Episode 166 - Stop Treating Elections Like A Sacrament

Elections can make Christians feel like the fate of righteousness hangs on a cross in a ballot box. We push back on that pressure and name the confusion underneath it: mistaking a kingdom that comes down from heaven for a kingdom that gets voted into office. Yes, we think voting can be a legitimate act of conscience, neighbour love, and limited stewardship. No, we do not think it is a sacrament, a command, or the engine of the Kingdom of God. 

We take seriously one of the strongest arguments you will hear in Christian political engagement: that in a democracy every citizen is given a leadership role, so voting becomes a duty tied to providing for those under our care. Then we slow down and ask harder questions about calling, anointing, and whether Christians must accept the identity a political system assigns. From there we return to biblical political theology and the surprisingly simple shape of New Testament instruction: submit to authorities (Romans 13), pray for rulers (1 Timothy 2), and obey God rather than humans when there is a direct clash (Acts 5, with Daniel in the background). 

We also look at the apostles and Peter under Nero to see what faithful Christian politics actually looks like when the stakes are real. The point is not passivity. It is a different centre of gravity: the radical revolution of church life, daily holiness, costly love, shared community, and steady prayer, rather than constant mobilisation and low-grade spiritual despair over election results. If you feel worn out by democratic anxiety, we end with a thought experiment designed to lift the weight off your shoulders and put it where it belongs. 

If this challenged you, subscribe, share it with a friend who is politically tired, and leave a review so more people can find the conversation. What part of your political burden are you ready to put down?

The theme music is "Wager with Angels" by Nathan Moore

Transcript

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Jesus As Emperor And Politics

Rev Dr PRB 0:30

Well, welcome to the Christ Center Cosmic Civilization as we continue looking into Jesus as the divine emperor and why that matters for politics. And we're on to chapter four of looking at the diagnosis of the problem. And okay, it's as if imagine a person says, Look, I take your point, the democratic system has problems. The 20th century is not a great advertisement for democracy. The professional political class is not what we would have hoped for. And yeah, I guess I, the citizen, feel weighed down by it all in ways I've never quite been able to express. But what does that mean for me? Practically, should I stop voting? Is voting a sin? Are you telling us to disengage from politics altogether? Look, they're fur questions, and I want to try

Is Voting A Sin

Rev Dr PRB 1:40

and answer them. Look, the short answer is no. I'm not telling anybody to stop voting, and voting isn't a sin. I have voted. And I have been moved by a particular candidate of unusual character to actually support their campaign. I will, in all honesty, pro I'll admit this, I'll probably vote again at some future election if the circumstances seem to warrant it. I guess I might. The question of whether to vote at all is, in my judgment, a question of conscience, and I'm not here to kind of legislate that. But I do want to draw a distinction that I think is important and that has come up many times in pastoral conversations over the years. There is the Christian the Christian who has weighed the available options carefully, prayed honestly about them, and decided that one candidate is morally preferable to the others, and has therefore in good conscience con conscience, they've gone to the polls, they've voted for that candidate, and you know, such a Christian has done nothing wrong. He or she has exercised an act of conscience in a system that they did not design and they cannot abolish it. So they've prayed for the country, they've done the small civic act that the system asks of them, and they've gone home, gotten on with actual life, and I guess trusted the Lord with the outcome. You know, such a Christian is fine, I've no quarrel with them, but there's another kind of Christian, and this is the Christian who has come somewhere along the way to believe that the kingdom of God is advanced by the ballot box, and I find that this person is much more common. Even though they

When Voting Becomes A Gospel

Rev Dr PRB 3:55

may not always explicitly say this, on social media I constantly find Christians saying that engagement in politics and voting is necessary if we for the kingdom of God, for righteousness, for it's part of our Christian discipleship. And so this is the Christian for whom voting is not just a small civic act, but for them it's a deep spiritual obligation, a Christian duty, a way of bringing about the will of God on earth. So for this Christian, they read the electoral news as though it had a kind of prophetic power, and it causes for them spiritual anguish or worship, and they treat the next election as though not quite that the salvation of the world depended on it, but that genuine issues of righteousness and God's kingdom are in play. And they feel personal moral responsibility for the outcome of the election at some level, and they suffer a kind of low grade spiritual depression when their preferred candidate loses, and a kind of low grade spiritual exaltation when their preferred candidate wins. Now, this Christian, and this is I think probably the most common Christian I find let's just say in Britain and quite a lot of America, I would gently suggest that they've made an error. They have confused the kingdom that comes down from heaven, God's business, with the kingdom that is voted into office. And that is a confusion the Bible never makes. Now I came across some years ago a minister who argued with a certain level of theological sophistication that voting in a democracy is a Christian duty as a matter of biblical command. And his argument went something like this. He says, The Bible commands us to take responsibility for the people God has placed under our care. The Apostle Paul says in 1 Timothy 5 8 that anyone who does not provide for their relatives and especially for their own household has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

