Why Christians Don’t Vote and Pastors Who Help Them

Evangelical ‘no-shows’ played a critical role in midterms and more so reflected the growing disparity between the church and the electoral process. But why?

Let me begin by apologizing for the theological surgery you are about to endure. But if we are to understand the reason for our mid-term sabbath, then may we at least probe for a theological tumor if there is one. A polyp of passivity that must be identified lest it metastasize and spread.

The Church especially Southern Baptist have experienced a growing reform theological shift … a re-positioning to a system of … hyper-Calvinism centered on supralapsarianism ‘before-the-fall-ism’, a belief that arose after the death of Calvin. Robert Culver in his Systematic Theology: Biblical & Historical states, ‘In supralapsarianism, as it arose after AD 1563 (death of Calvin), God’s way of manifesting His grace and justice was to select hypothetically existing men (men yet to be created) a certain number to be vessels of mercy, and certain others to be vessels of wrath. In the order of thought of this scheme, election and reprobation precede the purpose to create and permit the fall. Carried to a logically extreme conclusion, Christ’s death was not for the ‘sins of the whole world’ (I John 2:2).’

Culver continues, ‘Infralapsarianism (below-the-fall-ism) as a more moderate Calvinism, holds, ‘God, with the design to reveal his own glory … determined to create the world; second to permit the fall of man; thirdly, to elect from the mass of fallen men a multitude … as vessels of mercy,’ etc.’ Culver, a strong Calvinist himself concludes, ‘Calvin’s later comments on scripture are clearly Infralapsarianism and hardly favor the doctrine of limited atonement as stated by its most strident advocates’ (Culver, 388). But the most strident advocates were writing books, speaking at conferences and developing a cult following of hardline hyper Calvinist. A cult who seems to delight in an atonement limited.

Now for those unfamiliar with Calvinism, the TULIP, an acrostic outlining the basic tenets of Calvinism has and continues to raise division within the church. And within the acrostic … no letter has been debated more than the ‘L’ which stands for ‘Limited Atonement’. Many are marginalized by this growing hyper position and yet, as Culver implies, John Calvin may have been just as hesitant to constrain God’s atoning sacrifice.

For many in the evangelical community the entire system hangs on a belief we cannot fully embrace nor could Calvin. To do so is to find ourselves in a crisis of personal responsibility and more, accountability. This sovereignty on steroids forms a redemptive plan that removes the free will of man creating in its place a fatalistic fabric to the divine initiative. Void of choice, man does what he has done since the beginning of time … blame God, removing himself from any accountability. He lapses into a mindless entity, a mere puppet on strings lifted into the heavens of infinity.

So, the result is the evangelical sees his vote as immaterial, irrelevant in a carefully choregraphed (supralapsarianism) creation already mapped-out from pre-beginning to end. So, he elects his hyper-Calvinism into an inactivity in the democratic process. Further these self-proclaimed prophets feel the freedom to malign conservative political leaders with a new found ‘pharisaic’ smugness that fails to implement Paul’s counsel to Timothy in his first letter, ‘First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.’ (I Timothy 2:1-4).

Tragically, fig leaf clad pastors, a mile wide and inch deep theologically meander around sovereignty with whispers after the midterms, ‘it’s all up to God’ as if the creator were going to ‘vote’? Sovereignty becomes the platform of the ‘do nothing’ church member who turns a deaf ear to the, for example trainloads on their way to an Auschwitz abortion. Sovereignty is robbed of its providential care; relegated to an unfeeling conductor whose orchestra are filled with mere mindless mannequins.

How did it happen? How did pastors gravitate toward this hyper-belief? They sought inclusion, a fraternal identity of beards and brains. Discouragement, terminations and cultural chaos solidified the sacred into a sand resting structure. Ministers migrating around popular personalities desperately graveling for acceptance no longer freely offered by the congregant nor the culture. Drop a few names from the platform and you were accepted by the brotherhood.

Therefore, the pulpit spilled over into the bleachers. Pilate Christians, those pew participants washed their hands of moral responsibility; holding God accountable for a sovereignty that must rescue the electoral system. While the institution of marriage is restructured into a mirror of madness, pastors were ‘that-a-boy-ing’ back slapping their way to the foyer coffee bar. While 36% of aborted babies are black and abortion clinics raffle off the tissue in a new slave trade, pastors of color are worshipping at the altar of Molech.

Hell, looms for the masses who reject the love of God expressed in the sacrificial death of Christ. But no more so, then the calloused congregant who fail to cast a vote reflecting a Biblical Worldview and the hirelings who led the parade.

Yes, God is sovereign over your ‘do nothing’ attitude. Revelation 3: 15-16, ‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.’

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