Voting as a Spiritual Discipline (Without Telling People Who to Vote For)

[MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to Expanding Your Faith, a podcast that tackles modern day issues with a focus on spirituality, with Bishop Greer-Godsie, Reverend Mark Trim, and Bishop Ben Williams. Thanks for listening. Take a breath, open your heart, and let's expand your faith together. [MUSIC PLAYING] Cleaning and welcome to Season 15 of Expanding Your Faith. I want to thank everybody who has supported us thus far, all of our studio audience, and Reverend Mark and Bishop Ben for all of their hard work as well, keeping this podcast going as long as we have 14 seasons behind us and now starting off with this 15th one. I want to remind everybody that you can check out our previous editions of the podcast, at podcast.myocci.social, and Apple Podcast, and wherever you get your podcasts from. Tonight, I'm joined by Reverend Mark. Greetings, everybody. And Bishop Ben. Blessings to all. And tonight, we're going to talk about voting season and the fact that it's approaching us rather quickly. And most churches' conversations either fall into one of our unhealthy helpful patterns, either total political silence, as though faith has nothing to say about how we participate in public life, or thinly veiled partisan endorsements dressed up as a sermon. And I would say there's a third topic there, a third one there, and that is typically just outright partisan political activism, which does happen a lot nowadays. So tonight, I want to thank to all of you for your support. And I want to give you some clear boundaries about our episode. This is not an episode about who to vote for. It's an episode about how to think, pray, and discern faithfully as you decide for yourself. This needs to be a decision you make on your own who you vote for, not something that somebody tells you to do. One of the things that I want you to keep in mind as we go through this episode is what would it look like to treat voting as an act of spiritual formation? rather than just a civic errand? What would it look like to treat voting as an act of spiritual formation rather than just a civic errand? So keep that in mind as we go through our episode tonight. So why is voting a spiritual question at all? Well, for one, public life has always been within the Bible's concern. Scriptures not silent, politics work, or the systems of power that exist, all through the Bible from Joseph, serving in Pharaoh's court to Daniel, serving in Babylon to Esther, risking her position to intervene for her people, not to mention all the judges that are listed in the Bible on their various careers. And can't forget King David and King Saul and King Solomon who are extensively spoken about in Scripture. the city and pray to the Lord on its behalf or in its peace, you shall have peace. So civic engagement Jeremiah and a person I fully yours is framed as a spiritual obligation, non optional add in participating faithfully in the public systems you live under has always been treated by scripture as part of what it means to seek the well being of your neighbor, because you need to consider not just your own welding, but that neighbor when you go to how will my vote affect those living beneath me financially, socially, and not necessarily those above me financially and it comes to enriching them. So Reverend Mark, why are we drawing a hard line at endorsement tonight? Well, endorsements can definitely drive churches into adopting the idea that personalities are what we run after versus true love of God in every aspect of life. And looking in the direction of people that will honor the laws of the land that surround us and will look to move those laws to be just for all people. I think we see throughout Scripture that just because something is a all necessary, let me know something is just under the eyes of the divine and the teachings of Christ. So it's vital for us to step back and not just look at a personality because personalities can lead you astray, but to step back and to look inward first and foremost and say, who is it that I feel can honor that greatest commandment of all? to love our neighbor as ourselves and not necessarily who's the greatest Christian on the ballot, not necessarily who's the greatest churchgoer on the ballot because we lost churchgoers in office and sometimes the non church growers act in such a way that's closer to my belief in Christ's way of living than the churchgoer. And so I think it's important for us to encourage people to pray, to do their homework. I think we're going to talk about that later. It's important for us to encourage people to seek divine guidance by the Spirit instead of just going up there and say, do it this way or pull the lever for this person. In my opinion, if we're properly or to the best of our ability, teaching who Jesus is, it should be evident who we should should be voting for. And I strive for that. I strive to teach Christ and I strive to reveal the best of my ability as a pastor, who Jesus was and who Jesus encouraged us to be and how to treat one another. And I personally try to look through that lens when I'm looking at a candidate and not necessarily somebody just going to pay revenge on other folks or get back at people. That's the wrong mentality. It should be something that we step back and we embrace our faith. We're not trying to find the greatest, like I said, Christian, because the scripture is clear that God can use even a literal donkey to move and will of divine in the world. And sometimes people that aren't quote unquote believers, they can actually be doing the will of God in the earth unknowingly. And so prayer and discernment is vital. And we should encourage our people in that vein. Absolutely. Bishop Ben, why is silence not neutral either? Because you're going to be silent. I mean, you're not really thinking about what's right for you and what's right for everybody else around us. And if you're going to use your silence to say, well, I'm going to be silent, but I'm not going to do anything about it. And basically bearing your head in the sand. Even Jesus wasn't silent when