I made this image for my last how to vote in 11 not easy steps post; it still seems relevant…
It’s funny that in the context of a big sermon in Matthew’s Gospel on how people are going to persecute Christians for being different, that talks about loving our enemies and praying for those who persecute us, and turning the other cheek, Jesus teaches people to pray the most political prayer ever. It’s funny that our politicians pray this prayer when parliament sits too (and they should probably stop it). It goes like this. You might know it.
“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.’ — Matthew 6:9-13
Your kingdom come… your will be done…
Makes voting simple. Right?
This prayer should shape our politics, as Christians, because it should shape our ethics (the sermon on the mount is a picture of what the life of the king of God’s kingdom looks like; and this prayer is one that king, Jesus, ultimately answers — he also calls us to take up our cross and follow him). Because this should shape our politics, it should also shape our engagement in something like a non-compulsary, non-binding, postal survey about marriage in our nation.
But first, a note on why I’m putting this out there…
Lots of Christian leaders are handing out how to vote advice while saying at the same time they’re not seeking to ‘bind people’s consciences’ (though it appears that means something quite different to people to what I think it means). Their how to vote advice has, so far, exclusively been what to vote advice. I said in a recent post that I wouldn’t be telling people how to vote; but I think I missed an important distinction, I think there are things to be said about how we approach voting as Christians that are potentially good and wise things to put out there; I certainly won’t be telling people in my church what to vote; not from me, not from anybody else.
This sort of advice and its relationship to your conscience gets confusing in different church polity structures; there’s a question of how much a congregation member or attendee needs to be bound by doctrinal positions of a church; and how to understand those doctrinal positions, and how much a ‘how to vote’ approach is consistent with a church’s polity, let alone their theology. Senior figures from the Baptist Church, the Anglican Church, and the Presbyterian Church have all issued statements consistent with being part of the coalition for marriage; and those statements have different bindingness in both the theology of these churches and the polity they represent. It’s interesting times…
I assume, on any given Sunday, that barely anybody in my congregation knows what ‘Presbyterian’ means when it comes to our governance; they’re with us because they love Jesus and we’re on about Jesus, they come from a variety of backgrounds — whether they’re Iranian asylum seekers, new converts, people who’ve relocated to Brisbane from around Australia or the world looking for churches, or people who’ve grown up Presbyterian who do hold to reformed theology, but love the way it’s the Gospel that gets centre stage in our community; and that we’re able to gather with quite an eclectic bunch where a plurality of theological views are held alongside our unity in Jesus. Plus I assume there’s going to be a bunch of people with us on a Sunday still figuring out how with us they are, and what they think about this Jesus thing. We’re a church that is seeing people decide to follow Jesus from pretty diverse and extreme positions. This means I’m never going to read out an ‘official position’ statement and assume that anybody but I should hold it (if it’s a question of doctrine), and our polity as Presbyterians means we’re able to make this call as a church (led by our senior pastor). This is true for all other Presbyterian Ministers who are ‘moderators’ of their own church gatherings. We do not have bishops. Our committees are not bishops. Our assemblies are not bishops. How we respond to issues and moderate our communities, while holding to the doctrine and oaths we’ve sworn is not quite so simple as it is in a top down form of church government (think Anglican or Catholic).
People want short soundbite advice and easy conclusions; a one page thing to handout in church or chuck on a website; a simple directive… something accessible. I believe that actually becomes unhelpful both in how it helps people to come to their own conclusion based on conscience (ultimately, belief in what is Godly or not); and in how we then participate in a conversation beyond the soundbite. In West Wing terms, for fans, it’s all well and good until somebody says ‘what’s the next ten words’…
I know there are lots of Presbyterians, and lots of people in my congregation, thinking through how to vote (and asking for advice). So here’s my advice on how to vote (different to the last post where I laid out why I’m not telling people what to vote, in my next ‘how to’ post I’ll talk about how to participate in the conversation). I think you can follow these steps and end up with a variety of positions on the plebiscite; but these are the things I think we should be weighing up. As Christians.
