This political season has been the worst ever, negative, demoralizing, caustic, polarizing and on and on it goes. Is this what Jesus wants or how Christians are to respond to one another or people who see things differently politically? If we have to choose between the lesser of two evils, isn't that still a vote for evil? or here is my main question, at what point would it take to not vote your conscience in a political election? Is there never a time and if there is a time, then there can be a sound discussion for voting or not voting in an election. Maybe the most disturbing problem is who I become in order to win this debate or mandate to vote? Here are a few reasons for people to consider in not voting or being a conscientious abstention from voting.
1. The logic of voting more supports Constantinian faith than biblical faith.
2. Voting is a private personal act rather than a communal act. How can voting ever be immersed in the scriptural world of God's kingdom if its simply a private act?
3. Could not voting be viewed as a symbolic act of resistance to the powers that be?
4. Not voting could reveal a higher allegiance to the politics of Jesus rather than Caesar.
5. Elections within the nation-state deceive us into thinking that we control the world.
6. Not voting could be a step to unlock our political imaginations and speak out for justice with new voices.
7. It is easy to trace people voting records for better economics and material prosperity. In other words, voting has more to do with our own self interests or nations interests against other nations. Are we voting for mammon or for the economics of God's kingdom?
8. There can be a case made that Jesus rejected the politics of his day. If democracy would have been an option in Jesus day, would not most of us probably have voted for Caesar if we are brutally honest and lived in those times? Please don't forget, deification of Caesar was part of the politics of that day. Would we then choose not to vote?
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