Our posture toward morally permissible laws with bad or unjust outcomes should be different than our posture toward morally unjust laws. With morally permissible laws, we can talk about “reducing the bad outcomes,” even while continuing to affirm the moral permissibility of a law. Not so with inherently unjust laws. The goal with unjust laws must be to overturn them, plain and simple, lest our ongoing support affirm what’s inherently unjust (see Rom. 1:32). What sense would it make to support a pro-slavery senator while seeking to reduce the number of slaves?

In this article I’m not going to tell you how to vote in the next election. I’m not going to tell you what makes for a good or wise vote. I’m even not going to offer my full moral evaluation of the upcoming 2020 elections in the United States.

Rather, my goal is merely to offer nine principles that will help you determine for yourself whether a given vote is morally better or worse or at least morally permissible. God has given you the Bible and pastors like me to offer you principles. Yet he has also given you a conscience and created you to make these kinds of moral judgments.

Further, I think I would be pastorally overstepping were I to tell you how I think you positively should vote, assuming there is more than one permissible option (which includes not voting, voting for a third party, writing in a candidate, or even civil disobedience if you live in a country with compulsory voting). At most, I think a pastor can, from time to time, warn you against paths you should not take. Seldom if ever should he tell you which path you should take, assuming that doing so closes down other morally permissible paths. 

NINE PRINCIPLES

The nine principles build cumulatively, with the first being most foundational and the ninth incorporating everything.

1. Your vote bears moral weight by virtue of a chain of causation.

When you vote in a democratic system, you’re actually participating in the role of the “governing authorities” that Paul and Peter describe. Your job is to align your objectives with the purposes which God gives to the government in Scriptures, such as “punish[ing] those who do evil and praise[ing] those who do good” (1 Peter 2:13–14; see also, Gen. 9:5–6; Rom. 13:1–7; etc.).

Therefore, your vote requires you to make a moral evaluation about what’s good and what’s evil, or wise and unwise (see Prov. 8:15–16), and then to act on behalf of your evaluation. You are morally responsible for this evaluation and act of judgment.

Suppose then candidate Jack says he believes in positions a, b, c, d, and e, while candidate Jill supports issues l, m, n, o, and p. When I cast a ballot for Jack, I am giving Jack the agency—that is, the power or ability—he needs for turning a, b, c, d, and e into law over and against l, m, n, o, and p. If Jack is elected and succeeds in writing a, b, c, d, and e into law, I become morally culpable for those laws, at least in some measure, by the simple formula of cause and effect with my vote as the first cause. Our votes create the requisite agency. We’re handing Jack or Jill the sword of state.

2. With regard to what a vote does, your motives don’t matter (but see point 8).

Suppose you believe issue e is wicked, yet vote for Jack because you really care about a, b, c, and d. Still, you cannot discount what your vote does. It gives Jack agency to pursue a, b, c, d, and e, and you remain morally responsible for that. There’s no way to absolve yourself of moral responsibility for the one thing you don’t like and to keep it for the four things you do like. Voting ballots are dumb. They cannot discern your motives. The moral chain of causation remains. Recall, furthermore, that Scripture acknowledges a category for “unintentional sin” (Lev. 4).

3. There’s a distinction between morally permissible laws and immoral laws which is crucial to our moral evaluations.

Some laws or actions promised by a candidate, in and of themselves, are morally permissible, even if they eventually prove to have unjust outcomes. For instance, think of laws establishing the tax rate at x percent, or to establish an immigration quota at y people per year, or to incarcerate a person for z years for possessing an illegal drug.

Other laws, by their very nature, are always unjust (see Is. 10:1–2). So it is, for instance, with laws establishing race-based slavery, segregation, or discriminatory mortgage-lending practices. And so it is with laws establishing abortion.

Our posture toward morally permissible laws with bad or unjust outcomes should be different than our posture toward morally unjust laws. With morally permissible laws, we can talk about “reducing the bad outcomes,” even while continuing to affirm the moral permissibility of a law. Not so with inherently unjust laws. The goal with unjust laws must be to overturn them, plain and simple, lest our ongoing support affirm what’s inherently unjust (see Rom. 1:32). What sense would it make to support a pro-slavery senator while seeking to reduce the number of slaves?

Now, realpolitik considerations sometimes involve compromises. Half a loaf is better than no loaf, they say. Still, even as we accept halfway measures for the sake of reducing bad outcomes, our overall goal and strategy must remain overturning the unjust law.

4. The character of a candidate matters by the same chain of moral causation described in point 1.

Does the character of a candidate matter to the ethical significance of a vote? Yes, and it does by the same chain of moral causation described above, only now culpability transfers not through issues like a, b, c, d, and e, but through the person him or herself. If I choose a babysitter for my children whom I know has poor character, or a landlord for the apartment building I own whom I know has poor character, or a treasurer for my church whom I know has poor character, I become at least partially complicit in any bad decisions each of these individuals make.

Jesus tells us that, “Every good tree produces good fruit, but a bad tree produces bad fruit” (Matt. 7:17). If I knowingly plant a bad tree in my garden, is just the tree then responsible for the basket of bad fruit which my children carry inside? Am I not responsible, too?

A leader’s character and behavior teaches and even authorizes what’s morally acceptable within that leader’s domain. Suppose a baseball coach has a pattern of telling racist jokes. By doing so, he’s teaching his players that racist jokes are acceptable. In a sense, he’s even authorizing them to sit in the dugout and make such jokes among each other. He’s creating some space in their conscience for such activity, even if other authorities in their lives condemn racist jokes. In other words, character has a very real and tangible effect on a body politic that’s analogous to passing a law. It’s like the passing of an informal and unspoken law supporting those things, which people will notice and follow (see 1 Tim. 4:16). A leader’s life is powerful.

Suppose then you knowingly hire this baseball coach who makes racist jokes. Do you not risk becoming at least somewhat complicit in his racism? If so, might not the same principle apply to voting for a dishonest and unvirtuous candidate?

5. Saying “But Democracy!” doesn’t sanctify your vote.
6. There are a number of rocks on the scale, but some rocks are heavier than others.
7. Is it morally permissible to not vote or to vote for a candidate that is certain to lose? It depends.
8. With regard to church membership, your motives matter.
9. In the final analysis, ethically evaluating our votes involves both moral principles and strategic calculations.

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