The Strongest Case For Duty

Rev Dr PRB 7:16

In a marriage, this means the husband must love and care for his wife. In a family, this means the parents must provide for their children. In a church, this means the elders must shepherd the flock. And in a democratic country, this minister argued, this means the citizen must vote. Because in a democracy, every citizen has been given a leadership role in the nation. The democratic citizen is a kind of mini-elder, a mini magistrate, a mini king. He has a responsibility to exercise the leadership that the system has granted him. I want to take this argument seriously because I think it's the strongest Christian case for the duty to vote, and many of my readers may have heard some version of it. It's rarely expressed in such strong terms as that, and so in a way clearly, but I think that's the common atmosphere. Again, I I again I remember that, you know, just in a magazine article, how I found another person in the magazine just talking as if voting is an intrinsic part of Christian discipleship and that we are called by God to do it. But notice the question it begs. In a democracy, every citizen has been given a leadership role in the nation. Now, is that actually true? It is true that the democratic system, by the fundamental claim we examined in in chapter one, it does treat every citizen as a kind of mini-sovereign. But is the citizen actually a leader? Is the citizen actually qualified to lead? Is the citizen actually called by God to lead? Has the citizen actually been anointed by God for this work? The one Timothy five eight argument requires that we accept the democratic system's foundational claim about the citizen's role at face value. It requires us to say, Yes, the system has assigned me a kind of leadership role in the nation, and therefore I am morally obligated to exercise it. But the Christian is not, in general, obligated to accept whatever role a political system assigns to them. The Christian under say a communist dictatorship is not obligated to take the role of the commissar of revolutionary purity assigned to him by the party. Think about think that through. So the question is not whether the democratic system has assigned me a leadership role. Let's even say it has, and it's it it wants the citizens to accept a role assigned to them. The question is whether I, as a Christian, recognise that role as the one as one I am called by God to take up. And here I would suggest the Bible has very little to say in favour of the citizen's leadership role, and a great deal to say in favour of a different and much more modest set of responsibilities. The Bible, when it actually addresses the political situation of the believer, gives three commands. First, and this is in Romans thirteen, submit to the governing authorities, paying taxes and giving honour where it is due. Second, and this is in one Timothy two, pray for those in authority that we may live peaceful and

What Scripture Actually Commands Politically

Rev Dr PRB 12:35

quiet lives. And then in Acts five, thirdly, be ready to obey God rather than humans if a direct conflict arises. And the Book of Daniel is a has deep examination of that principle. So that's the Bible's political programme for the ordinary Christian. Submission, prayer, faithful obedience to God. Notice what is absent. There's no command to vote. There's no command to take responsibility for the leadership of the nation. There's no command to mobilize politically. And we're gonna come to this later, but just consider Jesus in all his preaching and teaching, he has he says things that have imp very powerful implications for the politics of the day about Caesar and Herod and all sorts of things, but he never comments on and has anything to say at all about specific political programmes or manifestos or anything like that. Neither do the apostles. So there is no command to mobilize politically, there's no command to lobby, there's no command to organize or be an activist in that in that particular modern sense of that word, where you're not active. The biblical political vision for the ordinary Christian is structurally a vision of holy submission and faithful prayer, not a vision of political leadership or responsibility in that sense. So let's notice how the apostles actually behaved when they had political opportunities. So Paul stood before Felix the Governor and Festus the Governor and Herod Agrippa the King. He was a Roman citizen with the right of appeal to the emperor. He was, by the standards of his day, a person with real political access. And of course, there were elections at the time. Loads of elections that Roman citizens voted in. He doesn't tell us anything about his voting patterns or he doesn't throw in comments about to Timothy about make sure you get out for the vote on whatever, limited devolution of power for Egypt, or whatever. He didn't do any of those things. What did he do with the political opportunities he he was given? He preached the gospel. He told them about Jesus. He answered the questions they put to him about his faith in Jesus. He explained the Bible. And then he went back to the work he was actually doing, which was planting churches, writing letters to encourage the saints, explaining how they were to live out the way of Jesus, the truth of Jesus, and then what that meant for how they were going to live. But he didn't lobby, he didn't advocate, he didn't propose policies, he did not draft legislation, he did not put together petitions to be signed, he did not organize voting blocks, he didn't try to make people aware of big political issues of the day. And there were many, there were many. If you know the first century, there were loads of important political issues that were I say important in the normal sense of politics. They would have dominated the newspapers and the news cycles. But when we read the writings of the apostles, it's as if none of them exist. So the political life of an influential apostle in the New Testament was simply the life of a Christian under the authorities, doing what the Lord had given him to do, accepting what the authorities did to him, and trusting the king in heaven with the outcome. It's really worth meditating on that. Peter wrote to Christians scattered across Asia Minor under the persecuting Roman Empire, and then read his political instructions. See again, sometimes people say, Oh, the apostles were not political. I don't like politics coming into church. No, no, the Bible's intensely political in one sense. To say Jesus is Lord is the most political statement we can ever say. As we'll see, this whole book's about that. We're gonna see that we are we are intensely political. Church life is intensely political, but it's political in a way that is far more radical than tinkering around with this kind of political activity that that democracy pretends with. So Peter, let's read his political instructions in 1 Peter 2, 13 to 70. Submit yourselves for the Lord's sake to every human authority, whether to the emperor as the supreme authority, or to governors who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. So that was Peter's political teaching for Christians under Nero. So not under a liberal democracy, but under Nero. Submit. So I I just I just want to that word is so crazily radical and revolutionary for the modern Western Christian who, if there are things happening in the pol that the government does, and the Christian doesn't

