Why I Did Not Vote

I did not vote in this last election. I noticed that my last post on Wal-Mart had some friends howling at me, tho I have not seen any comments. I suppose what I’ll say here will seem the same. I guess I should also say that I like to debate, and so if I’m wrong here, let me know. But I probably won’t think so without some real help!

The reasons why I did not vote go back a bit. Well, there is only one reason, really. I don’t want to be involved in what is going to happen over the next few years. So I was not going to give a vote one way or the other. Here’s how I came to that conclusion.

I had voted in every election since 1988. But I only voted for a major party candidate once. I voted Libertarian every other time.

The proximate cause for my decision came a little over a year ago at a fund-raising banquet. A speaker, by way of talking about inspiration in his life, praised Eisenhower. Now, Eisenhower was a great man and president. But in other spheres, I am not sure he can be accepted that way. I am a Methodist pastor. And one of my pastor-brothers is a man from Congo, Jonathan Lumumba. His father, Patrice, was the first democratically elected leader of Zaire. The Belgian secret service with U.S. help or perhaps U.S. apathy, assassinated Mr. Lumumba. Eisenhower was briefed on all this.

Then, Sojourners had an editorial on Robert Kennedy and how his assassination crushed the dreams of a generation. That was a bit much, given that we should not put our hope in men or kings. There was also something in praise of JFK. All of which is fine. Great men. And yet, I began to think we should not be surprised they were assassinated. I know it is a deep wound in the country’s history, but they were involved in assassinations of other world leaders, and best I can tell, you live by the sword, you die by it as well. It seems to me that if the Book of Kings were written today, and we were looking at, for example, the Kennedys, they would be in the categories of Ahab and Omri, with touches of Josiah and Hezekiah.

So, basically, that night at the banquet I was sad. What if Rev. Lumumba were there to hear praise for the man who either had his father killed or could have saved him? How can I praise Obama? He will be part of shady dealings in his administration. And clearly, unborn people are in more danger than they have been in years. Bloody years ahead: on the battlefield, in hidden places around the world, and in the womb. I simply did not want to have my name attached to any of it.

But I take a second look. Peter Storey preached a sermon on the eve of elections in South Africa. He said that because his church was integrated, the whites were going to have to look the blacks in the eyes after they voted. Would they vote to keep them subjugated? Or would they vote with an eye to casting a vote that would give the voiceless a voice?

I think this is the only thing I have heard about Christian politics that makes any sense.

Then there’s this. If we’re so much in an “empire” as is fashionable to say now, then why do we not act like Christians in the Empire? This has been a question I have been asking for about 5 years—not because I believe we’re in anything like Babylon or Rome (you’re going to have to do more than say so to make me believe we are) but because we’re not. Peter and John did not have a vote. And so I wonder—would they do anything differently? That is, they did not seem to give a rip what the Romans did. They did not lead protest marches. They did not crave audience with power to bring about justice. Rather, they invited people into the Kingdom life and rejected this disgusting and dying world in favor of life. Vultures live on a carcass, my friends.

But was this the Apostles’ way because they were disenfranchised? Would they vote if they could? Would they care to?