HOT TOPIC: Is There Only One Way a Christians Can Vote?

The Christian Life, Citizenship, and the Coming Election

Welcome to Theocast, encouraging worried pilgrims to rest in Christ. Conversations about the Christian life from a Reformed perspective. Your hosts today are Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina.

I'm John Moffitt. I'm the pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee. For those of you that don't know, that's just south of Nashville. We are coming in hot. We have only done this one other time.

We do it when we feel necessary. We add to our work because we like to do that. We're coming in with a hot topic today. Might be the hottest topic we've had since we started Theocast. Justin, are we going to be able to even do this within 30 minutes?

This is going to be tough. We're going to try our best, but it's a spicy one today and very relevant.

We're going to give it our best shot to keep it within 30 minutes. For our own sakes and for the sake of the listeners out there, we will exercise restraint and self-control. We're going to talk politics today.

Yes, we said it. We're going to talk politics today. We're not going to be punchy and snarky. I mean, we're going to try not to be punchy and snarky about this. In all sincerity, this is a tumultuous season in the life of the United States.

There is a lot of division that exists in our land and our society broadly. I'll go ahead and say I've observed quite a bit of division in the church as it pertains to the upcoming general election next Tuesday.

There's a lot of passion. There's sincere disagreement, but then there's also a lot of vinegar and vitriol that's permeating this entire conversation. I've written a little piece on this just with some of my own thoughts on politics and voting and all those things.

We sort of spur of the moment decided to record this episode. We hope that this is helpful. Some of this, John, I trust it's okay to say this. If not, I guess we'll edit it out. Some of this has been prompted by things that pastors and evangelical leaders have said with respect to the vote next Tuesday and how Christians should vote or, in some cases, how Christians must vote if they are going to be faithful to Jesus and if they are going to remain Orthodox.

We want to kick this around and have this conversation with some of that in view as the backdrop.

We've received a lot of questions through email and social media asking us to respond to different statements that have been made. We'll be honest with you. The only reason probably we haven't done this yet is a matter of time, just issues of trying to figure out when we would do that.

So we decided to do that this morning.

Justin Perdue. I think this is one of those episodes where it's not that I feel anxious about it necessarily, but I realize that there are going to be some people and I don't necessarily mean this for our listeners, but there may be some people that come across this depending on how much it's shared and recommended or whatever.

I trust there are going to be some people who hear us who, on the one side, are going to think that we have not said nearly enough, and there are going to be others that think we have said far too much.

I trust that there are going to be plenty of people who disagree with us, and that's okay. We are aiming to hold the line biblically, and we are aiming to continue, as we do in all things, to try to point Christians to Jesus and to the unity that we have in him and the rest that we have in him.

We're aiming to keep the main things the main things. I know that you and I do that as pastors in our own congregations, and we're effectively doing that behind the mic today. Before we get into maybe more of the specific comments about all these matters, I want to make a couple of disclaimers.

I don't want people to assume wrongly anything about what we're going to say. The things that we're going to say are not being said because John or I think it doesn't matter how we vote. That's not what we think at all.

I think it's important that we all, as citizens of the United States, would steward our civic duty well. How we vote has consequences on our land and on our society, so let's just go ahead and.

Say that.

I think you agree with that.

I agree with that.

And the next thing that I'm going to say, and John, again, you can agree or disagree. I am not, in any of the comments that I'm making, aiming to communicate that I think that any kind of vote for any kind of candidate, that they are all just morally equivalent.

That to vote this way or vote this way is morally equivalent, in my own mind, as a man, as a Christian, as a citizen. I don't think that. People that know me well will know that I have strong opinions about a lot of stuff, and that would include politics, and I have a number of reasons for why I think what I do politically.

And all this to say, with that being said, that I have strong opinions, I take great pains as a pastor to not share and make public my own personal opinions about politics, because I think that I would very quickly, as a leader, abuse my authority that God has given me and effectively tell my congregation how they should vote.

You know, if not explicitly, implicitly, if I made my own views known, they could hear me say these things and think, well, I should follow my pastor and vote the way that he does, and I would never want that to happen, because that would be an overreach and an abuse of my pastoral authority.

