In just a few days, Americans will head to the polls to vote in yet another contentious presidential election.And as with every election, it's easy to feel like the stakes couldn't be higher.
And yet as Christians, we know that our loyalty is to a king whose kingdom is not of this world, and our citizenship is ultimately in heaven, not on earth. But even if we believe this, practical questions can still remain.
How should my Christian beliefs impact how I vote?Is it okay to vote for the lesser of two evils?Or is it better to not vote at all?In my conversation today, Jonathan Lehman offers his thoughts on all of these questions and more.
He also explains why he's so reticent to tell Christians exactly what to do and who to vote for, especially as a pastor.Jonathan serves as editorial director for Nine Marks and co-host of the Pastors Talk podcast.
He teaches at several seminaries around the country and is the author or editor of many books, including How Can I Love Church Members with Different Politics, which he co-authored with Andy Nasselli.Let's get started.
Well, Jonathan, thanks so much for joining me today on the crossway podcast.
Matt's good to talk to you again.
So, Jonathan, you're a pastor and you're the pastor of a church located right outside of Washington, D.C., and you were previously at Capitol Hill Baptist Church, which is literally just a few blocks from the U.S.Capitol building.
So just to get us started here today, before we jump into some of the political questions and issues that we wrestle with as Christians, tell us a little bit about yourself.What first brought you to the Washington, D.C.metro area?
Yeah, sure.Thank you, Matt.What brought me was a long time interest in politics.So as a high schooler, I loved reading about politics, what was going on in the newspaper, but also the books about politics and history and so forth.
College, I studied political science, did a couple of internships in college in various, two or three, in various political bodies. around the world, including from my own congressman.
I did a master's in political theory right after my undergraduate degree, and then moved to D.C.thinking I wanted to get plugged in somehow in the political arena, even as I prepared to do more study in political philosophy.
So that's what got me to D.C. And wait, did I answer your question?
Yeah.What was it about political science that was so appealing to you?Obviously, today in our culture, in the broader conversation, we seem to love politics.We get into it.We want to talk about it.We want to listen to stuff about it.
And yet we also all will say we hate politics.We hate the division.We hate we don't trust the politicians.So what was it about politics as a young person even going into graduate school that led you really want to focus your study on this whole area?
Two things have always interested me.Number one, structures of authority and power and how those impact people's lives, they're important.And number two, questions of justice, right?What is politics?
In many ways, it's a society's attempt to implement justice, right? And so it has these society-wide institutions, i.e.government, whose responsibility is to implement a, I would say, limited form of protectionist justice.
So if you're a person who's interested in justice, you're gonna be a person who's inevitably interested in politics, right?Because one serves the other.I think the more negative interpretation, a nation becomes more interested in politics sometimes,
when a nation loses belief in God.More and more they look to these earthly authorities to provide protect to save when they're no longer looking to their maker.And one sign, I think, of a culture in decline is a preoccupation with politics.
Now, maybe you're preoccupied because certain events are going on.You know, people were pretty preoccupied in 1859 for understandable reasons. right, as the issue of slavery was growing and its intensity and disagreements over that.
So I'm not saying there's not good reasons to be involved in politics.There are.Nonetheless, I think it's worth keeping in mind our preoccupation with politics today in the United States may be a sign of spiritual decline.
You'll find certain strains of Christian thinking, Christian denominations, certain churches that might have that emphasis even more, but they're just suspicious of politics in general.
And they would almost want to sometimes put that up against true faith in God and even our true calling as Christians to love one another, to pursue justice and mercy.
but to do that in a more direct means, and they would see maybe political engagement as sort of the corruption of the Christian calling to do those things.But what do you think about that?Is there validity in that critique or that suspicion?
Some validity, yeah.So let me start by offering an empathetic word or sympathetic word to that particular impulse.How much does the New Testament talk about politics? Not much.Yeah, not much.Paul, Peter, John, Jesus.
They want Jesus to talk about politics, but not in the same way.Not in the way they want him to.He doesn't talk about it.He does, but in a different kind of way.And so on in the epistles.So the New Testament's overriding concern is making disciples.
