At long last, the campaign season is over. Your civic duty is done.
Hopefully, you managed to accomplish it in an honorable, thoughtful and loving way.
If you carefully compared candidate positions with the Ten Commandments, that is a good start. If you didn’t lie or cheat to get your candidate elected, and if you held on to your love and care for family, friends, coworkers and neighbors who voted for different candidates from yours, count it a victory.
As I wrote a month ago, this balance is not easy to keep.
Anytime that God hands you a task, the devil is close at hand to twist it into its opposite. So, when God makes you a judge of character and competence for public office, Satan seizes the opportunity to make you a little tyrant.
The temptation to tyranny is the temptation to abuse the authority that has been given to you by God.
We recognize it instinctively when others are tyrannical to us. But we are slow to see it at work in our own hearts. “Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation” (Mark 14:38).
You can recognize your own petty tyranny when you feel contempt in your heart for the person that God has called you to judge. You can recognize your own tyranny when you seek to control that person by bullying. You can see it when your heart is filled with rage and when your tongue is a weapon.
Don’t be that guy whom King David describes in Psalm 55:21: “His speech was smooth as butter, yet war was in his heart; his words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords.” And remember, always, that “the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:20).
During the campaign season, we were required to compare candidates against the dictates of Holy Scripture. Now that the requirement is lifted, we should hold ourselves to those same strict standards.
After all, the reason that God would have us put pious and godly citizens into office is precisely “that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way” (1 Timothy 2:2). If we do not live this way in our own lives, we will have defeated the very purpose of politics.
Not everyone recognizes this. But Christians should.
We advocate for the lives of the unborn and stand in the gap for children because we recognize what Martin Luther King Jr. said: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Now, in these days after the election, we should also ponder the rest of his statement as well. “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
That is why your words and behavior toward political opponents matters. If you treat even one fellow citizen with hate or contempt, it affects all of us indirectly. Civilizations rise and fall on this principle.
The Roman empire collapsed not because emperors are inherently evil, but because emperors acted evilly.
The nation of Israel, in the Old Testament, was overrun by the Assyrians and, later, by the Babylonians, not because those empires were stronger, but because Israel’s kings refused to submit to God.
This brings us back to the American Republic.
You are kings. In the sense that you participate in the governing of the state, your way of life matters more than the way that you vote. You won’t get to cast a vote for another 22 months. But you can love your fellow citizen already today.
You can’t make any elected official attend a Bible-believing church. But you have the power to make one American voter go to that church: yourself.
You can’t stop the vile invective of partisan pundits from filling the airwaves. But you can rid one household of its poison simply be turning off the television.
You can’t stop your enemy from slandering you, leaving a mocking emoji on your post, or hating you for your stance. But you can stop yourself from responding in kind.
Jesus said, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you” (Luke 6:28). That’s not pie in the sky. That is the most direct way to return America to its Christian roots.
By love and prayer, you stand against all that the devil is doing to destroy our state, our country, and our world. Pray for all those people who were elected last Tuesday—especially those in your town, district, and state.
Pray that God would protect them and enlighten them by His Word. Pray that He would use them to do good and not evil. And pray for those who hate your love for God. Prayers are infinitely more powerful than arguments.
By loving your enemies, and praying for those who persecute you, “lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.” That is the whole point of politics in the first place.
Jonathan Lange is a Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod pastor in Evanston and Kemmerer and serves the Wyoming Pastors Network. Follow his blog at https://jonathanlange.substack.com/. Email: JLange64@protonmail.com