So I just want to share those things from the get-go. It matters how we vote, and it's not that John and I think that this vote versus this vote, that there's just moral equivalency, but we are going to contend for what we think is central and most important when it comes to election season or any time, and that's the unity that we have in Christ and the church.

Justin Perdue. Absolutely.

I mean, even in Hebrews, the writer of Hebrews tells the congregation to imitate your elder, your leaders, but imitate them in their faith. And I would say in my congregation in the last few months, because of the texts that we've been covering, I have made some political statements, but it had everything to do with how they should, one, pray and care for their relationship to the government and what is the believer's relationship to the government.

That is the one thing scripture is very clear on as far as Romans 13, the way in which we are to submit and live peaceably with those who govern us, the purpose of the government. The government is controlled by God, not by man, but I would never find scripture telling me anywhere.

I think you might be able to see some kind of an obscure, which I haven't been able to see, but some obscure passage where you could argue that we as shepherds should be dictating how someone should cast their vote in a non-church function, which is a governmental function, but I don't see it in scripture.

Today's conversation is really around your role as a believer as it relates to your role as in two different kingdoms. You have the kingdom of Christ and then you have your earthly kingdom. How often what's going on right now is we're mixing the two, and not only are we mixing the two kingdoms, we're mixing the law and the gospel as well.

When someone makes a statement, so Justin, we can go ahead and just jump in if you're okay with it. When someone makes the statement or the claim that if you vote for any other candidate than one particular candidate, then you are not upholding the Christian faith, that is so far from the biblical text that it's rightly disturbing, to be honest with you, because you are now making the Christian standard.

In other words, if you don't hold this position, you are no longer being faithful to follow Christ as a true disciple, and that is a very, very strong statement to make that you better be able to back up from scripture.

Justin Perdue. Yeah, I think we've sort of buried the lead for about seven or eight minutes, and you're getting us into it now. My biggest concern is that in the minds of many people, and by this I'm meaning Christians because we're speaking to the church here broadly.

In the minds of many Christians, it seems that one's standing in the Lord Jesus should be called into question depending upon how they vote on November the 3rd. This can flow both directions. I think in the church, some are aware of the comments that have been made, and it's kind of tending to flow predominantly in one direction, but it could flow in both.

I want to be really clear that there are Christians who are going to hold very strong convictions, and those convictions are going to be based upon things they see in scripture. This is where I'm coming from.

I think that as Christians, we should pursue justice. That's not optional. We should pursue justice, but here's the issue. We may very well have sincere disagreements at the level of execution, at the level of practicality, and at the level of public policy as to how we should best pursue justice in a society.

Both directions politically, you could have people that take issue with anything from abortion to issues of social justice and look at the other side and say, well, if you are a Christian and you care about these things that the Bible clearly articulates the sanctity of human life, the fact that we should care for the oppressed and the needy and the marginalized if you don't vote this way or this way, then how can you claim Christ?

That's the rhetoric that exists right now, even in the public square of the church. On Christian social media, it's very concerning. The reason for that is that I do not know of a church or a confession of faith historically that would make voting choice a test of Christian orthodoxy.

I'm using that language. I'm trying to be precise here.

Historically, there's no way.

A church or a confession that historically would elevate voting choice to being a test of Christian orthodoxy or fidelity to Jesus. When you hear people say that if you're a Christian, you have to vote this way, and if you don't vote this way, you're standing in the Lord Jesus.

The legitimacy of your faith and your profession should be called into question. What we are saying is that if you cast a particular kind of vote on November 3rd, you are in clear, demonstrable, unrepentant sin, and you should face church discipline.

That's what we would be effectively saying. I do not know of a church or a confession in the history of Christianity that would have ever elevated voting choice to that level. I want you to be able to riff on this too, John, but let me just clarify.

I want to add the second piece of this. The reason I use the language of voting choice is because that is a prudence, wisdom decision. It's a wisdom call in terms of how to best execute justice in the land.