And part of, of course, though—now, okay, that's the end of my sympathetic word.Here's my more critical word.Part of making disciples is teaching people to obey everything that Jesus commands, right?
And part of obeying everything that Jesus commands is learning to love our neighbor as ourselves. It's learning to do justice, right?
Including justice so as we love our neighbors in part by caring about whether or not a good government is implementing justice fairly and rightly.
And so, insofar as I have a vote, insofar as I've been given opportunity to lobby or legislate or whatever the case may be, loving my neighbor requires me to step in and fulfill whatever stewardship I've been given.
So people sometimes take politics and they separate it out from under the umbrella of our discipleship.And I want to say, no, we need to put it back under that umbrella.It's one part of our discipleship to Christ.
And for that reason, I think churches and pastors have a responsibility to help people to learn how to think politically, at least to some limited, within the bounds of Scripture, extent.
If I'm talking to people in China, Christians in China or North Korea or Madagascar or Brazil, it's going to be a little different.
based on where they're coming from and what governments are over them and how interested they are in this topic than talking to Americans.
Now, Americans on the whole, I think Christian Americans even, since before 1776, have all been extremely interested in politics.
And so there might be the need with an American audience to lean a little bit more into the first skeptical word that I offered.Hey, Americans, how much attention does the Bible give to this?
Whereas with other people around the world, maybe there's there's a little bit more of a need to lean into the more positive, affirming word.
So to some extent, I think we need to take stock of ourselves and our history and how much attention we give to this topic before we decide, OK, how much interest is too much interest?
That's a good word, because we all need to assess even for ourselves in our own hearts.As we think about this upcoming election, we think about all the media that we're consuming. You know, how am I thinking about politics?
What word do I need to hear?Do I need to hear the caution not to put too much stock in what's happening in Washington, D.C., your city?
Or do I need to perhaps be more engaged and think about this is one way to exercise my Christian discipleship under the Lordship of Christ? I want us to imagine that I'm maybe a younger member of your congregation.
You're a pastor of a church, as we already said, who's coming to you, again, living in the midst of this incredibly political arena where you live and work, the Washington, D.C.area.I know that you have people who work in government in your church.
So I'm sure you get lots of questions.You get approached by people like this all the time.And I wonder if you can answer some of these questions that we might have from your perspective as a pastor, someone who does care about
these people and wants to help guide them into making wise biblical decisions.
So first question, and you've kind of already hit on this perhaps a little bit, but if you were to sit down with somebody, what would be the first, the foundational principle or idea that you would want to have a young Christian understand when they think about Christians and political engagement?
I think the first principle has to be that God instituted governments and that—this is kind of a Part A, Part B, if I could—and that governments, therefore, are under Him.That is to say, they are subject to His judgment.
The fact that governments are instituted by God and, therefore, subject to His judgment under him means that all of our political engagement should be geared towards the end of working to ensure that government does what God asks it to do, right?
You know, so I think the foundational verse for government and the authority of government
Back before even the call to Abraham, when God is still kind of putting the civilizational basics in place, comes from Genesis 9, 6, where it says, whoever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed.Now here's what's the ground of that.
The ground of that is for whoever, for God made man in his own image.And which is to say, the basic authority for implementing justice comes from the fact that we're made in God's image as a theological foundation.
Or if I were to back up into verse 5, three times in verse 5, God says, I will require a reckoning for whoever sheds the blood of man.If someone harms man, I will require it.He says it three times.I will require, I will require, I will require.
Where does the authority of government come from? comes from God's requirement, right?It doesn't come from the consent of the governed.
If I could both affirm my love for the Declaration of Independence while disagreeing with that one little sentence where Jefferson says, governments receive, derive their power, I'm sorry, derive their just power from the consent of the governed.
which is to say any power derived not from the consent of the governed is unjust.That's not true.
And that starts to sound like you're then you're disagreeing with maybe a foundational principle of democracy.
Well, no, no, that's not only the way Jefferson would construe it.If you ask me, hey, Jonathan, pick a form of government you most want, I would say I most want one that derives its power from the consent of the government.
