Does God Care Who I Vote For?

Please, let’s leave God out of this election. Give him and us a break!

I’m not so sure the Almighty wants his name invoked in support of either presidential candidate, especially in this campaign of mud slinging and character debasement.

As Christians we are not doing our brand any big favors by using it to support candidates that are imperfect and deeply flawed. Do I prefer one candidate to the other? As a citizen I do but I have intentionally avoided giving God the credit for my decision.

Quite frankly I am amused by those who tell us God wants this particular candidate to be president or that God told them he wants such and such candidate to be president. Bull! That’s the kind of insane certainty that gives all Christians a bad rap.

Actually for Christian leaders to make such outlandish claims is a form of dangerous manipulation. It’s as bad as churches passing out voter forms in church services telling parishioners whom they should vote for. This is outrageously arrogant behavior. Please celebrity preacher, stop being a divinely appointed surrogate for your candidate. It’s beneath your calling.

God, I don’t believe, really cares who you vote for in this election. He may not even care that you vote at all, which may surprise some. So please, stop attributing your political choices to God’s will—you nor I simply don’t know enough of what God really wants to make such a definitive claim on his behalf.

I recently saw an article suggesting that we even drop the name “Christian” given how we have polluted our brand so much during this election cycle. The idea was at first appealing to me and perhaps we may need to do just that sooner or later. But I like the moniker “Christian” in spite of all the historical baggage it carries—and it does carry quite a lot of nasty baggage.

It’s a good name if only Christians would stop warping its real meaning. To be a Christian is to be a follower of Christ, not Donald J. Trump or Hillary Rodhman Clinton. To be a Christian even trumps being an American (no pun intended of course).

Your namesake indicates where your true loyalty ought to lie, doesn’t it?

Making the decision to vote for a particular candidate on November 8 is your decision and yours alone. God really doesn’t care whom you vote for anymore than he cares what you eat for your next meal. Really he doesn’t.

To claim that he does is also making the claim that those who vote differently from you are voting outside of God’s will. To blame God for your vote is evading any responsibility your vote may play in who is elected president.

So here’s the deal my Christian friend: Just know that God had nothing to do with how you vote—he doesn’t care who you support. He does care about where or in whom your true allegiance lies.

So I don’t try to defend my candidate relative to God’s assumed will. I do not align my candidate with what I perceive to be God’s will for this election.

I don’t send out calls for us to forgive my candidate of choice for his or her behavior: Forgiveness requires more than just an apology, sincere or otherwise. So I leave forgiveness up to God.

I also don’t make the insidious claim that God can use flawed individuals to carry out his purpose in the world as a means to justify my candidate's inappropriate behavior. Again, that’s saying that you know something about God’s will that others don’t know, which is arrogance my friend. So please stop making such arguments.

Yes I have a preference but I also have a more overwhelming allegiance and it’s not to any one political candidate. I do believe that the candidate that I’m supporting is better suited for what America needs at this time but I refrain from aligning that decision up with the will of God.

I also do not assume that any of the nation’s leaders are in office as the result of divine fiat. They are in office because we voted them in office and that’s that, Divine approval notwithstanding.

So please Christian, quit assuming that you are on the inside track of knowing what God’s will is in this election. 

Simply put: You don’t know any more than I do and we just might be on opposite sides comes November 8. To assume that God has a will for who is elected president will make one of us wrong and outside that will.

Plus, throwing your support behind one of the candidates and pretty foolish to say the least. It’s no wonder that so many people are fleeing from our churches these days. We are our own worse enemy and the way we are acting during this election cycle is proof in the pudding.

So cast your vote. Your vote is yours to make. Take ownership of it and live with the consequences. But please, stop claiming God is on your side and the side of your preferred candidate.

Just leave God out of the voting booth and vote your conscience.