That's what we do when we vote. Underneath that vote are a number of convictions, and convictions are what matter biblically. We may disagree, John, at the level of wisdom in terms of how to implement or execute something.

Where we can't disagree as Christians is at the level of conviction. What I mean here is convictions are the issue. For example, to believe that abortion is good is sin. That's clear. To believe that homosexuality is good is sin.

To disbelieve that God has made us male and female on purpose is sin. To believe that racism is good is sin. To believe that we should not worry about the poor or the needy or the oppressed is sin. That's where Christians must agree.

I want to be very clear. If somebody were advocating for anything that I just said, actively publicly advocating for any of the things that I just described, that would be a matter of church discipline in the church I pastor, but that conviction level is different than a voting decision.

We have now moved in the voting decision piece from the area of conviction to wisdom, and that matters.

That's true.

It does, and the application of wisdom is a conscious issue because there are differing opinions on how to handle some of these issues. This is where we have to say that perspective, knowledge, history, background, how people receive information, process information.

I honestly think if someone says, I believe these things are wrong, but I'm going to make my decisions based upon, I think this is the best choice I can make given the information that's been handed to me.

For instance, some people are really against homosexuality. There's a lot of sin that goes on, and there are companies who promote these types of sin. Disney, Apple, let's just be frank. Living in the United States, you are required to pay taxes, and your tax money is being used to murder people.

That's as plain as I can put that. If you're going to stop shopping at certain places, and you're going to stop using certain products, which is totally up to you, and that is a conscious issue up to you, but the moment you say, if you watch a Disney show, or you own an Apple product, or you go to this store, you are not a Christian, that's a problem.

That's a problem because you are now stating, you are adding to scripture where scripture has not placed those demands and laws upon Christians. We have to be careful to take conscious issues and make them law.

Paul speaks to this in Colossians that you, one, don't let anybody do it, and number two, don't do it.

Word.

I think if I was going to try to boil some of this down into where I would stand as a pastor and as a Christian in thinking through these matters, because voting choice is a matter of wisdom, I might think that a brother or sister in Christ is unwise in how he or she votes, but he or she is still my brother and sister.

That's the thing. It is quite possible for Christians to have shared convictions, not only about Jesus, but even about some of those other things that I described, to have shared convictions about abortion and sexuality and gender and racism and other issues of justice and caring for the needy and the poor and the oppressed.

We can have shared convictions about those things but disagree at the level of public policy and wisdom and implementation. If we don't maintain that and we're not that precise and that clear, then we begin to elevate a wisdom call to the level of being a primary issue of doctrine and theology.

We have effectively said that how you vote is now functionally as important as what you make of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. How you vote is as important as to whether or not you believe in the doctrine of the Trinity.

If we're saying that a vote is enough evidence to excommunicate somebody, then that is massive in its scope and in its implications. I think we need to be careful in how we talk about this. We need to look through history and determine, has anybody ever talked like this before?

Justin Perdue. That's right.

Yeah, I think that the church has lost. Unfortunately, when Justin and I say anything, this is just part of the nature of the culture.

We live in.

People cannot hear Justin and I say it. They hear a pastor say it because that's the career path that we find ourselves in. Just like when our current president, Mr. Donald Trump, when he says something, it's always as Mr. President because that's the office that he holds.

He can't ever say something as Donald. It's always Mr. President. I think pastors need to be careful in how and what they communicate that people don't confuse what scripture says. I, as a pastor, am a keeper of the gospel.

As an elder of a flock, these people are to submit to me underneath one authority, and that's God's authority, not governmental authority. I think it'd be helpful here to understand when Paul wrote to the Romans, the church at Rome, this was not a Republican state that was governed by a morally ethic leader who was trying to keep purity and sanity for all.

If you know anything about Rome during the time that Romans was written, Nero was not a morally sound good man, and the things that he did to Christians were just obscene. Disgusting. I don't even want to mention some of them on the podcast in case children are listening.

This is what Paul says to them. There's not an overthrow of government. It wasn't a fight for liberty. It wasn't freedom or else we die. There's no such thing as Christians who are trying to transform a particular government so that God will be pleased and advance his kingdom.

