This fall Americans are facing the most momentous election of our lifetimes. It is a battle for the very existence of our Constitutional republic. For three centuries in the New World, American believers were the primary leaders of our free and prosperous institutions.
They provided the biblically based laws and the love and charity that kept us unified as a people with Judeo-Christian values. Voting and cultural involvement were considered sacred trusts, delegated by God to the people. But in recent generations, American believers began to pull back from the leadership of the successful cultural, educational, and governmental institutions they had created. With a few exceptions, Christians have largely withdrawn into a sub-culture of the church and family, leaving the popular culture to be shaped by a small cadre of secular progressives.
In this secularized environment, voting became just another optional activity for the first Tuesday of November, especially for believers. There are an estimated 90 million Christians eligible to vote in America. [1] Even today, after generations of neglect, Christians still have the potential to peacefully redirect our nation back towards God and His liberating ways. Great potential lies in the approximately 40 million Christians who do not vote – but could. The turnout of Christians at the polls this November may very well determine the survival of our nation as a constitutional republic and the fate of hundreds of millions of unborn babies throughout the 21st century. How can we help encourage our friends and family to vote to preserve our Constitution and our religious liberty?
It is helpful to remember that over ninety-five percent of the people who have ever lived have suffered under unelected dictators called by different titles (e.g., Caesar, Chairman, Czar, Emperor, Fuhrer, Pharaoh, Shah, Shogun.) None of these dictators allowed the free vote of the people. When in history did the idea of elections first appear? The concept that rulers should be elected by the people came from the loving heart of the Almighty. It is first recorded in human history in the book of Exodus.
Then, at Mt. Sinai, God asked Moses to obtain the consent, the vote of the people – through their representatives – to the proposal that they live under the protection and loving care of God and His laws. (Ex. 19:3-8) The people knew that God’s laws would be for their good because he had just miraculously brought them out of 400 years of slavery in Egypt. They unanimously consented to His proposal. Again, after the Ten Commandments had been given, while the Hebrews were still encamped at Mt. Sinai, Moses proposed another vote. The people unanimously consented again. (Ex. 24:3) The next day, after Moses had the laws written out, he read them to the people and required another formal consent, another vote. The people unanimously consented again. (Ex. 24:7-8) Before his death, Moses submitted the whole body of laws for the approval of the people and they unanimously agreed again. (Deut. 29:9-13) The great principle of popular consent as the basis of government was reiterated on various occasions in the history of the commonwealth of Israel.
After Moses died, Joshua had the nation renew its vote in favor of the law code of Moses (their civil constitution). Again, they all voted to agree. (Joshua 8:30-35) Near the end of his life, Joshua convened the representatives of the nation. They affirmed Jehovah as their king and gave their consent once more to the Laws of Moses. (Joshua 24:18-24)
On the return of the Jews from Babylon, eighty-four leading men signed their names and affixed their seals and all of the people gave their consent to the covenant and the divine constitution. (Neh. 9:38; 10:1-29) The ancient Israelites developed and prospered over a period of 400 years in the “promised land.” They did not have a king. They held elections for their leaders, which restrained the human tendency toward tyranny that plagued all other nations. But over time, the people were led astray by the pagan tyrants in the nations around them. They lost their elected, constitutional republic and begged for a king in order to be like all the other nations (1 Sam. 8) The people would not govern themselves, so the Lord gave them Kings who essentially enslaved them.
The first century followers of Christ reaffirmed the biblical imperative for the accountability of leaders to the people through elections. In the church, elders were chosen locally and were to be subject to specific character qualifications. The New Testament did not exempt civil leaders from their accountability to God and the people. Romans 13 teaches that magistrates (civil leaders) are “ministers of God” and as such are to be servants of the people by rewarding the righteous and punishing the evildoers.
The Christians practiced this divine system of accountable leadership even though it was anathema to the unaccountable, tyrannical emperors of the Roman Empire. They endured persecution for their stand. But gradually the empire collapsed, Christendom grew and more liberty began to arise.
In the following centuries, the biblical principle of elections to hold civil magistrates accountable began to permeate Ireland, Scotland, England, and parts of Europe. After the Bible was finally printed and unleashed in the hands of the people during the Reformation, these principles—as detailed in documents like Magna Carta in 1215—began to be revived. However, the full orbed biblical concept of a government of the people, elected by the people, was not realized until the New World opened up—3,000 miles from the tyrants who were still clinging to their unelected power in Europe.
First, Exodus 18 describes the kind of leaders we should choose: “You shall choose able men from all the people – God-fearing men of truth who hate unjust gain – and place them over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens, to be their rulers.” These magistrates (civil servants) were to be chosen “out of all the people” and not from any privileged class. These leaders of the people were to have local responsibility and accountability.
The earliest settlers in America understood the need to maintain liberty through the election of church leaders and civil magistrates. The Pilgrims, exactly 400 years ago this year, voted before they even disembarked the Mayflower to create the Mayflower Compact. In the Plymouth Colony, established in 1620, the people carefully voted for their leaders every year, keeping them accountable to the people. This seedbed of a democratic, elected, constitutional republic began to blossom in America. It would have never been tolerated anywhere else in the world.
