A good friend who would describe himself as a strong Christian went to vote in last weeks Victorian State Election. He wanted to vote for The Greens, so he took the How to Vote and was just about to cast his ballot when a surge of anxiety swept through him.
“Will God punish me if I vote for the The Others and not Family First?” The question paralysed him for a few minutes.
Now, here is my interpretation:
Publicly FF tended to strongly state what they were against: homosexuality, decriminalisation of abortion and euthanasia etc. They also proclaimed that which they were tough on, namely injecting drug users.
Tying this up with religion, which they overtly did through the churches directly tied this up with God: This pretty much painted God as a Parochial Angry and Exclusive God all too willing to punish (with baseball bats!?)
I would argue that the question that was pounding through my friends head was directly tied up to how he had been programmed to view God, leading to the following conclusion:
“If God is so ready and willing to punish others then I am not so sure God won’t also come after me, I’d better vote FF”
I reckon FF picked up a hell of a lot of votes from this type of theology, though not all.
That type of God is an easy sell. That God is too much like a distant father who only comes to you in the night to smack you for what you did wrong, rather than an expansive, loving God who desires the transformation of the world and ourselves.
Please do not construe this to mean that God was on the side of The Greens more than FF but please rest assured that God is bigger than one party’s politics and will not punish us for this sort of expression.
– Yes, I am preaching to myself!
2 responses so far ↓
1 urbs // Dec 3, 2006 at 11:02 am
This may not be very socially conscious of me, but sometimes I wonder if GOd gives a shit about politics, how does he find room to work in all the power games?
I really relate to this mentality. I used to worry about such decisions all the time ( still do) but feel that if God creates me as a free being, then he will not take out that baseball bat and wail on me, even if I do vote for the party that is doomed to hell:)
Fro the record, I voted for the greens. Its a small, leftish side step away from my life long labor affiliation, that ends up being rerouted to labor anyway, so i felt safe making the leap:)
2 jenn // Dec 4, 2006 at 12:22 am
dude, i know exactly what you’re talking about! as you know, in america it’s democrats vs. republicans, with most Christians being affliated with the republicans. Republicans are known for being anti-gay, anti-aboriton.
we recently had an election and i was talking to my roommate about it and she said, “I could never vote Democrat because of the abortion issue.” she could never vote non-Republican because of ONE issue. i mentioned the point about the millions of people who have hell on earth NOW because of choices the Republican party makes to oppress the poor. She acknowledged the point, but it seemed to have never occurred to her!
but i know how your friend feels. having ingrained in my head for my entire life that to be a Christian is to vote Republican, now, even though I am more educated about issues, it is still difficult to not vote Republican.
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