God advances his kingdom through the church, not government. God has never advanced his kingdom through a governmental system. He has always advanced it through the church. And so let me just read to you real quick Romans 13.

It says, let every person be subject to the governing authorities. Now, do you understand what that would sound like to the Roman church? I mean, to understand what their government was doing to their brothers and sisters, it was very hard for them to read this.

But this is what Paul says. He clarifies why they should do it. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.

I mean, this is Paul dealing with a very harsh, difficult circumstance. And the thing is, the reason why he says this is that, listen, church, God is in control. Whether the government is out of control, God's not out of control.

It doesn't change the mission and the purpose of the church. The mission and the purpose of the church is to advance the gospel and to care for one another. That's the purpose. It is not to overthrow governments or to dictate what governments will do.

The United States is a unique situation in the history of Christianity. For the first time in the history of Christianity, Christians can rise up and actually speak their opinion on how things can be done.

Justin Perdue. And can weigh in the political process.

Jon Moffitt. That's right. Yeah, it's a very unique situation.

So yeah, I think we should caveat. I'm about to make a few comments. Let me just kind of say this, and then I'll circle back to what we're saying about the United States. I think it's a legitimate question to survey the New Testament and ask, and in particular, Paul wrote the vast majority of the epistles.

How much ink is spilled by Paul on political and societal issues? I mean, practically none, other than some of the things that we've just been citing.

Right?

Seriously.

Justin Perdue Submission is the only thing he ever says.

The apostles do not spill. That's right. The apostles do not spill ink on political and societal issues. And yeah, Paul says, submit your government. I mean, 1 Peter's got language about suffering unjustly, you know?

So like when you bear up under it, because we look to Christ who suffered unjustly in our place. So that's really how the apostles talk about that kind of stuff. But again, we do want to acknowledge that the United States, in terms of the representative republic and this constitutional order of government that we have, is unique in the scope of world history in one sense.

It's also unique in the history of Christianity too. So we do, as citizens and Christians, have an opportunity and a civic responsibility to come and speak and to be able to cast a vote, to be able to give input as to how we are governed.

That is not something that the Christians in the first century, by and large, would have been able to do. So we acknowledge that. And it matters that we think through these things, but we think through them as citizens of the common kingdom who are at the same time citizens of the redemptive kingdom in.

Heaven, right?

And so when we cast a vote, what we're doing is we are using wisdom and discernment and conscience to make a call as to how justice can best be executed politically in our land, and we are making a determination for the sake of the common kingdom in the United States.

How can I best use my vote to be of the best benefit to my neighbor in America? Christians with the same convictions, high level, may disagree at the level of wisdom, and they may disagree in the voting booth.

One of the only other things that Paul does encourage us to do is to pray for our leaders.

So that's something we can do, and that means we live peaceful and godly lives.

That's instructive for us, and so whoever's in office, regardless of whether we voted for them or not, we should pray for them. We should pray that they would have wisdom. We should pray that they would make good and upright decisions.

It matters not if I like the person or not, and that's something that we can lead in well, and even in our churches. Sort of a final thought for me, John, unless we end up throwing maybe two things. Maybe two things.

My concern in some of this too is that when we talk and we act as though there's only one way for a Christian to vote, that there's this requirement. If you're going to be orthodox and if you're going to be faithful to Christ, this is what one must do.

I fear that when we do that, the gospel is confused with a political party, and the church is effectively reduced to a political movement. The church is way bigger than any one particular political movement, and the gospel transcends any consideration of politics.

I want to contend for the primacy of the gospel, and I want to contend for the unity that all Christians have in Christ, regardless of how you vote if you're an American, and regardless of what country you live in.

We are brothers and sisters in Christ, and we have Jesus in common. I think all of that is confused, and a bunch of clutter is thrown on top of the gospel when we start making these very strong statements about voting patterns.

I don't really care how pious or upright they may sound or how courageous they may sound. They're unhelpful, I fear.

I will say this statement. The biggest issue that I am seeing in the evangelical world in the United States is that we put more hope in the power of a government than we do in the issued word of God and the system by which God has instituted.