Apostles Under Power And Christian Submission

Rev Dr PRB 19:44

like them or finds them uncomfortable or inconvenient or whatever, the one thing that isn't uh suggested is submit. The one the the the uh constantly it's let's mobilize, let's write to politicians, let's do let's do this, let's do that, let's do not but not submit. So Peter says, and this is under Nero submit, live as servants of God, show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honour the emperor, honour the emperor and there is again no command to organize politically in the modern sense. The whole of Peter's vision is a vision of faithful Christian witness under whatever government the Lord has placed. The Christian who has come to believe that voting is a positive Christian duty has, I think, smuggled into the gospel a piece of modern democratic ideology that is not actually there. The gospel does not require of her to be a leader of the nation. The gospel asks much more modest things of her to share life with her church family, to feed the hungry in the church family, to share what she has, to pray for the rulers, to live a quiet life of godliness and holiness, and to watch and wait for the Lord's return. Now, the vast majority of Christians in the history of the church have done these things faithfully without ever casting a vote in their lives. They were not failing in their Christian duty, they were fulfilling it. And think for a moment about the Christians who have in fact changed the world the most over the centuries. Because again, just before I list them all, that idea that we must change the world, yes we do, and people often say, I want to, I want the world, I want, I want, I care about the world, I want to, I want to change the world, and therefore I'm going to pull political levers. To me, that when they say whenever a person says they want to they they care about the world and they want to change it, I always want to know how you're gonna do that. It's a gr it's a good vision, how are you gonna do that? And then they talk they start to talk about politics, or people even say I went into politics in order to make the world a better place or make this country better or something. You know, I suppose you if that's that if that genuinely is the job they have to. Do in life, you know, we must pray for them and support them. It's a it's a tough thing. But but for people in general, if they if they think like that, what we know is that is not how they're going, that's the world's not going to change that way. That is not gonna change the world. The most they can hope to do is change some sort of administrative thing or something, but the world isn't going to change that way. So let's think about the people who've really left an impact on the world. The apostles themselves, and we've thought, how did they go about doing that so that history itself changed around them, and and our calendars and everything are sort of they're absorbed into the very the the kind of gul the the entire orientation of all world history, these apostles, and all those early martyrs that were with them Saint Anthony of the Desert or maybe Augustine, Patrick, Cyril and Methodius, Francis of Assisi, Catherine of Siena, reformers, revival preachers, pioneer missionaries. None of them changed the world by voting. Most of them lived under regimes that didn't allow modern style voting and political engagement at all. They changed the world by preaching the gospel, living the way of Jesus right where they were. Planting churches, writing books about Jesus, in other words, sharing this truth. They maybe founded monasteries and copied manuscripts and baptized communities and they crucified the flesh in their own lives. They walked in the spirit, they suffered martyrdom, and they prayed and prayed and prayed without ceasing. The historical record is overwhelming. For some of these, we have their lives in biographies and autobiographies and read 'em. Read it. The Christians who have changed the world have done so by being radically Christian. And the the extent to which they approximate to Jesus himself in the way they lived is is that's how that is the extent to which the scale of the change, the bigger, the size of their impact. But it wasn't by being politically active. Now I want to give the godly voting Christian his due. He may, in his vote, be exercising a small act of love for his neighbour by trying to bring about a slightly better government. And look, there's nothing wrong with this. He may also be exercising an act of stewardship for the small share of public influence the systemers happen to give him. Again, nothing wrong with that. But these small almost irrelevant acts, no, I shouldn't say that. Let's just say these small acts of love, obedience, whatever they think they are. Then I don't well, we're not they're not obedience because they're not commanded. But uh the let's say these small acts of love. But they should not these acts should not, I would suggest, be the centre of a godly Christian's political life. The centre of their political life should be the same as the centre of every Christian's political life since the apostles. Our political centre is prayer for the rulers. Our political centre is the radical revolution of life as church. Our political centre is daily fruitfulness

