One of the arguments against Christians getting involved in
the political process is that God is the one who appoints our leaders. This
idea comes from Romans 13:1, which says that there is no ruler that was not
established by God.
While I certainly agree with that verse 100%, that doesn’t mean
that God is in favor of each ruler. Let’s revisit a dark time in Israel’s
history.
Israel never had a king before because their king reigned
from heaven. God had established the priesthood and His prophets, as well as
the judges, to lead His people, and the last of these judges was Samuel. When
Samuel was getting old and near the end of his life, the Israelites began to
ask for a king.
They wanted to be just like everyone else.
Samuel asked them if they would jump off a cliff if everyone
did (not quite, but it was a similar exchange), but they insisted on having a
king. God told Samuel to tell them what a king would be like, and here is the
description that Samuel relayed to the people:
He will take your sons and put them in his army and make
them drive his chariots; he will harvest your fields for his food; he will take
your daughters and make them cook for him; he will take your cattle and put
them to work and use them to feed his entourage.
But the people still wanted a king. Samuel went back to the
Lord, who acknowledged that the people were rejecting Him, and God told Samuel
to give the people what they wanted. Even though the Lord was going to
establish a king, He was going to wait for David, who was a man after God’s
heart. Instead, Israel got Saul, who was a terrible king that was soon rejected
by God.
So did God appoint Saul? Yes, but does that mean that Saul
was God’s plan? No.
Sometimes God steps back and says, “If you want it so badly,
just do it.” Just as Romans 1 records God releasing people to follow their own
sinful passions, so I Samuel 8 records God giving the people the king they wanted.
If a candidate is elected with a majority vote, then the
people are getting what they ask for. We can’t blame God for the poor job that
Saul did, and we can’t blame Him if we elect an ungodly leader. In God’s
sovereignty He allows rulers to come to the throne, but that doesn’t mean they
are there with His blessing.
So get out there and vote, and realize that your vote makes
a difference.
Comments
Thank you for your comment. I won’t be getting around to reading that book you suggested in the near future (although I will check it out), so if there is something that I have “overlooked” would you mind telling me here?
And yes, I would consider an alternate view. Anonymous commenters here frequently suggest that I have never read a dissenting viewpoint from my own, but they fail to realize that my viewpoint is shaped by reading many differing opinions. By the book title you suggested I’m assuming that you are referring to war, but as I stated in the blog Should Christians Vote for War or Capital Punishment (http://tommycmann.blogspot.com/2012/01/should-christians-vote-for-war-or.html), I believe in just wars. However, I have read Compollo (http://tommycmann.blogspot.com/2010/07/can-we-be-americans-and-christians-tony.html), Claiborne, McClaren, Miller, and others who believe that there is never a cause for war.
Brian McClaren has rightly pointed out that countries expand their borders through “bullets and bombs,” and I am opposed to that; the war on terror is not about America’s Manifest Destiny, but about being peacemakers to the victims of evil despots (Hussein, for example, murdered millions before he was brought to justice through this just war, and he would have murdered hundreds of thousands more).
Anti-war Christians like to talk about being peacemakers, but holding up images of the peace symbol doesn’t bring peace to Afghanistan; bombs and bullets have. If the anti-war movement prevailed then bin Laden and Hussein would be alive today murdering a dozen people per day over another few decades; where is the peacemaking and the social justice there?
So yes, I would be open to hearing an alternate opinion, but that doesn’t mean that I will change by belief.