God has said that it's the power of the gospel that transforms hearts and minds, and it's this gospel going through the administration of the church, not governments. As a matter of fact, the church and the gospel have always exploded in moments of persecution.

Somehow we think in our minds that God is going to crush the United States if we vote the wrong way, no matter who you think your candidate is that's going to save the United.

States.

Then God's work is going to be thwarted because we as Christians made the wrong decision. Right now, God has already told us how to govern our lives and what our emphasis and focus should be. Our focus should be on the administration of the work that he's given the church.

This doesn't mean I am not caring for my country. Paul doesn't disconnect the two. To love neighbor is to do what's right for the American people, and there are differing opinions on what is right for the American people.

I'm okay to have those disagreements, just like some people think you shouldn't eat grease and sugar, that's not good for you, and other people are like, it's fine. I'm not going to make that a theological debate because the Bible doesn't.

Justin Perdue. Right.

I think you're right about how when Christians get so worked up over politics, it sort of reveals how earthbound a lot of our theology is. That's a sadness. In many cases, it seems that we are hoping in God's word and even in Christ for this life in a way that perhaps we shouldn't.

We should be more focused on the redemptive kingdom and the life to come. That's one observation. I've actually got several more things to say. I lied a minute ago when I said I only had two because more things just keep popping up and I keep writing things on my whiteboard.

I know we're going to land the plane here in a minute. One thing that I am going to do, along with this kind of earthbound stuff that we're considering right now and not placing our hope in any political party or any government or anything like that, I take pains as a pastor not only to keep my own personal political opinions private.

When it comes to my public ministry and any comments that I might make about politics, oftentimes those comments are with the purpose of blowing up utopian notions that are red and blue. I'm an equal opportunity destroyer of utopian notions when it comes to politics because what I want for all of our people is for them to understand that it's fine to have strong opinions and sincere disagreements with people about politics, but those things are at best secondary.

What really matters is that we know that the only thing that is going to right every wrong is the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and that only God can make all things new. Only God can restore all things to where we actually will have this eternal, sure, and so it's good as a pastor to help your people understand that they need to hold loosely on the one hand to their political convictions and not put their hope and trust in something that can never deliver and can never save.

That's important to me, John. This is the last thing that I've got written down, and we'll see what else you have to throw out here. I know we're approaching about 30 minutes, which is where we wanted to keep this combo to.

In my own congregation, my hope and my prayer is that the posture of our people toward a person who voted differently than them would be one of charity and humility, and I pray that the conversation would go something like this.

You voted differently than I did in the election. Talk with me about why you voted the way you voted. Now, if in that conversation convictions that are clearly at odd with Scripture are uncovered, okay, we can talk about that and we can deal with that because we should.

If somebody's advocating for something that is contra-Bible and they're like, well, yeah, I voted this way because I think this is a good thing, it's like, okay, well, Scripture says that's bad and you think it's good, then we need to reconcile.

That.

We can talk about that, but if there's agreement in that conversation, tell me why you voted the way you did. I'm assuming good motivations in you, brother. I'm assuming good motivations in you, sister.

Tell me why you voted the way you voted. If there's agreement at the level of conviction and disagreement as to how to vote, we move forward in love and unity in Christ, and we may agree to disagree about political matters, and that's okay.

That's what I would want in my own congregation rather than it being the situation where, yeah, if you didn't vote the way that I did, then I'm not quite sure that you're even in Christ at all.

The Danger of Making Voting a Test of Orthodoxy

Yeah, it's really sad, I think, the divide that happens within the Christian community. It breaks my heart to see people make statements to put a lot of faith in a system that the Bible just never asks us to put faith in.

We have never been asked to put our faith in a governmental system. We've been told to submit to it and that God's the one that's in charge of it, but you just don't see in Scripture where you're encouraged.

Listen, the United States of America is not Israel, and we are not a theocratic nation. We are not underneath the governance of God. We're probably going to need to do a podcast on theonomy soon, but we are not underneath the laws of God as a nation.

Now, I am always thankful when our country does uphold the moral values that we do. They give me the opportunity to put a vote and to hold to those laws. Man, I'm going to put my vote in. But listen, when I say abortion is sin, that's not a political statement.

