Many people think that if you believe a certain biblical truth, then that leads to a particular political belief. The fact is that is rarely true. That is why there are Christians with genuine faith who disagree on every political position under the sun. For example, the 10 Commandments say not to murder, and yet there are Christians who support the death penalty, and those who do not. Deuteronomy 10:18-19 says, “He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner therefore; for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.” And yet, we have Christians who want to allow in more refugees, and those who want to allow less, or none at all.
All of these political positions can be defended from Scripture, so it’s not surprising that Christians don’t all agree on politics. And that’s actually a good thing. If there was a political party that was almost entirely under the sway of Christians, then our faith would soon be understood by the rest of the nation as nothing more than a political party that is seeking power to enforce it’s will on the people. The close alignment of evangelicals and the Republican Party in recent years is dangerously close to this. It’s not good for a religion to be dragged into politics in that way. In Northern Ireland in the 1980’s, the two parties were Catholics and Protestants, which not only vied for power, but even committed acts of violence against each other, more for political reasons than anything else.
We Christians need to remember that other believers can draw very different conclusions about how they should vote. And voting is particularly tricky because we don’t vote for one issue at a time; we vote for people who we think overall best represent our beliefs. That means we probably disagree on some issues but vote for the person anyway. And other believers likely evaluate their top priorities in ways that don’t match with everyone else. For example, should Christians put abortion as their top issue when voting? Some would say that absolutely they should. But if you are a Christian facing bankruptcy due to medical bills before the era of Obamacare, then affordable health insurance may be your top priority. Or if you are a recent immigrant from Ukraine, then foreign policy may be your single biggest issue.
In summary, Christians can not only disagree on specific political issues, but also on which issues carry more weight, and who is best suited to carry out those priorities. The Democratic Party could not win a national election without the help of the black church any more than the Republican Party could win without evangelicals. All people should vote according to their beliefs—spiritual and otherwise. But as Christians, we should be on our guard against politicians and pundits who want to tell us what to believe about the Bible.