he came to matters like that. And that was him. We can't be silent. And as it's clergy, we're going to be silent and we're no good as clergy, neither. We have to take that stand. We have to draw the line. Yes. When we also have to show people the correct path and help them lead them to the correct area. Let them discern from there. Absolutely. So what does scripture say about power, justice and the common good? Micah six, eight says to do justice to love mercy and to walk carefully with your God. And it's offered repeatedly across all of our shadows. We talk about these things as a baseline ethical measure. It is again useful here as a personal discernment tool rather than a scorecard for candidates. We should be striving for a world where justice is center stage or mercy is center stage, where everyone is allowed to worship God in their own way. Isaiah 10, one and two speaks about is the woes pronounced on those who write unjust laws and deprive the poor of justice. Scripture doesn't treat justice or injustice of laws and policies as outside is concerned. It's part of our very DNA as people of faith. And people like Martin Luther King Jr. made that very clear is injustice everywhere. And that's a call right from scripture itself. And naming these values is not the same as naming which party or candidate embodies them. That discernment belongs to each and every person who votes. And so it is your job to look and see where the candidate stands on matters of justice and mercy and peace and then vote your conscience. So Bishop Ben, government has something with real limited authority. What does the Bible say about that? Well, Romans clear. It says, I've been accused of beating authority, but I have to make sure to not just blame me following authority to whatever means, authority to presidents, authority to long enforcement, or they diminish. They have the blanket in order. Well, we're just following orders. Well, is that an order just or is it wrong? They're not their way hands. So we have to look at higher justice. What does that mean? Do you hold people hold the local government accountable? You should. And right now we're not seeing that in the current situation. We're not seeing any accountability whatsoever. The access we are to obey God rather than what does that mean? Well, God has his own authority over the land. He doesn't speak to any, he doesn't bow down to any government. He doesn't have anything to do with local law enforcement. But also he said in the same hand, he has to obey the law of the land as long as it's just. Absolutely. So, Reverend Mark, loving your neighbor is a voting framework. What do you think about that? Well, we have to, Jesus speaks that commandment to us in the book of Matthew. Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. So look beyond just yourself. We have to receive God's orders that we can't just be focused on ourselves. And oftentimes we hear this that Americans vote their pocketbook. Americans, when they, people around the world most likely that have a similar setup that we do here in America, that we often vote based on our economic economic impact to ourselves. I think we can look inward to that. But we're also supposed to look just in our treatment of people in our church. It's not just people of treatment. We were walking down the streets or in the grocery store. We're out and about. But also when we're standing in that or preparing to stand in that voting booth, what does it look like with the person that I'm getting ready to endorse or embrace what's a rhetoric saying to me in history to me is important because I want to see a pattern of what these people are doing. Because sometimes, as I said earlier, some of the greatest folks that enacted Christ's methods and ways of living were people that may not have had the closest relationship with God. And again, I don't think that we step back and we're trying to see which candidate can quote all the beatitudes verbatim. And this candidate get me close to living it. And the candidate get us close to, as a society, if we're enacting laws that look close that are just or repealing laws that are unjust based on the heart of scripture, the desire of God. But if we're going to be called a quote, unquote, Christian nation, then I'm going to be screaming from the housetops that the government needs to look like that. If you're going to claim that our government is a Christian nation and you're going to claim that these leaders are a Christian nation or a Christian entities, then I should see them running full steam of everything that they can with those desires to govern as Christ would govern if Christ was in their position, if Jesus was in their position. And so a test that rolls through my heart is what does it look like with what their rhetoric they're tossing out. What does that look like for myself? What does that look like for my neighbor? What is it looking for my family? And I'm just broad now. What does it look like as far as how we claim to be as Americans? And so I am were tests. And what I look at when I'm examining the folks that are before me in the season we're in right now, right? And that tends to trick down not just presidential elections, but in your Senate house and your state, your local elections and everything. Right. So individual conscience and the limit of any voter guide, you know, Romans 14 five says that each person abound in his own sense regarding matters of conscience. We're not on about proving moral relativism, but we're trying to recognize that thoughtful, prayerful Christians can weigh the same facts and arrive at different conclusions. But you may see as somebody living out the call of the Bible, someone else may not. They may see something different in them. And that's okay. That's part of discerning your own path and your own set of values and your own understanding of what scripture says. So part of voting as a spiritual practice is also taking time to discern a discernment process. And you have to look at it from a different point of view to get there. Like a prayer, not just a preference. This is a hard one. So before filling out a ballot, actually pray