As new settlers came to America, they too followed the Scripture and structured their town governments with elected leaders. The pastors of colonial America led the way in teaching the biblical requirement to vote in honest elections. In fact, pastors were chosen to give Election Sermons throughout the colonies each year to urge and implore the people to vote and hold their representatives accountable.
In America, Annual Election Sermons began as early as 1633 and continued down through the generations from century to century. By 1691 the election days and their accompanying sermons were codified in colonial law. For example, elections sermons were preached to the governor and legislature in Massachusetts for 256 years and in Connecticut for 156 years. [2]
In his election sermon of 1747, “Civil Magistrates Must be Just, Ruling in the Fear of God,” (2 Sam. 23:3) Rev. Charles Chauncey fervently admonished his listeners of their sacred duty to vote and carefully choose their representatives.
He says that they, as voters, must be people of integrity and justice. He says, “[you must] exercise your elective-power … under the influence of … that omnipresent righteous God, whose eye will be upon you, to observe how you vote and for whom you vote, and to whom you must finally render an account, before the general assembly of angels and men, for this day’s transaction.” [3]
In a pivotal election sermon in 1788, Dr. Samuel Langdon, President of Harvard and also a pastor, said, “Preserve your government with the utmost attention and solicitude, for it is the remarkable gift of heaven. From year to year be careful in the choice of your representatives, and all the higher powers of government. Fix your eyes upon men of good understanding, and known honesty; men of knowledge, improved by experience; men who fear God, and hate covetousness; who love truth and righteousness, and sincerely wish the public welfare.
Beware of such as are cunning rather than wise, who prefer their own interest to everything; whose judgment is partial, or fickle, and whom you would not willingly trust with your own private interests…. Let not men openly irreligious and immoral become your legislators; for how can you expect good laws to be made by men who have no fear of God before their eyes, and who boldly trample on the authority of His commands?” [4]
Christian leadership in the electoral process was predominant throughout much of the 19th century. Rev. Charles Finney, leader of the Second Great Awakening in America in the 1820s to the 1850s, observed in 1858 that Christians were becoming too passive and were forgetting their calling to be salt and light in preserving liberty. He said, “The Church must take right ground in regard to politics…. the time has come that Christians must vote for honest men, and take consistent ground in politics or the country will be ruined.… He [God] will bless or curse this nation, according to the course they [Christians] take [in voting].” [5]
In the 20th century the future of two great nations was determined by the decisions of Christians whether or not to vote their principles. One nation experienced revival and renewal. The other nation drove the world into the horror of WWII.
Much like America today, the people of the Netherlands (Holland), 120 years ago, had squandered much of their deep Christian heritage and the nation was filled with corruption, vice, and anarchy. One pastor/theologian recognized the existential crisis and entered the public square. He ran for Prime Minister in 1900 and, against all odds, was elected. His name was Abraham Kuyper. He saved the republic and led a generation of Dutch back to faith in Christ and founded the finest Christian college in the world at the time, The Free University of Amsterdam. Kuyper wrote, “When principles that run against your deepest conviction begin to win the day, then battle is your calling, and peace has become sin; you must, at the price of dearest peace, lay your convictions bare before friend and enemy, with all the fire of your faith. then battle is your calling.”
Germany also shared a deep Christian heritage and was a fledgling democratic republic in the 1930s. How was Adolf Hitler, a radical national Socialist, and convicted murderer, able to win the national election for president in 1933? The people of Germany had lost their faith and were not vigilant to elect godly leaders. Most of the churches signed a pact to support Hitler. Rev. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of a minority of Christian leaders who resisted the Nazis. Before he was hanged by Hitler with piano wire in 1945, Bonhoeffer is quoted as saying “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” I would add only, not to vote is to vote.
American Christians are now facing a decisive moment. God has given Americans stewardship over the finest Constitutional Republic in history. The question is will we vote and vote based on our Judeo/Christian heritage? The words of Mark Twain are inspiring for such a critical time as this. “A Christian’s first duty is to God. It then follows, as a matter of course, that it is his duty to carry his Christian code to the polls and vote them…. If Christians should vote their duty to God at the polls, they would carry every election, and do it with ease … it would bring about a moral revolution that would be incalculably beneficent. It would save the country.” May we dedicate ourselves to call, pray, teach, plead with everyone we know to fulfill their duty this November 3rd.
— Marshall Foster
Notes:
- My Faith Votes
- David Hall, ed., Election Day Sermons, 21.
- Charles Chauncey, “Civil Magistrates Must Be Just, Ruling in the Fear of God,” Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 141.
- Hall, 38-39.
- Charles G. Finney, Revivals of Religion, CBN University Press, 1978, 311-312.
The original of this article first appeared as an edition of the World History Institute Journal, October/November 2020 edition, as a circular newsletter, and on the site of the World History Institute.
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