Happy Election Day!  For Americans in general this day is an opportunity for us as citizens of a republic to express our consent to both our political leaders and their policies.  The United States was the first true constitutional republic in history, though we see some parallels in seventeenth century Holland, and a few of the northern Italian city-states in the late Middle Ages.  However these examples differed in that they had no written and enforceable fundamental law, or constitution, and they differed in particular structures in such a way as not to include many in decision-making.  Talk was rife in England about republics in the seventeenth century, and that talk continued in the American colonies into the eighteenth century.  It came to fruition in the American Revolution and then the Constitutional ratification.  

Now we know, if we have had a good history course, that our new republic was not as democratic as it is today, in the sense that people chose all their representatives by popular vote, or that all males of eligible age, women and blacks could participate.  Its structure contained elements of democracy and elements that opposed democracy–the latter mainly due to the Founders’ understanding or ancient Athenian democracy and its downfall as well as their own observations of “mobocracy.”  But still, people could vote in many instances.  Today we vote for pretty much all major political offices at the local, state and national levels, with the exception of certain judicial offices and of course, the occupants of our modern “administrative state” (about which I have written earlier).  We also vote on constitutional amendments and, in all states, referenda of all sorts.  We also get to vote for many levies and other referenda at the local levels.  In short, we live in a very democratic nation, arguably the most democratic in the world.

Now I address my remarks to Christians in particular.  Since we have been so providentially blessed, I contend that as part of our fulfillment of Romans 13, it is our duty to vote.  After all, we are in one sense the governors as well as the governed.  We obey in the everyday affairs, but we have been given the opportunity to both choose those who will govern us (“wield the sword”) and to shape the kinds of laws we will be required to obey.  That being the case, we ought to avail ourselves of that great and rare privilege.  We obey God when we take every opportunity He has provided in every realm of life to bring glory to His name.  I would wager (if I did wager) that most Christians don’t think of voting in this way.  Pragmatically, we think our vote doesn’t matter anyway–perhaps, but that is a debatable proposition.  But i am not speaking pragmatically.  I am speaking as a believer looking at and interpreting the Word of God.  By voting, we will collectively determine precisely what we will be called to obey, directly and indirectly.  I repeat that God Himself has placed each of us in that most serendipitous position to contribute to that process and its outcome.  So please vote, for the sake of your obligation as a believer to advance His will here on earth while it exists.  There will be no voting in heaven–thankfully–but in the here and now, the temporal, we have this necessary privilege as citizens in this particular nation at this particular time.