This post from “Inhabitatio Dei” reminds me that I engaged in a fair amount of hand-wringing on this blog* about voting in 2004. That was the year that we had various Christian luminaries–Alasdair McIntyre and Paul Griffiths come to mind–openly advocating not voting.

I ultimately ended up voting third-party, finding both Bush and Kerry unacceptable for various reasons, but this year I’m far less ambivalent about the matter. Have I gone soft (in the head)?

For one thing, I think this piece on why Christians can and should prudently participate in the politics of the modern nation-state still holds up pretty well.

The fact is, there are things that only the state can do, as well as things that it does which it shouldn’t do and which we should, if it’s within our power, try to change. I think that radicalized American Christians are sometimes tempted by a false pose of “powerlessness,” as though we are, or should aspire to be, in the same position with respect to our government that the early Christians were in with respect to the Roman empire.

However, claiming powerlessness isn’t the same thing as being powerless. What we do (or don’t do) effects not only our fellow citizens but, for better or worse, people around the world. It’s not such a simple matter to abdicate that power.

This is not to say that there aren’t situations where not voting is the best option. And I agree with many, like anabaptist John Roth, who point out that voting does not come close to exhausting the ways of “being political” (though, who ever said it did?).

Voting will always be about choosing the lesser evil. We should certainly heed calls not to put our trust in princes to deliver the kingdom. But a clear-eyed and critical (wise as serpents?) approach to political participation seems to me a legitimate undertaking for Christians.
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*Technically, it was on the Blogspot predecessor to this blog, but all the archives have been imported to WordPress.