Politics

Churches have no business addressing political questions. Their work is to proclaim the whole counsel of God. Christian individuals, however, are responsible to act upon moral and spiritual concerns before they address merely temporal ones. Matters of principle should take precedence over matters of preference. Therefore, part of the church’s business is to instruct the people of God in those moral principles that they must apply in their political decisions. In other words, while churches should not tell their members who to vote for, they should teach them how to vote.

In every political race, many issues will surface that are not moral in nature. Christians may certainly take account of these issues, but non-moral issues should never be allowed to take priority over moral ones. For example, a candidate’s religious beliefs and affiliation may be matters of interest, but they do not typically determine how well an elected official will govern. Christians might better vote for an unbeliever with just policies than to vote for a fellow-saint whose policies are naïve or misguided.

Governments have no moral duty to manage the economy (in fact, it is doubtful that they can ever do better than simply to get out of the way). Governments have no moral duty to create jobs. Governments have no moral duty to increase the wealth of their nations. Governments have no moral duty to supply the financial or medical needs of their citizens. Governments do not even have a moral duty to educate children.

Citizens may wish that their governments would do some or all of these things for them. Since these are (at best!) matters of convenience, however, they must not be the primary issues that Christians consider when they are deciding for whom to vote. Rather, such issues must take a very distant second place to genuinely biblical and moral concerns. The following are eight biblical concerns that Christian people should weigh as they consider their voting choices.