- Consider your vote prayerfully.
Knowing that God isn’t just the creator, but the sustainer of all things — who works through governments for his purposes, even as he hardens the hearts of these governments in judgment, or uses them to promote good and restrain evil. Pray to God for his wisdom, that he would be merciful, and for the sake of your neighbours. Pray that his kingdom might come (you know, the Lord’s Prayer), and then live as though your life is shaped by that prayer. There’s a great irony that this prayer is prayed by our parliament before it sits — I agree with those who say it shouldn’t be; because I don’t think our politicians are in a position to work towards it being answered the way God answers it in the death and resurrection of Jesus and the launch of his kingdom; the church. - Consider your vote knowing that if you’re a Christian, Jesus is your king and you are a citizen of heaven.
You live as a dual citizen, or a foreigner, whose first allegiance is to Jesus. This is what it looks like to live the Lord’s Prayer — his kingdom coming as you live for Jesus and encourage others to do the same. This doesn’t present issues if you’re a Christian in terms of our Aussie constitution — our government doesn’t recognise this dual citizenship; but you must. - Consider your participation in our democracy carefully.
Marriage is a big deal. How we engage politically is a big deal. And this is more complicated than an arbitrary black/white view of the world allows. We live in a parliamentary democracy. Consider how parliament should be making decisions for a diverse community. We live in a secular democracy where our constitution says there is no established religion (s116), and we generally consider this a good thing because, for example, it means we’re not a Catholic country, and our head of state is not also the head of a church (though the Queen technically is the head of the Church of England, so, umm…). This stuff — the nature of our political reality — matters more than some voices suggest it does. Different people have different ideas about how democracy functions, and how we should function in it as a Christian; don’t vote blind on this. Consider how you want others treating democracy when it comes to your citizenship, when thinking about how your citizenship should be exercised for their sake too. - Consider your participation as a Christian carefully.
What does your faith require of you? I’d say we’re people who follow Jesus as king, who live for his kingdom as members of his kingdom, and so we seek to follow his example and his commands. We also want our neighbours to become disciples because that’s the chief good for them. How might our vote (and our conversations around the vote) best serve those ends; not just support a secondary good thing, like marriage, but present and pursue the primary good — people knowing Jesus. Jesus says some very clear things about marriage and how our sexuality is shaped by participation in the kingdom (Matthew 19); but it’s not immediately clear how these words about life in the kingdom apply to our neighbours who aren’t yet citizens of heaven (which, we believe, comes with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit). How might the Lord’s Prayer apply to your vote and actions? What best serves the fulfilment of that prayer being not people living as though they belong to the kingdom when they don’t, but people following Jesus as Lord and King. - Consider your vote in terms of what the Bible says and expects of people who do and don’t worship God
The Bible pretty much begins with marriage, and it ends with marriage. God makes people and gives us marriage as a way (not the only way) to fulfil his command to be fruitful and multiply. Marriage is part of God’s design for human life (but not essential to being human). It is a good gift from God, and when people, Christian or otherwise, enjoy that good gift in ways close to how God designed it, it’s good for them. Marriage as we know it is never as God designed it. It is frustrated by the curse of sin (specifically in Genesis 3:16). There is no ideal marriage; but we still have a picture of that ideal. The Old Testament tells many stories of marriages that are not ideal amongst God’s people (eg David and Michal, David and Bathsheba, Solomon and his 700 wives), and many that aren’t ideal outside of God’s people (eg Esther and Xerxes), and some that appear to be reasonably beautiful (Ruth and Boaz). The Old Testament operates on the expectation that people who reject God as God and turn to other gods will trash God’s design for humanity and marriage — that we will become dead and breathless, reflecting the images we worship, but also that once that happens the natural order of things will be rapidly eradicated (eg Leviticus 18). It also assumes that God’s relationship to his people is a marriage like relationship — and they become adulterous, cheating, spouses who God patiently waits for. The New Testament contains the life and example of Jesus, and his teachings on marriage, but it also contains a wedding invitation — we’re invited to become ‘the bride of Christ’ — to be God’s faithful people again (to join the love story of the Old Testament); without that story people won’t understand marriage as God designed it; with that story how we approach our marriages (if we’re married) will be shaped by the love of Jesus (Ephesians 5), as will not being married (Matthew 19, 1 Corinthians 7). Marriage makes sense to us as Christians because of what we believe; can we really expect it to make the same sense to people who choose not to love and worship God (Romans 1, which is a lot like Leviticus 18). - Consider the models of engagement we have with non-Christian (or non-Godly) governments in the Bible
