There’s a federal election coming up in Canada! Advanced polling has even opened already. Exciting stuff. It’s a great gift to be living in a democracy. This shouldn’t be taken for granted, and it’s also an important responsibility. I want to write about that (though this won’t be limited just to Canadian politics). I’m not here to tell you which party or candidate you should put an “x” beside on your ballot. Rather, in this 2 part series I want to take a 30,000ft view regarding some basic Biblical principles that have become my conviction as I’ve meditated on Scripture. I believe these principles ought to govern how we cast our ballot (also, for an amazing, somewhat related lecture on Politics and the Bible, see here). It’s also important to know that I am assuming at least a lower-middle class economic status for my readership.
Unfortunately, this is going to be from such a high up vantage point that I suspect everyone reading will think that their current political ideology fits best with what I’m about to write. And a whole bunch of y’all just thought of someone else who for sure is going to do that. I’m sure they have many specks. Regardless, I’d encourage you to be able to really listen to your political opposites – listen to understand, rather than respond – and critically assess your own view. Anyhow, let’s jump in!
I take the following for granted: we ought to vote for the party that will create the most just society. I think everyone is, at least in theory, on board with this. The question, of course, is what “just” means.
So what is justice? Justice in the Bible is not like the justice you’d find if you were to go to the court rooms, where it’s primarily punitive, though it can mean that. The Hebrew word is mishpat, and it’s punitive only about 10% of the time. Primarily, it’s the actions you take to create a state of right relationship. An interesting example of this is Deuteronomy 18:3, where it’s described as the Levite’s mishpat (often translated as “their due” here) that the rest of Israel pay temple taxes to support them, since the Levites were full time temple workers and not allotted land. You can see in that example how mishpat is more about holistic wellbeing within a society. It’s a lot more restorative, renewing, upbuilding, sustaining, and proactive than the english word usually implies. It is the actions taken to bring about shalom – wholeness, peace, wellness – where everyone and everything is for one another in harmony.
The prophets were constantly on Israel about justice. As Tim Mackie has said in the Bible Project podcast series on justice:
For Israel, the whole point was that they were to be a different kind of community among the nations that live by different terms, being priests to the nations.
The prophets were constantly zeroing in on this. You probably can’t go one page in the prophets without that theme. For the prophets, what does true mishpat look like?
It is here where we find a drum beat as we read throughout the Hebrew Bible. Once you see it, you can’t really miss it. Over and over and over again, you’ll find it. Let me share a bunch of quotes from all over the Hebrew Bible, and you might catch the pattern.
17 “You shall not pervert the justice due to the sojourner or to the fatherless, or take a widow’s garment in pledge,18 but you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this.
Deuteronomy 24:17-18
19 “‘Cursed be anyone who perverts the justice due to the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
Deuteronomy 27:19
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
Isaiah 1:16-17
remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
17 learn to do good;
seek justice,
correct oppression;
bring justice to the fatherless,
plead the widow’s cause.
10 And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.
Leviticus 19:10
Woe to those who decree iniquitous decrees,
Isaiah 10:1-2
and the writers who keep writing oppression,
2 to turn aside the needy from justice
and to rob the poor of my people of their right,
that widows may be their spoil,
and that they may make the fatherless their prey!
“Is not this the fast that I choose:
Isaiah 58:6-7
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
9 “Thus says the Lord of hosts: Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, 10 do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.”
Zechariah 7:9-10
Did you catch the pattern? I could give several more examples. The last verse has all of them explicitly. Bible scholars even have a special name for them.
The quartet of the vulnerable.
The widow, the orphan, the immigrant/refugee, and the poor (which was a catchall term for both financially poor and for social outcasts). These are constantly called to be cared for, even at the (relatively minor) cost of the less vulnerable, such as is seen in Leviticus 19:10 above. Nicholas Wolterstorff says this:
A striking feature of how the Old Testament writers talk about justice is the frequency with which they connect justice, both primary and rectifying, with the treatment of widows, orphans, resident aliens, and the poor. Alike in the presentation of the original legal code, in the accusations by the prophets of violations of the code, and in the complaints of the psalmist about violations, some or all of the members of this quartet regularly get special attention when justice, mishpat, is under discussion.