over it the way you might pray over any other significant decision asking God to confirm a conclusion you've already read, but genuinely asking for wisdom. We do that a lot for all kinds of different things. Why don't we do that when we're voting? Voting has far reaching implications, not just for ourselves, but for our community. for our nation. For the whole world, as we've seen in the last several months with the war in Iran, it can be a worldwide impact. So why don't we take time to pray over that decision? But we would over getting a new car or buying a new house or James one five says, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God and it shall be given to him. I directly And practically to election season decision making, this can be very powerful. It's can make a huge difference in the outcome of how we do things in the world around us. And we shouldn't forget to do our actual homework either or should we, Reverend Mark? Oh, this part really is important because in my opinion, our nation is so we wear, if you will, Old Testament reference, we wear such a veil over our eyes. Some of us wear a blue veil, some of us wear a red veil. And all we do is we look at those color schemes and until we see that color on that ballot, we skip over those people. And that is a horrible way to vote. It's the worst way to vote. And shows me that we are so narrow in our thought processes. First is Americans. And we're missing a broader sense of where things are. It'd be like people trying to dial their heel for King Saul, when they see David rising up and coming along and they're like, well, we've had saw our lives and ignoring all the things going on behind the scenes with Saul. In fact, that he's loose. And we don't do the God show with the right path. We don't show us the right person anymore. We just assume that everybody that has a particular letter by their name that's opposite from what we've normally done is automatically disqualified. And as I said before, God can use any person to enact their will. And there's some folks that are just closer aligned to the teachings and the acts of practices. And that's another thing. What are they doing? We've had a lot of in recent history. We've had a lot of people that didn't hold political office. And so they didn't have a voting record. Well, what do they do in their personal lives? Most of them business people. No, what are they? If they were attorneys, what type of cases did they take? What type of practices did their business embrace? Was their business a part of charitable connections? What type of work do they have for that major? There's so many things that we can do. And in an age where information is readily available to us, even in the palm of our hand with our phones, sometimes it can take just a second or two to hit that Google button on your phone and learn what sports seems in first place, what your favorite athlete is doing or where the stock market is all within a few seconds on your palm of your hand. We have no excuse for stepping back or for not stepping back and saying, what does this person really do? And do the scientific have multiple sources, multiple tests. Don't just go to the first site that pops up and affirms your suspicions or affirms your thoughts. Really dig. And I think this part is vital along with what you just discussed, Bishop, and that is asking God, show us the direction we should go and what should be done here. Absolutely. I think those things go hand in hand, as you said, praying for wisdom about who to vote for, but also doing that homework too. I tend to sit and take time with the ballot before election day and actually look at the various candidates that are running. What do they stand for? What are their past actions show me? So that I know going into the voting booth. I already have a good idea. It's not one of those of blindfold myself and just hit the first one that I finger lands on. Spending the will on will of fortune or playing Planko on the prices, right? Where ever lands God, that's right. He had it prepared for these things. And Bishop, we should also be weighing issues rather than only party loyalty. Right. It's always good to give you encouragement to evaluate policies that make their lives and I get to affect vulnerable people. We don't think about the extra things that go along with the nuances of voting. We don't think about the constant procedures that may go along with that. How is it going to affect your children or your children should? Or even currently, how is it going to affect your elder parents or your grandparents or the disabled? So, when you're looking at there is no political party map basically built into biblical ethics. When you have to think about platforms contained and mixture of importance to thoughtful Christian coincidence. Christian conscience. Make sure you're affirm those. Make sure you're checking your things. Double check them. Pray body. Remember marks that discernment. It had to discern. Make sure that candidate is a correct candidate. How does that candidate stand on the current issue? And it says we have to think about discernment process. Isn't that something that's not easy? Don't make it too easy. Make sure you check everything. Make sure you stand firm. Is that making sense? Oh, absolutely. And I want to caution people as well that putting all of your faithful civic energy into a single vote every few years while neglecting beyond ongoing daily work, loving your neighbor, seeking justice and building community. Describe throughout our shows episodes on immigration poverty and sanctuary. It's not enough. It's not enough. It's not a substitute for your daily activity of living the gospel. Voting matters. But by itself, that's not everything that you should be doing. It is one among many spiritual disciplines. that we have spent season on top of season talking about on this show. And so you have to be willing to actually do the work each and every day of loving your neighbor, of trying to build a community, trying to build a network of people to help each other, depend on each other when times get hard. And I think that over the past several years, we've