As a matter of prudence, as a matter of wisdom, yes.But finally, the moral authority of any government, monarchy, aristocracy, democracy, comes from God's requirement.
And so that's why Romans 13, Paul says, whatever government there is, God instituted it.Okay, so back to the young Christian, I'm saying you need to understand that God's judgment later, at the end of history, means he rules now.
So whatever you do when you go to vote, whatever you do if you're working on the city council or on the school PTA, whatever you're doing in the public square whatsoever, you're doing it to fulfill what God requires of humanity.
And therefore, you're under the judgment of God.And therefore, it's God's law in some form, you know, I have to specify what we mean by law, but it's God's law, finally, that Christians should be interested in pursuing.
That's the first thing I would say.
Well, and that's an interesting way to formulate it because I think some people could hear you say that and maybe assume that you mean then some kind of like the goal of all Christian political engagement should be to create some kind of quote-unquote Christian nation, right?
We're all trying to implement God's full law, the entirety of what God says and instructs us in the Bible, trying to make that the actual law of the land.Is that what you're saying or is there a more nuance to this that would be helpful to draw out?
I'm so glad you asked that question, because that brings me to the second thing I would say to the young Christian who's asking about this.
I'd say, so number one, God instituted his undergod, but number two, I would say he's given government a limited jurisdiction. Right?Render to Caesar what's Caesar's.Don't render to Caesar everything that's God.
Just render to Caesar what God has given Caesar.It's a limited lane.It's a limited jurisdiction.Right?And notice it says, whoever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.
It doesn't say whoever blasphemes God, whoever harms God, whoever sheds God's blood, whoever sheds the blood of man, right?So we have a limited horizontal, not vertical, even though there's a vertical foundation, vertical jurisdiction.
So the analogy I often use, Matt, is that of a babysitter, right?So compare a parent's authority over child to a babysitter's authority over child.A parent has pretty broad authority over a child, right?
Teaching him to walk, eat, play nice with his sister, worship, marry, I mean everything, right?It's a broad authority, a broad jurisdiction that a parent possesses.Babysitter, however, it's a much narrower jurisdiction.
Hey, listen, just keep the kids out of traffic, don't let them fight, feed them dinner, get them to bed on time.That's it, right?It's a limited... Now, that babysitter should know that mom and dad are coming home.
And if babysitter decides to let them play in traffic and the neighbor lets the parents know, then that babysitter is gonna be in trouble, right, for defying what parents had said.So it's under the jurisdiction of the parent.
Nonetheless, it's a limited narrow jurisdiction.Just keep them alive.That's what we want.Keep them alive.So the government, point one, is under God. But point two, it has a limited keep people safe and alive and protected jurisdiction.
And that's really helpful.That's a helpful way to frame it so that we understand that there are certain things that the government by God's design has authority over us with.But then there are things I think is what you're getting at.
There are things that God has not given the government authority over.And so we need to kind of distinguish between those two things as we think about pursuing God's will.Yeah. OK, so maybe a few other questions here.
So in this particular election that's coming up, but I think this is probably true for most elections in history, you'll sometimes hear people talk about the need to choose between the lesser of two evils.Right.
And that's a way of getting at the fact that maybe we really don't like maybe we have really serious theological, ethical problems with both of the candidates or all of the candidates, however many there might be.
But I wonder, is that a valid category, a valid way of thinking in your mind, that Christians have permission to choose the lesser of two evils?
Well, sort of.I understand what people mean when they're getting at that.But fundamentally, you're not going to vote for a person if you think all they're going to do is evil.
So person A does this much evil, person B does that much evil, and neither of them do any good.Well, in that case, what are we doing?So the presumption is,
Yes, there is a lesser of two evils, but there's also the presumption that there's good being done.So in that sense, I'd want to qualify it.It takes more than you not being terrible to earn my vote.
I need to know that you're going to do some good with it.That's the first thing I'd say.The reason I'm sympathetic with the overall
instinct, now go for whichever candidate is less bad, is number one, it's a realistic concession to the fact that we live in a fallen world and we're dealing with imperfect choices before us, right?