Lots of our ‘political theology’ in the west was written in the context of governments that had been shaped by, and were supportive of, Christianity. That’s not the scenario we find for ourselves now, so it’s time to channel the Spirit of the protestant reformers and go back to the source material. The Old Testament Prophets had a particular responsibility as the voice of God speaking to Israel’s government (mostly) calling for repentance; there’s not much evidence of these prophets speaking directly to the nations (there’s some in 1-2 Kings). Joseph participates in and supports the regime of the first Pharaoh, Moses becomes a member of the later Pharaoh’s household and uses that position to unsuccessfully make the case for life God’s way; his success depends on God pretty drastically stepping in to rescue his people from deadly slavery. Jonah is probably the best picture of a prophet speaking directly to a government outside of Israel calling them to but we don’t really hear much of the substance of his message (Jonah 3), the whole book seems to serve as a condemnation of Israel for its collective failure to bless the nations the way they should have (Genesis 12), by representing God well (Jonah ends on a downer, him being in the whale is a like exile from God for disobedience). Solomon also had lots of opportunities to share God’s wisdom with the leaders of the nations (in the world of the Old Testament, like in the story of Jonah, if you converted the head of a state to a religious belief, that became the religion of the people). Esther operated from within the courts of a pretty nasty regime, at personal cost, to bring about God’s promises to his people. Daniel and his friends did the same with Nebuchadnezzar who saw himself as a god (idolatry); but they did this in a manner of faithful difference; they didn’t participate in disobedience to God personally, but by serving that regime they were participants in that system without being corrupted. I’ve seen John the Baptist cited as a political model a few times — but he called Israel to repent and be ready for the coming king and kingdom; and challenged Herod, who had set himself up as a pretender to that particular throne — Herod and his old man considered themselves the kings of Israel. Herod sr had tried to exterminate Jesus as a baby because he didn’t want competition. Jesus told us to expect persecution and to love our enemies and turn the other cheek, including from the authorities and promised to give his disciples the words to say when they were on trial (Matt 10); the government of his day executed him (the same government Paul says is used by God for his good purposes and as a servant). Paul appears before governors and kings on route to his trial in Rome; and uses his trials to proclaim the Gospel — when he’s appearing before Festus and Agrippa, Agrippa even says to him ‘are you hoping to convert me’, to which Paul replies:Paul replied, “Short time or long—I pray to God that not only you but all who are listening to me today may become what I am, except for these chains.” — Acts 25:29Imagine if that was the approach Christians were taking when our positions are put on ‘trial’ in the public square. Recognising that governments (and governors) aren’t Christian; but that we can live with them as Christians seeking the good of our neighbours while being different and using that difference to persuade people to love Jesus. If Joseph, Daniel, Paul, and Jesus are your models for engaging with a non-Christian government (I’m not sure you should marry the king, like Esther did), then that’s probably a good thing; the prophets and John the Baptist adopted a particular stance towards God’s people when they looked indistinguishable from the nations. We might one day need Moses types who call the government to ‘let our people go’ — but we’re not there yet. - Consider your vote in terms of what it means to love your neighbour as you love yourself; and to do for them what you would have them do for you
This one is where it gets tricky and all the options are still on the table because we have to balance competing goods (and life in a non-ideal world with what the ultimate ideal is). Vote out of love for your neighbour. Weigh up what the complexity of life together throws up at us. Consider your ultimate goal for your neighbours — whoever they are — for Christians our goal for one another is to present others mature in Christ; I suspect that pastoral goal should frame all of our political endeavours, and that our sense of what is good for our Christian brothers and sisters (and ourselves) should shape our love for others and the future we would have for them, which means our political goal should also be evangelistic — in that we should want our neighbours to be open to hearing about Jesus. We don’t love people as a means to that ends though; love is an ends in itself for our ‘political life’. - Consider your participation in democracy as much more than voting