Civic Ritual Versus Church Revolution

Rev Dr PRB 27:34

and faithfulness in the name of the Lord Jesus. Voting when the Christian does does this in good conscience, is fine. It's fine. Voting as a substitute for the actual political work the gospel asks of us is not fine. And the modern Christian, I would suggest, has often made this substitution without noticing he was making it. The modern Christian, a Western Christian especially, but I think it's wider than just but that this modern Christian has come to believe that the discharge of the civic duty by casting a vote every so often is sufficient evidence of his political faithfulness. And then they may get active and do some social media posts about voting and about government or political party platforms, and can you believe this politician said this? Listen to how good this other politician, that sort of nonsense. And that the modern Christian has, by doing that sort of thing, believes that he has thereby relieved himself of the harder, deeper, more transformative work that the gospel actually asks, that he's actually called to. Oh no, no, it's not a it's not an either or, it's a both and and yeah, okay, but that's not me my experience. My experience of what it is that people are passionate about, what they post about, what they talk about, what they get upset about, is the democratic political system stuff. And far down the list of priorities is this 24-7 revolution of church life. Where we're supposed to learn how to be really human and display to the world how we are to actually live together, sharing everything together, caring for one another. That is the actual manifesto that needs to be put before the world, our local church life. So the cure for this is not to vote more wisely, the cure is to recover the actual political life of the gospel, which is the radical revolution of church. As we come to the end of this chapter, then I want to leave you with a qu a question. And this is we're actually coming to the end of this section of the book entirely, the diagnosis section. And this is the question Imagine for a moment that your country was governed by a sincere, thoughtful, godly, Christian, sacral monarch. By the word sacral, though, we mean a monarch that sees church life as an intrinsic part of ruling the nation, and that they understand that the rule comes from Jesus, is accountable to him, and that they must be anointed by Jesus, from Jesus, but with the Spirit to accomplish this, and that the leadership is a spiritual leadership as well as other dimensions. Okay, so but imagine that your country was governed by a sincere, thoughtful, godly Christian, sacral monarch. And imagine that we'll say it's a king, because we've currently got a king, but I I'm I I still find myself quite often referring to the queen because she was so wonderful as a Chris uh Christian leader of the United Kingdom. But but imagine that this this monarch Christian godly Christian sacrament that he that he prayed daily, read the law of God, sought the counsel of the bishops and church leaders, and that he ruled in fear of the one who appointed him, Jesus. And that he gave you, his subject, the protection and order required for you to live a quiet life of godliness and holiness. So here you've got to I'm asking you to imagine that this the best the best vision of sacral monarchy is true and real and it's happened, and you live in this kind of a nation where there is a godly Christian monarch who has created conditions for you to have a quiet and peaceful life, and that they live in fear of the divine emperor, and have grown up reading the law of God and submitting to church as the the standard of life to live. Now, imagine that you knew you'd never have to vote. You'd never have to take responsibility for the leadership of the nation. You would never have to weigh manifestos around the dinner table. You would never have to feel personally implicated in the failures of the government. Imagine all that all the political circus just doesn't exist. And there's just this sacral monarch who is in this authority for decades. So imagine now that you're free to give your full energy and attention to your family, your church, your work, your neighbours, your prayers, the fruitful things the Lord has actually given you to do?

Imagine A Godly Monarch And Relief

Rev Dr PRB 34:59

Can you imagine this? Would your soul be lighter or heavier? Would you be more faithful or less? Would your local church family be stronger or weaker? Would the actual transformation of the world by the actual work of the gospel proceed faster or slower? I think I think you know the answer. I think most of us, if we're honest, would say that our souls would be lighter, our faithfulness would be deeper, our churches would be stronger, the gospel would go forward faster if the burden of running the country were was not was was taken off our shoulders and placed on the shoulders where it actually belongs, the shoulders of the divine king. And this is the good news. That is in fact where it has always been, and that's what we're gonna see in part two of this. The king is on his throne, he is running the country, the burden you've been told to carry is a burden you were never asked to carry, and the cure is to lift your eyes and see the one who has been carrying it the whole time. The democratic citizen is exhausted, the democratic century is bloody. The democratic system selects for salesmanship, not stewardship. And the Christian who's bought into the democratic system as the framework for his political faith has, in many cases, substituted civic ritual for the radical revolution of the gospel. And the cure is what we're going to explore in parts two, three, four, and five of this book. We're going to lift our eyes, we'll look to the throne, we'll see who's actually running the world, we'll rediscover the political program the gospel actually gives us, and we will discover at the end of it all the deep pastoral relief of being released from a burden that was never ours to carry. The king is on his throne, let's go and see him.