Nicholas Wolterstorff, Justice: Rights and Wrongs
As Tim Mackie has said, speaking of what mishpat looks like in the Bible:
It’s where the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the immigrant don’t have to worry about their safety. It’s a community where they don’t have to worry about who’s going to take advantage of them. That is the just society.
Why do they get this special attention in ancient Israel? Mackie’s justice podcast can help us again:
This is an ancient patriarchal farming tribal network. Stability is about being connected to a family that has land. So who is not connected to a family? Orphans, immigrants and the widow. Because it was an ancient patriarchal society, the land ownership rights of women in ancient Israel was complicated, and so it would be very easy for an uncle to grab land from his brother’s widow or something like that. In that kind of community, these are the four that tend to fall through the cracks because they are not connected to family or land.
Every society has their own quartet of the vulnerable. Who are the people who slip through the cracks? Who are the people who so often get taken advantage of? Who are the most vulnerable? It seems that a Biblically just Canada is one where we have the best opportunity to support the most vulnerable in our society.
Even this, it seems to me, wouldn’t really be argued against, at least out loud. But boy, if you don’t think it pushes against every fibre of our human nature, you’re living on another planet. Humans naturally have a scarcity mindset, where we can never recognize when there’s enough for us. Just observe a 2 year old for, like, 15 seconds. There’s never enough. We cave in on ourselves like black holes, thinking only of our own needs. Furthermore, the individualism of Western culture exacerbates this because we feel we need to be self-made. I know you’ve really worked hard, so this is in no way an indictment against you. But being self-made is largely a myth, but it nonetheless evokes shame in us when we don’t meet the standards of the ruse. The reality is, even if both my wife and I were to lose our jobs, we’d still have enough familial and non-governmental social supports to be ok (alongside governmental ones). We’d probably still be more well off than the vast majority of humans on earth, even if it would mean some serious shifts in our lives. We have no excuse to have a scarcity mindset, but that is human nature.
Christians are called to something different. We are called to think of others as more important than ourselves. I’m sure some will think I’m virtue signalling by saying that, but man, it’s right there in the Bible:
3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Philippians 2:3-4
So, if it’s true that Biblical justice is not necessarily about what will get you ahead, but what will get the most vulnerable ahead, that absolutely must be the starting point for casting your ballot.
However, Biblical justice isn’t zero sum. It’s not like your life is going to fall apart if you care for the most vulnerable. There’s no promises to prosperity (at least when we look at passages in context) and it’s certainly not transactional, but there does seem to be a trend Scripturally, such as in Proverbs and many Psalms, that when we walk justly, good things come. The root of that idea, like so many, is Genesis 1-2. Humans do their part in creating beauty and order and flourishing in the garden, and the garden produces all sorts of things that allow for human flourishing. “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf,” says the prophet Jeremiah later in the Bible, “for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” Jeremiah was putting his thumb on a particular principle that is in no way limited to Israelite survival in Babylon. Look to the interest of others, for in their welfare, you’ll find your welfare. Justice isn’t zero sum, it’s synergistic.
Let me summarize. We ought to vote for the party who’s platform aligns most closely to a Biblically just society. A necessary element of a Biblically just society is that there is disproportionate care for the most vulnerable, even at the (relatively minor) cost of people who are less vulnerable (which could include me). Moreover, in their welfare, you’ll find your welfare. Therefore, we ought to vote for the most vulnerable.
Even so, you’ll notice that this is extremely vague. What is disproportionate care? Who are the most vulnerable? What is (relatively minor) cost? What kind of platform actually aligns most closely to this ideal? (You’ll also note that my prediction that everyone will likely think their current view aligns best with this was probably correct.) In part 2, though I’m still going to be at 30,000 ft, I will share some slightly more contextual considerations in response to these questions.
Keep Pondering,
Aaron
Pondering Peniel 
3 thoughts on “Who to Vote for as a Christian: Part I”