That's a biblical statement. When I say homosexuality or all sexual deviance, sex before marriage, any sexual sin, that's not a political statement. That is a biblical. But here's the one thing that you will not hear Justin and I do.

Our goal is not to shape the political values of our congregants. The mission that's been handed to us is to preach Christ and Him crucified from all of Scripture and to lead people to rest in Jesus Christ, not vote one political party.

And churches who do this, it breaks my heart. I'm not angry with them. I'm not upset. I'm just heartbroken because people are not finding rest weekly. They're finding unrest. They're putting so much hope in a government where the hope, I'm telling you, the United States has not been around long, and it may not be around much longer.

And guess what? God is still accomplishing His mission to save the elect. God is in control of His mission.

Justin Perdue. And we are absolutely, as pastors, teaching our people to view the world through the lens of Scripture and the gospel.

Amen?

Absolutely. And again, when it's a clear moral issue from Scripture, we preach it and herald it unashamedly. We've already been saying there are a number of things that we can be very clear about at the level of conviction that are based on biblical truth, that abortion and sexual deviancy are sin, that racism is from hell, that marginalizing the weak and the needy and the poor is terrible, and it's wrong.

So we can all agree on those matters, and we share those convictions, and most importantly, we agree on Christ. We may disagree as to how best to use our vote as citizens of the United States, but in the church, we never disagree about Jesus, and we don't ever disagree about our need of Christ, and that's the main thing.

I would stake my ministry on that. John and I are not saying, oh, well, we're just going to preach Jesus and everything else is insignificant. No, no.

There are more than two speeds in our gear box, too.

There's more than essential and irrelevant. There's a spectrum of importance here, but you keep the main things the main things, and then you preach biblical truth and moral truth from Scripture, and then when it comes to a wisdom decision, an exercise in prudence, then we may very well think our brothers and sisters are unwise, but we need to be careful about throwing around the S word, sin.

When we say that somebody is necessarily in sin for a wisdom decision they've made, we need to have a very straight line that we can draw from Scripture to our statement and proclamation that you're in sin.

And that's where, again, I think nuance and thoughtfulness, John, is required because it's easy for me to look at somebody and say, if you are pro-abortion, that's sin. If you are for the marginalization of the poor and you are for the marginalization of minorities, that's sin.

I can say that from Scripture, but then I can't draw such a straight line from Scripture to the voting booth because I realize that wisdom has to be exercised in making that judgment call on who to vote for.

Let's just put it this way. It's just not as black and white as everybody wants to make it. So when someone says, well, then how should I vote? How should I vote? And our answer to this is, listen, you use all of what Scripture has given you, and this is a wisdom issue, and you do the best you can and try not to violate your conscience and trust in the sufficiency of Christ and His sovereignty.

I would say stay out of the political debates because they are just not helpful.

Exercise your civic responsibility. Use discernment. View things through the lens of Scripture. Vote your conscience. Love your brothers and sisters in Christ.

Do not divide your church. Paul says, make every effort to extol gentleness, patience, and meekness with the bond of unity in Christ. Unfortunately, the peace of the gospel and unity is not being seen in this scene, and it's sad and heartbreaking.

Charity, Humility, and Staying Focused on Christ

Justin Perdue. Well, brother, that's about it for me. Obviously, we could riff on this stuff for longer, but I think we've communicated the main things we want to communicate. Don't misunderstand anything that we're saying to mean, like I said from the jump, that we don't think it matters how you vote or that all votes are morally equivalent.

That's not what we're saying, but I trust we've been clear enough about what matters most in the unity that we have in Christ and how it's not as black and white as people want to make it. So exercise charity and love and humility in the way that you have conversations with brothers and sisters in Christ about political matters and about all things.

Keep pointing one another to Christ.

Justin Perdue. Amen.

Well, if you want to read Justin's article, it'll be a lot shorter than this. If you wanted to share it with someone, you can go to theocast .org, and the article will be there.

You'll be able to read that.

Thank you for listening.

Talk to you soon.