Christianity in the world, part 2: Political Participation

Having set the scene in the first part of this series I wish to continue on discussing the involvement of Christians in politics. As mentioned in the previous part, Christianity is neither left nor right, nor central for that matter; it separates itself from the mainstream political scene, by its completely different set of priorities and values. Having said that, I am often worried by a strange attitude that some Christians have of not participating in the political life of their nation.


I'm pretty sure that if we took a poll, the political participation of Christians would reflect the rest of the population's, showing a great degree of apathy, since in the last forty years there has been a verified decrease in political participation across EU countries (David Broughton, Developments in West European Politics 2, ed. by Heywood et al), going down in the UK from 75% in the seventies to 69.9% in the nineties and then 59.4% at the 2001 national elections. This also has to do with the general sentiment of people concerning politics and the way it impacts their lives: in 1997 an average of 75% of European citizens thought that corruption among politicians was increasing. But surely this sentiment would draw people to do something about that? It seems not.


A phrase which I keep hearing and makes me mad is “the lesser of two evils”, which is what a lot of Christians and non-Christians say, even people I respect: “the choice between the lesser of two evils is no choice at all, that is why I won't vote!” Because there are policies that I disagree with on either side, I won't vote for either! May I say, that is a ridiculous statement and not a good reason not to vote; why instead of focussing on the negative policies, not look at the good ones, the ones that will have positive consequences on society as a whole, maybe look at the priorities of the candidates, see what they have to say that is worthwhile. The last thing we need to do is separate ourselves from the world and become some kind of fundamentalist group of people who don't want to have anything to do with it. That is an effective washing of hands, saying that we take no responsibility for the way our nation goes, but right then, we become guilty of not doing what ought to be done. Need I remind us that democracy has been set up in our nations through lots of social and military battles?


It is indeed frustrating to hear so many American presidential candidates claim to do this and that thing in the name of Jesus, to hear them shamelessly use his name to push their own agenda, but I don't believe that is a good enough reason not to go to the urns. It is also very frustrating to hear of pastors and bible teachers, even very good ones, who tell their congregations to vote for a particular candidate because they are against or for the issues which they consider priorities. I think that a good pastor should not tell his congregation who to vote for, but give good guidelines on how to make up one's own mind about who to vote for: look at what they say, what does your conscience draw you to do, etc. John Piper (a prominent bible teacher) made the brilliant statement in a preach that all candidates are sinners, all are flawed, and that is why democracy is the best system for men and women to live in, apart from Jesus coming back and ruling perfectly like only he can do: because there is at least a consensus over which one of these flawed individuals gets the place of president. On top of that, this person cannot exercise complete authority and in the end, if we don't like them, we can vote them out at the next elections.


As I write this, the campaign race is going on in the US and Italy has lost its Prime Minister, the only man who could steer that crazy boat. I am seriously worried about the future of that country, of which I am a citizen. On top of that, the archbishop of Canterbury has bizarrely declared that Muslims should have the right to be run by their traditional law, thus implying, I imagine, that Christians should be allowed to run themselves, which clearly goes against what Jesus and his apostles say about honouring the government (Luke 20:19-26, 1 Peter 2:13-17). The political world has significance in our lives, though I find it sad that so many are caught up in everything political at the loss of what is more important.


If your conscience draws you not to vote, there's nothing more I can say, but when it comes to it, I would say that Roberto Benigni's (Italian actor, director and intellectual) words are worth considering: “vote for who seems most honest, most truthful”... As simple as that.