Voting Christian

     With each Autumn comes another election season, and for Christians in Democratic nations another struggle to best employ that most solemn political authority, the vote.

     Prior to the eighteenth century, few Christians had a significant voice in the political process. Most countries were ruled by monarchs of one sort or another, some of them nominally responsible to the corrupt Roman church but only loosely responsive to the average citizen. "Rex Lex" went the saying -- the King is the Law -- and all below the rank of the aristocracy obeyed or faced punishment, often severe.

     With the Reformation, however, came a new understanding (or rather a recognition of an old truth) that all, from the lowliest peasant to the King, are responsible to God for their actions, and over the next two centuries this realization came to expression in such documents as the American Declaration that "all men are created equal." Similar ideas were incorporated into the foundations of other democracies, though some refused to acknowledge God and depended instead on a presumed "goodness" in men quickly disproved by such events as the French "Reign of Terror" yet still promoted by secularists around the world.

     In each case, however, whether for good or bad, the ultimate ruling authority was essentially taken from a tiny ruling class and dispersed, at least in principle, among the citizenry. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries suffrage -- the right to vote -- was haltingly, often poorly, sometimes grudgingly or violently, extended to a widening group of citizens in most democratic countries; today in several countries the possibility of admitting even non-citizens to the voting booth is being discussed.

     Canada's citizenry, according to the 2001 Census, is 77% Christian, a figure which was matched in the U.S. according to the American Religious Identification Study of the same year. These numbers include the full range of those who call themselves Christian, of course, but the numbers are stunning; if every Christian cast his or her vote according to Christian principles, all of North America should be governed accordingly.

     Yet the profusion of laws and decisions which promote non-Christian, often openly anti-Christian views, seems to flow like a raging torrent from our Capitols. Christianity is excluded from regulatory agencies, excised from publicly-funded schools, and restricted by law to specific and small spheres of influence. The conflict is not sectarian or based on denominations; even such commonly-held Christian concepts as the Ten Commandments are kept from our schools and public buildings. In the U.S. the exceptionally vague motto "In God We Trust" has been excluded from the design of the newest one-dollar coin. In a similar vein, leaders in Congress have forbidden references to God on some official proclamations. In both the U.S. and in Canada, specifically anti-Christian laws may be permitted soon among certain ethnic communities which would supersede other national and local laws. How can a 77% majority lose so much ground to a voting minority which, for the most part, is ambivalent rather than hostile to Christianity and which often expresses support for Christian values?

     Some of the fault lies, of course, with the broad definition of "Christian" which is invariably taken by pollsters to mean everyone who claims to be such. There can be no doubt many who say "Lord, Lord" are unknown in the Kingdom, yet few would take that name merely to upset polls. Another cause of Christianity's weak influence is a misunderstanding of "Christian tolerance" which surrenders battles, forgetting that the Christian cause is not merely our own but ultimately God's cause. An irresponsible fatalism, the idea that our actions are of no significance because "God is in control" and ignores the fact that God works through the means of His people, further weakens our influence. But the most pernicious factor may well be pragmatism, the dilution of Christianity which led one elder in a conscientiously Reformed church to rebuke his Pastor for "wasting his vote" on the candidate representing the Christian Heritage Party.

     Christian voters hold two solemn responsibilities. One is that of the authority represented by their vote, through which they share in the actual duties of government at the local, regional or national level. But more importantly, Christian voters are citizens not only of their voting district; they are (if truly Christian) citizens of that Kingdom which must overrule all others. To squander or misuse that position is to fail God Himself. The world would change if every Christian voter began voting Christian.

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Gary Fisher