A Christian Response, pt 1

There are a number of people in my life, who I care deeply about, who are all struggling with some basic questions of faith in relation to the presidential primaries, and the upcoming elections. The questions are generally framed something like this, "As a Christian, how do I determine who I should vote for?" I want to give an answer to that question, but I want to do it over the course of several posts. My answer to the question is basically, Christians should not vote at all. This answer of course is deeply offensive to a number of people (shockingly, both liberal and conservative) and deserves to be unpacked a bit more. Before I begin, I need to express my debt to Stanley Hauerwas, John Howard Yoder, and William Cavanuagh in particular on this issue. For a basic, fairly easy to understand argument about how Christians should interact with the state, pick up a copy of Resident Aliens, as much of what I lay out follows their basic argument.
Let's begin at the beginning, what does it mean to be a Christian? At its most basic, it means to be a follower of Jesus. As we unpack what this "following Jesus" means we run into popular biblical words like Lord, King, disciple and Christ. All of these ideas, while full of nuance and individual meaning, push us towards the old evangelical phrase that "Jesus has control of all areas of my life." To follow Jesus is to admit that there is nothing in my life that Jesus does not rule and control, and if there is, those areas must be confessed and repented of. There is more though, to follow Jesus also means not simply to allow Jesus to rule all parts of my life, but also to live like Jesus. Jesus is the ultimate teacher who challenges us not simply to do as he says, but do as he does, primarily because he does what he says. The ultimate example (as I have noted here) is when Jesus dies on the cross to save the world. Following Jesus then, means living a life shaped by his cross and resurrection.
The implications of this sort of following Jesus, this acknowledging Jesus' control in all areas of our lives, this following Jesus' example, and this being shaped by cross and resurrection, are wide ranging. To begin with, this following Jesus means that the measure for success and failure in our lives is faithfulness to Jesus. This claim is absolutely crucial so I will repeat it a bit differently, Jesus calls us primarily to be faithful to him. For us, this call to faithfulness most clearly attacks our strong desire for effectiveness. If we are honest, most of us tend to judge our own success or failure, primarily by how effective we have been. A diet is the best diet if it is effective in losing weight, a savings plan is the best savings plan if it saves the most money, a church may well be the best church if it has the most people, a discipline is the best discipline if I grow the most. Many of us have inheireted this framework (most of us unknowingly) from the philospher Immanuel Kant and his ultimate/categorical imperative which slowly becomes something like, "Your responsibility is to do the most good for the most people." This sort of effectiveness as the measure of all moral choices is pervasive in much of our political discussion, and is rampant in the arena of why Christians should vote. This becomes the "Christian responsibility." When we start from the place of our Christian responsibility to vote, and then begin to sort through issues and values (both of which we will deal with later) we have already set ourselves up to fail, not because we are unloving or poorly intentioned, but because we have allowed something other than faithfulness to Jesus be our determining factor. However, if we begin with faithfulness to Jesus, as opposed to anything else, you may find that the notion of voting is at best irrelevant, and at worst a bit repulsive.