Sunday, October 12, 2008

to vote or not...

While many of my friends know for certain how they will vote, I struggle with if I should vote or not. It is clear that we cannot know what the facts are. As a Christian, my true citizenship is not that of America. It is not my goal to see that Government legislates morality according to my beliefs. On the other hand voting can be an opportunity to promote change. But then, I have voted in the past and not liked feeling responsible for what I cannot control. I feel like I made a choice and now the blood is on my hands.

What I do know is that I have got to be active in my primary citizenship of the Kingdom of God. In that system, we don't vote once every 4 years and then just live with the choice we make. We get to vote every day with the way we live our lives. Faith. Peace. Hope. Love. Freedom. We fight for those. We cannot forget that Love wins in the end. This had been determined. No matter what happens, or doesn't happen, our mission is to remind those around us, spread the good news and spend our lives telling people of the hope, the freedom, the love of Jesus Christ. We don't do that by voting in November. It's o.k. to ask Caesar to be in line with our mission, we get to do that if we want to. Beyond that, I believe that God is asking us, the Church - the people He calls His children- to be a part of the restoration He has begun. To care for the poor, spread the Good news, to love, to hope, to serve.

Gene and I are reading Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne. We just picked up a copy yesterday. Maybe you want to read it with us?


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. -Greg Boyd

1 comments:

Becky said...

Very interesting thoughts... did you guys end up voting? How was the book?

I have often struggled w/ the way I vote and people's perception of how a Christian should vote. I have often felt that I can't really share my political views because they don't necessarily match up w/ others perceptions of political figures a Christian should support. Anyways, an interesting post thanks for sharing!