As yet another election approaches, I finally feel like I actually have
some political opinions.  Perhaps by personality, upbringing, or
culture, I tend toward agnosticism or ambivalence, often to the point
of indecision.  I always figured that if I weren’t a Christian,
I’d be one of those annoying people who like to skirt every spiritual
question and challenge with, “Well, you never know…”

I think a few of my friends tend to get annoyed at my
political ambivalence.  But what they probably don’t know is that
there are many underlying questions that I still struggle with.  I
struggle with the whole notion of democracy, that is, our place in it
as Christians.  I wonder how I can support political stances that
stem from a Christian imagination without feeling like I am trying to
establish another Christian power structure.  I am baffled how
Christians can hate one another from the left and right in exactly the
same way non-Christians do.  I am tormented over my sympathies for
both systemic and individualistic notions of morality and justice and
angered over how much the political system wants me to choose one over
the other.  I am suspicious of how our label as “evangelicals” has
made it expedient to be played as yet another special interest group in
the schemes of political marketing.  I am torn over my belief that
our president is a Christian while so many of my Christian brothers and
sisters hate him; and how misguided I think he is while also wondering
how he, as a follower of the Cross, could feel comfortable in the seat
of world power.

So, my friends, during the times when I do not vote, please understand
that it is not for ignorance or apathy but rather painful
indecision.  But feel free to think me a bad American, but I hope
not because there are times when I do not vote, but because I am all
the time pledging my allegiance to Jesus and not the flag nor the
democracy it hails.

1 thought on “”

  1. i learned something about the…majority vote and the..electoral college vote? where u elect ppl who will suppposedly vote for the pres that u wanna vote for? so yeah my history teacher said that if she were to be terribly cynnical then what the gov is doing right now is still not trusting the vote to the..people of something like that cos no matter how high the majority/popular vote is..its still up to the votes of the people in the ‘electoral’ college right O_o. hm. yeah.

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