When Should You Vote for Nobody?

Pastor John Piper recently wrote that he would not be voting again this year.  This has caused a stir and raised the question of when not to vote.  What circumstance would compel a Christian to abstain from voting?

There are two issues that I think are at play in this question.  First is the morality issue, and second is the party platform question.  

Is the morality of the candidates the compelling reason to not vote?  Does morality matter?  

Morality certainly matters, but in different ways.  When you are looking for a spouse, you will be looking for a certain morality.  When a church is looking for a new pastor, it will be looking for a certain morality.  When a nation is looking for a leader, it will be looking for a certain morality.  Morality matters, and more is always better, but it matters differently in each situation. 

What kind of morality are we looking for in a leader for our nation?  While we would prefer someone who could qualify for a pastor, a spouse or even a neighbor, that is not what the civil office is for.  So what is the minimum?  I think the answer of the minimum morality is policy truthfulness and basic lawfulness.  If a person running for office says he will hold and fight for certain policies, then he must do that.  If he does not do that, then there was no point in voting for that person because they have ended up doing what you would have voted against.   Also, if the person cannot maintain basic law keeping and is soon arrested for embezzlement or some other crime then there was no point in voting for him to begin with.  

To be sure, having a low bar like that will mean all kind of problems for everybody.  Of course we want the highest morality with the best policies.  But you will rarely, if ever, get that.  Does that mean you should not vote?  In one sense, democracy is choosing what kind of problems you are going to have.  Stewardship means using the ability we have to support policies that advance human flourishing according to a Biblical worldview to some degree.  It won’t be perfect.  There will always be problems, so choose which one you want to deal with.  But to completely bypass that opportunity is neglected stewardship.  If your conscience cannot handle voting for sinful people then write in your best candidate.  

As the nation goes, so goes it representatives.  For a democracy, what you get is what you deserve.  If we see a downward spiral of the number of good and godly men running for office, it is a sign of where the nation is.  We can only vote for those that run, and if the baseline of morality is declining in the candidates it is an occasion for weeping, not abstaining from voting.  However, this is why the people of God must stop goofing around at church and get serious about proclaiming truth, making disciplesand spreading the gospel.  As churches strengthen, so will the nation, and the candidates that run for office.  

The second issue is party platform.  This could become something that could cause a person not to vote.  

There was a time in America when Republicans and Democrats were very similar.  Voting for one or the other came down to particulars of economic policy or foreign affairs policy.  The differences were slim and common commitments abounded.  To illustrate, it was during the Clinton administration that the Freedom of Religion Restoration was passed by both houses with almost 100% support and signed by Bill Clinton.   As a contrast, in 2015 Indiana passed a similar bill and it was vigorously opposed, and even after passage it had to be amended in order to curb the swelling backlash.  

This is to say that things have drastically changed.  The two parties have dramatically different platforms that share almost nothing in common.  Moral issues are not peripheral, but at the very center of their contrasting worldviews, with abortion andthe nature of sexuality and marriage being front and center.

What does this mean about voting?  It means that in our current situation, a vote is going to move you in one direction or the other by the power of platform.  This isn’t a slightly angled fork in the road, with the two destinations able to see each other.  This is an intersection where you will either turn right or left and head toward totally different worlds controlled by totally different worldviews.  

The question for the Christian is which platform is best going to support religious liberty, Christian sexual ethics, and the protection of life from womb to tomb.  Yes, there are other policies which have importance, but matters of life, marriage, and religious liberty are so central to a biblical worldview and so critical to human flourishing that they must have priority.  

A time may come when both parties are again very similar.  Our country could get to the place where both parties support abortion, all the tenets of the LGBT sexual revolution, and the restriction of religious liberty in the public square, relegating it to a mere freedom to worship.  If that happens, then Christians would have to vote for a third party or not vote at all.  With the power to write in a candidate, I cannot imagine never voting.  Why waste the stewardship you still have by not voting.  Yes, a vote for a third party or a write-in may feel pointless and perhaps it might be in terms of politics.  But we are, first and foremost, citizens of another country, a heavenly kingdom which has our highest and unending allegiance.  If we lose our voice at the ballot box, we will never lose our voice in the prayer closet.