And when we're in the public square, we're dealing with sinners who, none of whom are Jesus, right?So it's an appropriate concession to that.
It's also an appropriate concession to the fact that while there are multiple rocks on the scale, I'll sometimes say, you know, multiple issues that qualify you for my vote, some rocks are heavier than others, right?
The rock of abortion is just a whole lot heavier than the rock of health care policy, education policy.Now, I'm interested in what you have to say on health care and education, but I'm far more interested in what you have to say about abortion.
So it's not enough to say, well, you know, there's multiple issues that we need to count. Well, that's true.Again, multiple rocks on the scale, but some rocks are heavier than others.
And when it comes to those big heavy rocks, the big issues that are all about preserving the civilizational basics that God intends for us, for government to protect, such as life and family and so forth.Yeah, those should weigh more.
And there is a sense in which even if neither candidate is perfect, I'm going to lean towards the lesser of two evils.
That does raise the whole question of voting itself, though.I wonder if this could be helpful.Like, how would you describe what's happening when you vote or what are you saying when you vote for this candidate and not for another candidate?
What's your philosophy of voting, so to speak?
I wrote an article that you can find on the Nine Marks website if you just Google Jonathan Lehman Ethics of Voting.I think that's the subtitle, Ethics of Voting.
But if you Google it, you'll find it, in which I describe...I'm evaluating, okay, what exactly makes a vote moral or immoral, which is another way of saying, what are we doing?We're handing the sort of state to a candidate
to implement what we understand to be justice, just set of laws, just set of policies, and so forth.
So I'm handing, if I'm choosing between senatorial candidate Jack and senatorial candidate Jill, I have to pick Jack or Jill, or I could write in, to hand Jack or Jill the sort of state to implement what they tell me they're gonna implement.
I then become morally responsible for that act by virtue of a principle of causation. right?I'm handing them the sort of state.They then take the sort of state from me and my vote, and if a majority of us vote, and then they implement it.
As such, I become at some level, in some way, morally culpable for what they say they're going to do with the sort of state.Now, I think that's voting in its most basic form.
Now, there are ways of strategically voting such that I'm not just thinking about this particular election in this—I'm not particularly about this, you know, this choice in front of me, Jack versus Jill.I'm also thinking about the follow-up election.
OK, if I vote for Jack this time, it's going to have this effect on the overall party.And what that's going to mean for the next election is that Jack's going to suddenly find himself with an even worse Jill or something like that.
Or I might think about how Jack versus Jill impacts other races going on simultaneously.So all of these kind of chess playing calculations then enter into the overall way people vote.
And when it comes to the ethics of voting, what makes a vote right or wrong, I think we need to make some allowance, some, not a ton, but a little bit of allowance for those kinds of chess playing moves.
So is it wrong to lose my bishop on a game of chess?Well, if I know I'm going to gain the queen as a result, okay, well, I understand why you would choose to lose your bishop. That's what makes moral evaluation of these things in some ways so hard.
Some Christians could hear all of this and they could just instinctively feel like this is what makes this so unappealing.Are we really called to be these strategic players in this game is what it starts to feel like.
And their response to all this might be, And we haven't even talked about this, because I think it's perhaps more relevant in this election than in many previous elections, the option of just not voting at all.
So what would you say to the Christian who says, I think that I don't, I reject the idea that I have to choose between the lesser of two evils.Both candidates are just bad enough that I don't think it'd be right for me to vote for either of them.
Is that a valid option for Christians to just sit out and just say, I'm not going to participate?
Yeah, I do.Or to write in.Perhaps maybe I would say maybe slightly better to write in or pick up a smaller party candidate.
Yeah, so when you asked me about lesser of two evils, that's not me saying, while I think that's a valid reason to go for A instead of B, I'm not saying you're constrained to A or B, right?
And if you decide to write in C or just not vote, I think you're free to do that.Why don't I think voting is a moral must?Because the Bible doesn't say it is.
What the Bible says is that we must love our neighbors ourselves and seek to do justice, yes, but I think there's some measure of Christian freedom that we have to determine how would God have me and my station of life with my stewardship and so forth do that best.