really began to see a fundamental breakdown in a very vivid way of community, that breakdown of loving our neighbor as ourselves, that breakdown on seeking justice. And now, of course, it's glaringly obvious, but it's at a point where we are now trying to make up for lost time. And so we see what happens when we don't engage in the work of the gospel on a daily basis. When hard times come, this is what we end up with. We end up with ourselves and those around us really left holding the bag and being hurt in a very significant way. So this is one that I'm not good at. I don't know that many people are extremely good at this, but staying in relationships across political disagreements. I'll go ahead and name it. I'm bad at this. - Reverend Mark is trying not to laugh out loud as I say that, but by Reverend Mark, does this matter for the health of a congregation? - Well, it's one of those areas. And to me, it's a test to show whether we have opportunity for growth in our own personal lives or whether we're connecting with that passage of scripture where Jesus tells us about loving our neighbors and then living in peace and harmony Paul said, "Live at peace with all people if possible." It is possible because God gives us the empowerment to do so. And one of the things has become very evident, and it was obviously true for all eternity here, is that just because you're in a particular church or just a particular community, not everybody is on the same page as you, more so when it comes to politics in congregations, certain settings that may be true where you have 60, 70% of the congregation that's basically maybe voting the same or thinking ideologically the same, politically the same, but then you have that 10, 20, 30% that has maybe opposite views or slightly opposite views. And that has really come into play in the last many years. I've talked with other MCC pastors across America and there's people in their congregations that have diverse thought and they have different ways of voting based on the majority that's in that congregation. And for LGBTQIA plus congregations, that can be a little bit more intense because often candidates from one side or the other when it comes to our community have some pretty hard boundaries. They have some pretty aggressive policies towards in our community. And most of those policies can be helpful depending on who's running. It can be very detrimental. And so for people that vote towards the parties and the individuals that have aggressive not in a good way, aggressive ideas and laws to take away gay marriage to ban our transgender friends from being who they are, family for being who they are and living fully into who they are. When we see people that are voting in that way, we can't seem to fully understand that some of those people are voting on three or four other issues. And in their brain, it's just not connecting of the damage that it's doing. Or in their mind, they're not seeing the scope of the damage because we have stepped back and we have educated ourselves. I'm not saying that other people aren't educated, but we have honed our awareness of the harm towards our community in those areas. We just don't understand why people aren't voting just like us. But as everybody think like, does, right? And so recognizing the love of God even to the extent, and this is difficult to say it this way, but sometimes we think this way, even extent to where those people are basically an enemy or basically are doing things that are hurting us or harming us. How do we love those people? How do we embrace those people? And this is a huge test for the church right now, I believe, because I can't say we're getting a passing grade at it. I can't say that as a whole across America, there's a passing grade at it is hard to sit across the table with family members, with church members that have heard us and to carry on civil conversation. It's very difficult, but that's at the core of Christianity and the teachings of Christ. And that is to forgive those people. God, they may not know what they do. Jesus prayed that prayer. God forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. I think that was an amazing prayer and it's there on multiple levels. They don't know what they're doing on so many different levels. God forgive them. And I'm of the opinion. I want those type of people to be in my congregation because I want to teach them about love and how we treat the least among us, how we treat the stranger, how we view people. I want those people in my congregation because I don't want them being in congregations where being a bigot and being a homophobe and a transphobe is thumb. They've given a thumbs up. Keep doing that. Just be that way. I want them with us to where it's uncomfortable as we talk about the love of God, as we talk about that real forgiveness, as we talk about that real grace that's mind boggling, I want them there. And some people, they have a hard time doing that. And I get it. It's uncomfortable. We don't like doing things that's uncomfortable. Nobody does. We went when the needle comes towards our arm to get that flu shot because why? It's uncomfortable. But in the long ride, it helps us. And we have to pray for strength in those moments. And we have to pray for God to help us in those moments. And I think this is a real test in the church right now, especially in America. And with God's grace, we can overcome it. Absolutely 100%. I agree with you, Bishop Ben. How do we have disagreements without dehumanizing people? That's a dew topic. It's hard to follow, but I want to do Ephesians. It's clear. It says with all humanity and weakness, with patience supporting one another in love, being so delicious and preserve the unity of the spirit. offered as a practical relationship, standard for political conversations with faith community, what's it called? To avoid the conversation altogether. We don't think it's going to be divisive. Don't do a nice thing before the political [INAUDIBLE] I'm not bad at that, too. Don't make somebody say, well, hey, I'm going to hate you forever. Just sit there and try to understand what you're saying. Understand why