–– Andrew Zekveld

Audio version of this article available here: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

I still remember one of the more tense political engagements of my earlier years as a pastor. It was in the days leading up to a national election in the country of South Africa. The parties involved in that particular political fight were not political—instead, it was a husband and his wife, each roping the pastor in for self-vindication. One spouse argued that a Christian’s vote should be determined by moral issues while the other argued for economic and political freedoms and improved service delivery.

What should the determining factors be in influencing a Christian’s political vote?

The Impossible Political Trio

The determining factors in voting can easily be cast into three categories; liberation, services, and morality. Though not completely mutually exclusive, the recognition of these three categories helps us evaluate our expectations of  Government.

In 1994 the South African national election was overtly determined by liberation factors. Ridding the country of systemic racism and opening the portals of human rights, education, business, and land ownership to all people groups. Liberation from segregation, poverty, and discrimination became the pillars that compelled individual votes.

Services factors are the engine behind many political posters this election year. Clean water, constant electricity, healthcare, school placement, and job creation are the service delivery carrots being dangled in front of voting citizens.

But then, there are always the great moral concerns influencing the vote of individual voters. Charts are available, explaining various political parties’ stances on moral matters like abortion, euthanasia, marriage, and sex workers. 

Liberation, services, and morality—even in the plethora of political parties that undergird South African elections, it would appear that not even one party promises immediate hope in all three of those categories. 

A Case Study

Take, for example, the Democratic Alliance (DA); one of the top three political parties in South Africa. The DA is making headlines in the Services category. In the first 100 days of Chris Pappas as the DA mayor of the Umgeni municipality, the little town of Howick and its surrounding areas have seen an increase in service delivery vehicles like tractors and trash compactors. The streets are cleaner, and the people seem happier. Likewise, for Liberation factors; Pappas put an end to much of the cadre deployment, curtailed much of the corruption, and implemented a lotto-based system for more fair hiring of municipal staff. 

Yet, the DA is morally infamous for its support of the LGBTQ agenda and its screaming silence on abortion. 

In 1994 the ANC brought liberation, but thirty years later we observe the ruinous state of both services and morality. Now it appears that the DA will bring both liberation and services, but at the cost of moral collapse.

How then shall we vote?

Biblical Expectations of Government

Our expectations of government might fall into all three categories; liberation, services, and morality. But what are the true, objective, transcendent, and timeless expectations of Government?

Romans 13:3-6 makes a moral case for mankind to expect the Government to reward good conduct, terrorise evildoers, and exact taxes. This falls primarily in the moral category with perhaps a small contribution to the services category.

1 Timothy 2:2 adds the objective expectation of the Government to play a substantial role in the peace and dignity of our daily lives. At first glance, this would certainly appear to be in the liberation and services category until you find the word “godly” in the explanation of what a peaceful and dignified life would be. Therefore this creates a strong moral expectation of the Government.

The book of Proverbs has much to say about the keys to successful politics. The keys to successful national government appear to fall overwhelmingly in the moral category. Proverbs 20:26-28 expects the government to be wise, to harvest the wicked out of the land, and to be preserved through faithfulness. Proverbs 25:2 confirms that it is glorious of God to forgive sins, but the king must establish justice.  Proverbs 16:12 inculcates the expectation of Government not only to remove evildoers but more so, to abstain from evil themselves. The Kingly Creed of Proverbs 31 expects of government to have a high view of marriage and family (vv 1-3) and to remain sober and just at all times (vv 4-9). Even in the Government’s responsibility to the poor, it is the moral demand of justice for the poor that is emphasised rather than the liberation from poverty, or service delivery to the poor (Proverbs 29:14).

It is evident that the public and private morality of government officials, policies, and practises should be more foundational in forming a citizen’s expectations of Government than the public issues that dominate the liberation and services categories.

We must re-establish the moral category of factors that determine how we vote.

It behoves those with virtuous insight to emphasise the moral factors.