And I can't come in and say, well, that means you must exercise the power to vote. I think I can say you must love your neighbor and you must do justice, but I'm gonna leave a little bit of freedom then for how you work that out.
That's the first thing I'm gonna say.The second thing I would say is I actually do think a write-in registers a political statement every bit as much as your vote for candidate A versus candidate B, for Jack instead of Jill or Jill instead of Jack.
If your conscience says to you, I can't, vote for either of these candidates, then I think for you to vote for either of those candidates, which goes against your conscience, could be sin.I'm not saying it is sin.
I'm just saying from the standpoint of Romans 14, where it says if a person, you know, the brother with a weaker conscience who feels like this is sin, it may not be, Paul says, but for you to do it, it is sin if you go against conscience.
So, bottom line, friends, if you don't think you can vote for Jack or Jill, Don't.
So you've already talked about some of the calculus that we have to do when it comes to evaluating some of the different issues that are often on the ballot represented by a certain candidate or another.
There's things like abortion, which you've mentioned. There's tax policy, there's immigration policy, there's questions around sexuality and gender and the economy.
All of this stuff can seem so important, and we can sometimes wonder, as Christians, how should I let these things stack up against each other?Because they all seem like they have ethical dimensions to them. consequences for people's lives.
And as you said, even if we're thinking through the lens of loving my neighbor, it can be hard as Christians to know how important we should rank each of these things.
So what principles might you offer for the Christian who's trying to get straight what the most important issues are when it comes to their boat?
Yeah, great.Thank you.Several things. Principle number one is looking to the basic reasons why God established government.What is the job that God has given government to do most explicitly, most clearly? Right?
I mean, Christian listeners, I think, should understand the principle that the things that are more clear in Scripture, we can put more confidence in, and the things that are less clear, although they might be true, but we tend to put less doctrinal confidence in them.
Okay, by that same token, things that the Bible clearly assigns to government as part of its job, let's put more confidence in, and less, less, right?Less clear, less confidence. Okay, what's most clear then?
Well, let's go back to whoever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed.Okay, there's verse six of Genesis 9.What's super, super clear is that government is required to protect life. We're out of the garden now.
We're no longer the safe space of the garden.And so, God, lest the canes keep killing the ables, God, and to preserve history, establishes this basic justice mechanism to protect life.
And then the way the Mosaic Covenant or Mosaic Law expands on that, not that it's directly binding on us, I don't think it is, but it illustrates for us what One Nation did, is it makes it applicable even to livelihood, right?
So one verse says, I'm paraphrasing, to take a person's animal, one must restore that animal.And then it says, life for life. In other words, an implication of life for life is you can't take things from me that are important to my livelihood, right?
So most clear is government exists to protect our lives and our livelihoods.A second thing that I wanna take from that is look at where verse six is, right in between verses one and seven.The paragraph is verses one to seven.
Verse one, be fruitful and multiply.Verse seven, be fruitful and multiply.Verse six, right in the middle, Whoever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed."What does that tell you hermeneutically?
Well, it tells you that verse 6, the power of government, serves to facilitate verses 1 and 7, be fruitful and multiply.It serves the purposes of dominion.
Okay, so what's also pretty clear, marriage exists to protect life and family, men and women having babies and building families and going to work.So what do we make of a government that
let's say, deconstructs men and women and decides to redefine marriage and decides to hurt babies and decides to assert authority over parent authority.
Well, that's a government that's working to some measure against the very civilizational foundations for which government exists to protect.
So one of the tricky things can be, though, is sometimes we might feel like, say, the two parties that might be in view, that they both maybe do serve this fundamental purpose of government, protecting human life, protecting human flourishing.
They both are doing that and working against that in different ways.So obviously there's one party that would be pretty pro-abortion and another party that, at least historically, has been pretty against abortion.
And so that would, if that was the only issue, it might seem pretty obvious which party would be supporting human flourishing and life.
But then you start to integrate other issues, whether it's economic issues that relate to families and their ability to feed their children. There's housing issues that relate to that.