they voted that way. And I think everybody has come across that issue. So the best thing is don't be disagreeing all the time. Try not to have anger. Try not to lose relationships over it. Even in the congregations, even if you're a congregation member or a lay person, upset. But if you understand why you voted that way, or any-- that principle can be added to anything you do, like voting or the same relationships in general. And for us clergy, it's even more a higher standard. Don't we try not to judge our congregations or anybody in our life that's-- Absolutely. I want to restate the boundary clearly for the season ahead. This show will continue to name injustice directly and specifically as we have in all the seasons immigration and Christian nationalism on the treatment of the vulnerable without translating that into an endorsement of any specific candidate or party. We have been very careful about that in the past. We're going to continue to do that in this voting season, in the voting season next year and the year after. We're going to continue to talk about the actual issues that face the church, face our world, face our communities. But we're not going to do it in a partisan way. And so that's important for everyone to hear who's joining us tonight. I want to give Mr. Men and Reverend Mark a moment if there's anything weighing on your heart still about this topic that you want people to hear and know and have some time to put that out there. If there's something that you think we missed in this episode, just go ahead and take your time to speak your point on it. Reverend Mark will start with you. And if there's anything in your mind or heart about this topic, you think people should know, then let us know what you think. I think it's so important for us to first step back and seek the heart of God on anything that we do in our lives. This is no different. We've been given the privilege here in our nation to do something that most of the world doesn't get to do. And I think each time we go to vote, we're asking how do we want this to shape our nation? And of course, that's a macro look, but micro, how do we shape it for our neighbors? And how do we shape it for each other? I think the last place that we need to step back, or the last thing we need to consider is how does this make the church better? That should never end or end our minds. It's how do we bless each other? And how do we help one another? And if the church is my primary focus, then I'm losing the focus of Christ because the church was never about power. The church is never about having political power. It's about spreading grace, mercy, and love to the entire community. And we get to have a voice and how our government functions. And I think that we can demand without asking our government to be just like our church, we can, through our vote, demand our government to be compassionate, empathetic, and to embrace that passage of scripture when you've done into the least of these, you've done into me. And we can do that by voting in such ways and calling our elected officials to do for the good of the community, which helped each and every one of us. And just to recap, people that vote are different from us, they're not. I refuse to put them in the category of our enemy. I refuse to drop back and to say that they're Satan, reincarnate. I believe that our eyes can always be opened to what is of God's grace. I believe that. And I believe that we can all come to a place where our understanding is enlightened as the scripture teaches us to pray. And some people are more stubborn than others as far as not wanting to see righteousness, not wanting to see justice and so forth. I haven't arrived. I have grown in how and I have educated myself on what's going on behind the scenes as best I can. And I encourage people to do that. And then it shouldn't be in every two to four years that we reengage with our political leaders. We're doing that weekly, if not daily, keeping an eye on how are we treating our neighbors through legislation. And I think that as a Christian, I think that that's how I can do that best of my ability. - Thank you. I appreciate that. And I agree 100%. Mr. Ben, your thoughts? - I want to take too long. I just want people to, when you go out to vote, no matter what political party you may be, Democrat, Republican, Independent, whatever it is, just use your heart discern and choose a candidate that's going to help you and help the community you're in. Think about your people again. Think about family. Think about people that are vulnerable, that disabled people, et cetera. Make sure that those candidates you're voting for are going to do the best job. That's your heart and that God-- - Absolutely. Well, thank you both for joining us. - Thank you for having us. - Always a pleasure. And I'm looking forward to this season. We've got some good topics on the design board coming forward, so that'll be good. Any host telling listeners which party or candidate that discernment should land on. The goal of tonight was to strengthen how you think and pray about the decision, not to tell you what to conclude and not to tell you who to vote for. Whatever conclusions this discernment leads to, approach the ballot as an act of stewardship and prayer rather than habit or tribal loyalty. As always, you can reach out to me at GodC@myocci.org or by visiting our St. Francis.org. You can check out the archives of past episodes at podcast.myocci.social or on Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast from. We record these episodes before a live studio audience every Saturday night at 8 p.m. Eastern on younow.com/bishopreg or on TikTok at symbol expanding your faith. Until next time, when we once again attempt to expand your faith, keep shining bright, my friends. .social and our St. Francis.org. Follow us on Facebook at expanding your faith. Our producer is Bishop Ben Williams. Expanding your faith is an outreach ministry of St. Francis Parish and outreach in Augusta, Georgia. Produced in cooperation with the Metropolitan Community Church of our Redeemer in Augusta, Georgia. Until next time, keep expanding your faith. you