My First Presidential Election Vote, and My Last

Gordon Ferguson posted an article titled “Why I Don’t Vote,” which you can read using this link link: https://tinyurl.com/yxy62489

I have added my thoughts below:

So, you have heard from my friend, Gordon, his perspective on voting in this democracy in which we live, and now I’m going to add a few thoughts of my own. In doing so I’m confident that neither one of us wishes to bind our view on others. I encouraged Gordon to share his thoughts for the same reason that I will share mine. I feel it is good for us to do some serious thinking about the whole topic. I hope that what we both have written will encourage others to do just that.

Gordon and I first met each other in San Diego in 1983 when we were there to speak for a conference. By that time, my view of participating in our national elections was rather well formed. Since that meeting now some 41 years ago Gordon and I have gone on to have a great friendship and, of course, have influenced each other in various ways, as good friends are prone to do. However, I don’t recall us discussing our view about voting until fairly recently. All of this is to say that regarding this topic, neither of us has had influence on the other, but we have reached our conclusions individually as we have wrestled with our understanding of discipleship and life in the Kingdom of God. It is interesting to me that we have landed at very much the same place, though we took different routes to get there.

In my case, I first reached the voting age of 21 in 1968, before the 26th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified changing the voting age to 18. So, in November 1968, I cast my first vote in a presidential election. I certainly had no idea at the time that that would be the first and last time I would ever go into a voting booth for such an activity. In the spring of 1967, I had made a much more important decision, and that was to deny myself, take up the cross and follow Jesus, deciding that he would be the Lord of my life. As it should have been, it was a life- changing decision.  

However, as a young disciple, I am sure that I made some unwise decisions, but I would later decide that the vote that I cast that November had to be one of the most unwise. Seven weeks after the election was held, I attended an important conference, that we called a “seminar” in those days, and in that meeting, I was exposed to teaching from the Scriptures that almost immediately caused me to thoroughly regret the vote that I had cast, and I openly expressed that regret to others around me. I was convinced that my vote did not fit with my decision to follow Jesus. You likely have never experienced something this clear cut when it comes to elections, but in this case it was blatantly plain to me.

That experience had such an effect on me that I determined that I would not cast another vote until I had thoroughly studied the Scriptures and given much more thought to that kind of civic involvement. The next presidential election came around in 1972. By that time, I had finished a graduate degree in theology and was serving in campus ministry with an opportunity to be a part time faculty member in the department of religious studies. There was quite a bit of interest on campus in the election, On the political spectrum, I leaned conservative and away from one candidate who seemed to happily accept the liberal label, but I had not yet resolved the issue of voting. With no conviction about what was the right thing to do, I sat it out. However, I was convinced that doing nothing was hardly the Jesus way, and I began to realize what Gordon talks about at the end of his article, and that is I could always be engaged in prayer for an outcome that would most accomplish God’s purposes. Interestingly, the candidate I would have leaned toward, and who won that year, would go on to be involved in scandal and  become the first US president to resign the office. He eventually accepted a pardon from his successor that kept him from prosecution and jail. Had I gone with my leanings, I would have again regretted my vote.

Still a young minister, my experience was teaching me that you can never really know what people are like and what they will actually do while in office. At this point I was not making any lifelong commitment to never vote, but I was convinced that it was often a perilous activity.

Before the next presidential election in 1976, a book was mailed to me with the intriguing title “The Politics of Jesus.” I struggled to master all of John Howard Yoder’s thinking, but I came away with a clear idea that the Kingdom of God brings a whole new perspective to this issue of politics.

It was about this time that I began to look more closely at how Jesus interacted with those in his day who had various political agendas. In a story that we find in Matthew 22, Mark 12 and Luke 20, we see the enemies of Jesus joining “across the aisle” to come after him, trying to trap him in the politics of the day, so they could diminish his influence or get rid of him altogether. Then Jesus comes with his famous words, “Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. Caesar’s image was on the coin, so pay your tax but the image of God is on every human being, and Jesus called for a commitment that was way beyond worldly politics. Of course, that message fit perfectly with Jesus’ main teaching that the Kingdom of God was breaking into the present age with a radically different set of priorities.

It was about this time that I began to see conservative religious folks attempting to connect themselves to different political parties to try to create an influence on the nation, but as I saw it, that was an effort to mix the world’s wisdom with God’s wisdom, the very thing Jesus would have opposed, Some time in the late 1970s, 10 years after my first disastrous vote, I decided I would never vote again. I had three reasons: (1) You cannot combine the world’s politics with the Kingdom of God; (2) You can never really know what the people running for office are like and what they will do; and (3) I am much better off and do more good just devoting myself to prayer for the country and for government leaders.  At some point I, I began a habit I’ve continued to this day to make up my own ballot on election day and to vote each time for Jesus to be King, (Not that he needs my vote, by the way. But I need it.)

I very well understand that most people who have decided to follow Jesus as Lord have not come to the same conclusion that, Gordon and I have come to. Moreover, I will never tell them they are wrong, Because I certainly don’t know that they are wrong. However, I will challenge others and encourage them to wrestle with Jesus and his message and to make their decision thoughtfully, and not pressed into the world’s mold. I will always call others to give the highest priority to their citizenship in heaven rather than to their citizenship in any earthly empire that will pass away. Beyond that, I will challenge others to never give their political views such emphasis that it keeps others from seeing the Kingdom of God.

By the end of 1968, I deeply regretted my vote. Since 1976, I have never had any regrets, at least when it comes to voting. Jesus is that good. His kingdom is that great.