Release Date: Aug 7, 2023
Question
I’ve got a question I’ve been stewing on for a couple weeks that started when you started your sermon off urging us to vote in the upcoming ballot regarding the reproductive healthcare issue. Not sure why that triggered it, but it’s also somewhat related to a gospel coalition article I read recently: https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/religious-liberty-pride/?amp
- The article I think introduced me to an alternative way of looking at the culture wars being fought but I’m not sure if I agree with it. Is a Christian supposed to use their vote to influence the law of the land to force godless people into following God’s commands? It’s hard for me to think about where in the Bible there would be applicable teaching on this subject because democracy and liberty were not the norm at that time. The closest thing I can think of is the nation of Israel being given the law and how they interacted with the godless people around them. This doesn’t fit very nicely as they were sometimes inside or outside of what God’s will was at different times and had different responses at different times that doesn’t really add clarity to the question. I also look at the commands in the New Testament about loving others and Jesus’ interactions with nonbelievers. While God’s commands are the best way a person can live, I’m not sure that legally enforcing them on people looks or feels like love to them. At the same time I feel like we are blessed to live in a country that was (somewhat) built on a foundation of Christian beliefs and it makes sense for me to vote to uphold that even as I see it shifting more in a worldly direction. Jesus didn’t really engage in the political or legal system even through his trial and death, but I don’t really think that that’s an example that we were meant to follow. Being able to vote is a blessing that probably lots of Christians in the world wish they had. (6:10)