So how should we, again, keep all those things balanced when they do start to, it can seem like different parties kind of check certain boxes and then don't check other boxes, but it can feel a little bit confusing.
Yeah, and they are.They are more complicated.And here's the unsatisfying part of my answer to your question.Scripture is very clear that the Prosecuting of justice, government's justice, requires wisdom, right?
So Solomon is standing in front of two prostitutes, both saying, this baby's mine.No, this baby's mine.And then Solomon's like, okay, I know what to do.Let's bring a sword and cut the baby in half.
And the royal mom's like, no, no, no, she can have it.And then the narrator summarizes by saying, the people were amazed that God had given wisdom to Solomon to do justice.Now, that would have been a tough situation.
Well, you know, whose baby is this? You know, and the Bible doesn't say, it doesn't give us a whole bunch of case law that says, okay, when you're faced by two prostitutes in these situations, then do this, right?No, you need wisdom.
And so sure enough, Proverbs 8 summarizes the point, verses 14, 15, and 16, it says, wisdom is speaking, and wisdom says, by me, princes reign and rulers decree what is just, right?So we need wisdom.
So, okay, well, let's go back to the scale then, multiple rocks on the scale.What you're asking is, well, what you're asserting is, well, hey, look, there's a lot of rocks on the scale.
I mean, Jonathan, doesn't healthcare and immigration policy and fair housing, doesn't that impact livelihood?Yeah, it does, definitely.Okay, well, there's that basically not, therefore, potentially just as heavy as abortion?
Well, to some extent, it's like, okay, Lord, give us wisdom. so that we can do justice and figure out which of these rocks is most heavy.
I remember sitting next to a Christian academic in one occasion and she said to me, well, you know, I figured out that the Republicans were pro-life on abortion, that's good, but the Democrats were pro-life on capital punishment by being opposed to it.
So I just figured those two issues canceled each other out, like the rocks were both equally heavy, and I was free to vote on different issues.Well, I went home.I was curious.
I went home and I Googled, how many people have been put to death by capital punishment since the Supreme Court restored it in 1976?Answer, around 1,500 people.How many people have been put to death by Roe v. Wade?Answer, about 60 million people.
Let's suppose for a second that all of those criminals who were put to death by capital punishment in the United States since 1976 were innocent. Okay, let's assume they weren't criminals.Let's assume they were innocent.Okay, 1,500 versus 60 million.
Those to me don't feel like equally heavy rocks, right?But that's an adjudication of judgment.That's an adjudication of wisdom on my part saying, look, I just think this rock is a whole lot heavier than the other rock, 60 million versus 1,500.
So no, I don't think they cancel each other out.Okay, so again, how do you determine which rocks are heaviest?Again, I'm going to go to the clarity of the issue in Scripture, and then I'm going to appeal to we just need to make good judgments.
When it comes to this topic of wisdom and making judgment, so often in other facets of our lives, we instinctively understand the value then of other Christians, of conversation with other Christians, where we ask for advice, we get their input, we ask them to maybe show us where our blind spots are.
But it can seem that sometimes on the issue of politics, which you've just kind of made the case that wisdom, the wise application of biblical principles is so foundational for all that we're doing in this arena.
sometimes we can feel like we can't really talk to other Christians.
We have this mindset that politics is this private, personal thing, and we don't really want to talk about it because we don't want to have there be conflict, or it just feels like a third rail kind of issue.
So do you feel that tension, or does it feel different for you in your church as you think about your congregation?
Yeah, I do, a little bit.So what happens is, insofar as we fail to talk about it locally, there's only too many social media voices that are happy to fill the void.
So you began by one of your questions earlier, Matt, by saying, okay, well, pretend you were talking to a young person in my church.
Well, the fact of the matter is, I'm going to speak a little differently to the young person I am in my church, and frankly, I'm going to speak a little bit more fulsome than I would here in this kind of social media podcast setting. right?
The problem is, I think, is that too many people don't, they're only too happy to say whatever they think publicly, whereas I do think these are discipleship heart matters, justice matters, which require more mature Christians, and to some extent pastors, giving attention to it in their flocks.