Politics is not about power but about life together as people. It is about citizenship; not government (that’s what the word means). People in a polis are people who in some sense are joined as citizens. Voting is one way we shape that life together, as we appoint people to govern for us (or make our voices heard), but there is much more to life together than voting, and much more to a good life together than simply not transgressing laws; the good and ethical life is not constrained or limited by our politicians but by something like civility, or neighbouring. Consider what being a good neighbour and citizen might look like here beyond this non-binding, non-compulsary, survey — and how, perhaps, your participation in the conversation around the survey is more political and will shape your relationships with other citizens and what life together looks like than the vote itself.What would happen if we saw politics first as neighbouring or hospitality and our participation in public conversations first as being an exercise in listening and empathy before in being heard? What would happen if every Christian committed to getting to know at least one individual or couple who are seeking a law change because of their desires (I suspect there’d be a lot less slippery slope arguing and a lot less talking past each other). How might that change your vote? Your process of considering your vote? Your approach to politics? What if before you vote you commit yourself to reaching out to people you know in the LGBTIQA community to find out what they desire and why; to figure out what parts of those desires you can understand, empathise with, and recognise? What if you commit to understanding the best arguments for or against by listening and seeking to understand; not simply proclaiming your vision of the truth by vote or declaration (or Facebook profile picture). - Consider gently and respectfully rejecting the status quo as it is served up to you (this is a democracy after all)
Accepting that politics is about participating in a vote where there are only two options on the table and the contest is framed as a zero sum game is an unimaginative reinforcing of the status quo. Consider that a plebiscite might run counter to the spirit of our system of democracy (where we elect decision makers to act for all, not just to act according to the opinion polls or the popular vote). - Consider not telling anybody how you’re voting or making this a further point of division between Christians and the world.
It’s one thing to have a stance, it’s another thing to aggressively campaign in the name of ‘participating in the conversation’ or ‘defending what you believe’; you don’t have to campaign just because people organising a campaign tell you to. You’ll inevitably defend a position against somebody who holds that position rather than finding some sort of common ground or different solution. What is gained by publicly taking a stance? I recognise you might think this is ironic given my recent post about abstaining; but I publicly did not take a stance (or took no stance) in response to a call from other Christian leaders suggesting that not only should we take a public stance; but we should be compelled to publicly take a particular stance. - Consider that our best political statement as Christians is Jesus; that praying and living ‘your kingdom come’ and proclaiming the kingdom is political; and allows our words and marriages to be political in a different sense.We Christians have made the mistake of allowing our view to be defined as the ‘no case’ for same sex marriage rather than the ‘yes case’ for Jesus and what he says about marriage, sex, and love. Getting people to love Jesus more than the idea of marriage is the most profound political change we can be part of in our society; it’s also God’s political mission. There’s lots we can say about marriage that is tied to the Gospel; Paul says that marriage is a ‘mystery’ in how it reflects the relationship between Jesus and the Church, so that to speak of one is ultimately to speak of the other; you wouldn’t know that hearing Christian voices in the public square making the ‘no case’ — our challenge, at the water cooler, online, in our marriages, and as we participate in political life (and this conversation about marriage); is to have our dual citizenship on show; to live ‘your kingdom come’; to love our neighbours by pointing them to the marriage proposal we have on the table from God, and to have those we engage with echo the words of Agrippa:”Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian?”
And our answer be: I pray it’s so, such is my love for you.