My position on voting and thus its admitted judgment on our electoral system are at least borne out of in part an attempt to form a thorough going ethic of life. I begin here largely due to the discussions occurring over at Cliff’s blog ( Single-Issue Voting? , Is Abortion Worse than an Unjust War? How to Think About Voting ). As I understand one of Cliff’s points to be that by his voting for a pro-life candidate he can be certain that in voting he is not contradicting the Church’s position on this issue (what follows though should not be construed as directly addressing the points Cliff is making). This however, presents me with an illustration of a problem that leads me to say that our electoral system is no longer worthy of our support. Why should there be only two parties? So that the “choice” I am provided with is a party that seems to be more concerned with the plight of the poor (subtly hawkish) and social justice, and a party that proclaims it’s opposition to abortion and some form of laiser-fair government as long as it suits their purposes. (I don’t quit see how all the proliferation of departments for our “security” fits with limited government.)
There is something compelling about being able to say that when it comes to issues of reproductive and end of life ethics I can look to party X and know that my vote is not complicit in what is clearly and unambiguously known to be sin (I am not sure this is possible). The refined aspect of this argument is of course a hierarchy of sin, which I will accept here for the sake of argument.
I wonder though can this fixation on the certain lead to an ignoring of more subtle and pernicious evil. Shouldn’t I be concerned with the expansion of the State and its ever widening and deepening reach into the life of its citizens? (If abortion can be likened to the holocaust, cannot this disregard for civil rights and limits on the ability of the government to look into the actions and patterns of its citizens, be likened to the slow movement towards Fascism in pre-war democratic Germany?) Can any disregard for life unborn or living truly be tolerated by Christians?
I am at a loss as how it is currently possible to turn aside from death and the devil, as the baptismal vows bind every Christian, when from where I sit both parties are bound to the logic of death and destruction all the while spouting rhetoric of life.
Christians who see a life affirming ethic in either of our political parties fail to see the dominance of death in both, and the way in which death has dominated our system from its inception. The acceptance of slavery at the beginning of our republic has sown the fruit of an inability to distinguish life from death.
Now this analysis is based on an ideal proclamation, an unflinching judgment that claims that the time for pragmatic compromise with the world and institutions has come to an end. In this unflinching statement it may not speak the whole truth, yet I also wish to claim that my position and this proclamation are specific to our situation. However, I think that as long as Christians in the nation of ours continue to fail to face that they cannot escape the complicity with the power of death in compromising with one or the other of our political parties this judgment stands, as a needful if overly stark painting. What I proclaim in abstaining from voting should be understood an s attempt to correct the currently naïve views that dominate Christian thinking of our relationship to our democratic system.
Vote Republican but do not tell me that George Bush is neither God’s elect, nor that by voting “pro-life”, i.e. against abortion, will eradicate death from our system. Vote Democratic but do not tell me that you can do so and be entirely consistent in your turning away from the power of death. Admit the impossibility the pain and the brokenness of being a citizen of a democratic nation.
In abstaining from my right and duty there is no claim that I then separate myself from the above complicity but is a means to speak a judgment on our system and call my fellow Christians to speak the truth of their involvement in our political system. Our nation is not redeemed or perfect: it is therefore still bound in many ways to Satan and Death.
As far as far as I know there are currently only theologically naïve approaches to the Christians engagement with a democratic culture. So I will speak this corrective and in protest to claims of the holiness of a Christians vote, abstain. The claims that are being made by our candidates and their supporters are largely exaggerated; our hope for the transformation of the world can never be in our political systems nor a state large or small, but in Christ alone. If we begin any where but this ancient political and theological claim, "Jesus is Lord", we fail to truly understand both the necessity and the impossibility of a Christian political engagement.
Larry:
ReplyDeleteYou may be surprised that I would say this, but "Great post!" I thoroughly enjoyed the thoughtfulness with which you pursued this issue.
I don't have a sustained critique to offer, but I do have a question.
Your call for abstention from the vote seems to assume that one is so morally compromised by engagement with the two dominant parties (though other third parties could presumably fall under your critique as well) that to vote for either candidate is to cooperate with evil.
However, does abstention not also fall under the rubric of inaction in the face of evil? That is to say, if abstention results in greater evils being done (say Bush is voted in, so more work will be done on restraining abortion, but maybe more action will be taken against the poor and the killing of innocents in war), then isn't the abstainer complicit in that she or he did not do what they could to restrain the greater evil by voting for the opposing candidate, or a third party candidate? Even if one subscribes to the radical equivalence of all evils, so such phrases as "greater evil" are nonsensical, isn't it still the case that by abstention one has failed to actively resist evil?
Several responces:
ReplyDelete1) My call is more an invitation should my critique stand in the judgment of the reader. This has been a growing conviction in me over the last year, and I could not justify abstaining and remaining silent.
2) I do not address third parties because our system is a two partie system by custom. Third parties serve in our system to displace one or both to the two, but are system is set up two keep two parties dominant.
3) There is a deeper assumption that I had hopped to be able to test and explore: that political engagement is necesary and compromising for the Christian. This seems to summarize both what happened in the Chruch and Roman Society after the legalization of Christianity and much of what Luther and the reformers were protesting. For Luther the solution was to see a deep devide beteen the Church and Government and civil Society. As solution I reject, but one that I am only slowly replacing with something else.
4) the moral complicity seems to be in part a lack of a thorough going critique of the Scripture calls among other things the Powers. And also a seeming incomplete reflection on how Christians engage a politics in a still fallen world.
5) I do not claim the moral high ground of lack of complicity but claim this to be a protest to call for a more thorough reflection and articulation of the state of affairs. The degree to which political parties and governments live according to the law of death and the dominion of Satan Christian involvement in these things is necesarily complex. I don't think we can avoid compromise and complicty, and thus we shouldn't pretend we can. In abstaining I am recognizing that I do not escape complicity, it is simply a complicity of a different sort for the purpose of calling attention to what I percieve to be a naive engagement with the world.