Some pastors, though, Jonathan, they can think that their faithfulness for them, especially in a political season like this, is to just preach the Bible.They're going to get up to the pulpit, and they're going to preach the Bible.
And if someone asks them a question, they're just going to kind of say, hey, my job is not to be a politician.My job is not to give you voting advice.My job is to teach you what the Bible says.
How is that different than maybe how you're thinking about this?
Well, I would agree with that in principle, but I would just say, don't give me an extreme, all one or all the other.
On the one hand, don't take me all the way to the delaying of pastors need to get up and act as basically promoters of a certain party and a certain candidate and like lobbyists.On the other hand, don't say, well, nothing at all.
This is dirty business.Let's like be Jonah and head to Tarshish.Stay out of that dirty none of them.So it's like, don't, you know, these questions, and I'm not accusing you.I mean, you're accurately representing how people talk and think about these.
They tend to go to one extreme or the other, and I'm looking for something in the middle.
I'm looking to say, yes, the politics and how I think as a Christian about politics is under the discipleship of, under the umbrella of discipleship, and therefore pastors should address it from the Bible and what's clear by good and necessary consequence from the Bible, to borrow a Spencer confession.
which means helping the young Christian think about these things, which I've been trying to do, for instance, in this conversation.
But it also means I'm going to step back from going too far and binding the conscience where I don't think the Bible clearly binds the conscience.So something I've written about is the distinction between straight line and jagged line issues, right?
Straight line issues, this is clear.Straight line from the Bible to this policy application, it's clear. You shall not murder.Don't kill babies, right?Versus a jagged line.You shall not murder.Okay, well, what does that mean for healthcare?
Ah, well, it's back and forth, zigzag.I've got to think through all these different circumstances and so forth and qualities of care and how much it costs the society and what other things are being given up and so forth.That's a jagged line.
The more an issue is a straight line issue, the more I think from the Bible, a pastor can speak to it. the more it's a whole church conscience binding issue.The more it's a straight line issue, not clear, the more this is a Christian freedom thing.
And we need to, pastors need to step back and be careful from speaking.
And that's one thing that- So don't push me into all or nothing.So maybe a final question.What is it like living, living and working around Washington DC in an election year like this year?
You know, I'm sure the answer to that is different in different churches.I remember when I was an elder at Capitol Hill, things sometimes would get quiet because the most political people would often be off on the campaign trail.
You know, the people that would be off with their back in the congressman's district campaigning.You know, so here in D.C., things actually would get a little quiet, even in churches.
My church now, I don't know that many people are going to be on the campaign trail.Most people are sticking around for lobbyists.And we have some Hill staffers, but You know, it's funny.
My church, I think people are at work all day talking about this stuff.They come to church not wanting to talk about it.
There can be a little exhaustion.
I assume that must be.Yeah, it is.They'd be exhausted.So they're actually looking for refuge from the conversations.Now, I assume there's probably other churches where that's not the case in the D.C.area.Yeah.Yeah.But that is the case of mine.
Could just just give us the Bible.We've been hearing about this stuff all week.
We're all going to be ready for a little detox after this election here, I'm sure.
Jonathan, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us and give us, again, some basic principles, some ways of thinking about this upcoming election as Christians and how we can be engaged, but be engaged as Christians.We appreciate it.
That was Jonathan Lehman on thinking Christianly about voting and politics.For more, be sure to check out the book he co-authored with Annie Nasselli called, How Can I Love Church Members with Different Politics?
Pick up a print copy of the book for 30% off, or get the e-book or audio book for 50% off directly from Crossway by visiting crossway.org slash plus.
If you liked this interview, check out another conversation I had with Jonathan entitled, When Authority Fails to Reflect God's Good Design. To listen, click the link in the show notes or search for the episode wherever you prefer to listen.
For more audio content like this, subscribe to the Crossway Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player.If you enjoyed this episode, consider sharing it with a friend and leaving us a review.
Crossway is a not-for-profit Christian ministry that exists solely for the purpose of proclaiming the truth of God's word through publishing gospel-centered content.Visit us today at crossway.org.
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