Vote like a sinner

Up until a few days ago, I was considering spoiling my ballot tomorrow.  I know a number of other Christians who are thinking along the same lines.  I've changed my mind.  I'm going to vote.  Can I encourage you to do likewise?

Here's the thing: I think we've got to a point where voting for any of the main parties in this election involves you in sin.  I don't think that's hyperbole.  You cannot as a Christian vote for a party mired in antisemitism, or a party pledged to decriminalise abortion.  You cannot as a Christian vote for a party which has shown little regard for the truth when campaigning and little regard for the vulnerable when in government.  You cannot as a Christian vote for a party which wants to throw the basic of God-given human nature out the window and legally enshrine a radical gender ideology.

You cannot.  Not as a Christian.

And so the only way to preserve your conscience intact, the only way to be righteous, is not to vote.  Right?

I think the problem with this perspective - and it was mine until a few days ago - is that it assumes that there is a group of the righteous, sitting somehow detached from the society around us, not as yet implicated in its wickedness.  It is not so.  Vote or don't vote.  You are nonetheless part of the society which has thrown up these options.  Where do you think this evil choice came from?  From the evil hearts of other people?  Not at all so.  Not at all.  No, we too, like the rest, are guilty, culpable.

Not us Christians?  Surely not us?  But has it all happened without us?  Have we spoken and lived clear alternatives?  Have we stood up for the unborn as we should have done?  Have we clearly defended our Jewish neighbours?  Have we shown by our lives and our speech just what human being means and is meant to be in God's creation?  Have we taken action for the vulnerable?

We too, like the rest.

Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

Not to vote is to try to opt out.  But you and I are in it up to our necks.  You can't just opt out of the swamp in which you have lived your whole life, the swamp you have helped to build, through your negligence, your weakness, your own deliberate fault.  You belong with these people, not standing over them in some superior place of righteousness.

So get out and vote.  You can't vote for any of these as a Christian.  Well then, vote as a sinner.  Pick your red lines - the things you won't cross - and take the appropriate action.  I won't vote for a liberalised abortion regime, I won't vote for antisemitism, and I won't vote for gender confusion.  So I'll vote for the other guys.  And I'm not saying you should do that.  I'm saying you should make a decision and get involved.  I'm not saying that as a Christian you really ought to vote.  I'm saying that as a sinner you really ought to vote.

Put a cross in a box, and as you put it there cry out to heaven: I am a man (or woman) of unclean politics, and I live amongst a people of unclean politics!  Woe, woe is me!

Be justified, not by your vote, but by your Saviour.  Be justified from your sinful vote.  Vote and trust, vote and believe.

Vote and confess.