumes have been written on the concept of “the common good” throughout history (and I’m happy to recommend a few or point you toward people who are thinking deeply about this, if you’re interested), so I won’t elaborate a ton on that concept or its centrality to how the Church has historically operated in the public square. I’m more interested in how the activities of community (voting being just one extension of faithful presence in that context) can enliven this vision of the common good.
I have found that voting each April and November—especially in “off-year” elections where the bulk of the ballot is local statutes and amendments and tax issues rather than high-profile candidacies—is an excellent regular practice in listening to various perspectives and considering the good of your neighbor (including your actual neighbors, the people in parts of town you don’t often find yourself in, and your nearest neighbors: the people in your own household) in light of the wisdom of the kingdom of God.
Does that sometimes feel a little lofty when you’re voting for the incumbent county surveyor who is running unopposed or whether some judges from the State’s 18th District should be reassigned to the newly created 23rd District (which are both issues that appeared on our ballot)? Yeah, it does. It’s not all flashy or newsworthy or divisive on Election Day. But I think this careful consideration when voting helps us gain skills of observation and discernment and imagination and—yes—even love that are needed to lean into the needs of those around us on the other 363 days a year in more meaningful and tangible ways that lead to the flourishing of our neighbors. This is part of what it means to be a faithful presence of the kingdom in our communities.
As God’s people we can reach for faithful presence with joy rather than grasping for political power or influence through the means of the world because we know we are not the ones who are ultimately driving or defining flourishing—God is. Yet we believe that every moment is vibrating with the possibility of releasing that flourishing into our places of influence. This compels us to action while avoiding ditches of either shoulder-shrugging fatalism (which around election time often come out sideways as appeals to God’s sovereignty) or a Sartrean existentialism that would define a person merely by their actions.
Do we who are in Christ vote only so that we have a right to complain when things get worse or to make our own voice heard? No. We engage in the work of community—voting included—so that we might become more like him, and in being like him represent together a fuller picture of him to the world as we work and pray for its flourishing in view of the day when God will redeem, renew, and restore all things.