by Me. Recently published in the CW newsletter of my house.
If you want to start a passionate debate at a dinner party this fall, forget about religion or sports, just mention that you won’t be voting for either Obama or Romney this fall. Better yet, say that you don’t vote in any presidential election.
The duty and power of voting is a deeply entrenched American value. We have learned all our lives that it is the right way to participate, to “make your voice heard.” Yet, as defensive as Americans get about our duty to vote, few people seem to actually support the candidate or even to believe that the president actually has much power. John Howard Yoder describes this culture around voting as perpetuating the “mythology of the nation-state as savior” and calls voting a “confession of faith” in the system. Indeed, the ritual of voting is deeply ingrained in our psyche. So when someone actively chooses not to cooperate with this narrative, the reaction is strong.
Catholic Workers, Pentecostals, Quakers, Jehovah’s Witness and others, though, have a long history of resisting the accepted narrative, including the “duty” to vote. The biblical, moral and personal reasons for this are too complex to adequately describe here, but the action of voting is certainly worth some serious discernment, discernment that includes options beyond red and blue, so I’ll try to mention a few basics to get your thoughts flowing.
Non-cooperation with the state was theologically important to early Christians and has been continued by the peace churches and Christian anarchists in the US for centuries. As Christians, we are first and foremost called to obey God and to build God’s kingdom on earth; how then can we simultaneously pledge allegiance to a government that so often directly violates the commandments of that God? Non-cooperation can mean many things, for some it can start with not reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, for others it means tax resistance or conscientious objection in times of war, for some it can also mean the active decision not to vote. Most basically, the logic is this: if I vote and pay for a government which kills and oppresses millions, am I not cooperating in those actions? Have I not put obedience to the systems of government above my obedience to the laws of God?
Active noncooperation, however, should not be confused with silence. I cannot simply not vote, or not file taxes, or not go to war. I must make this decision an active statement in itself and an invitation to conscience-forming debate with other thoughtful citizens. Ammon Hennacy, a friend of Dorothy Day and one of my favorite CWers, never paid taxes or voted but every tax day he stood in the town square with a sign, talking to people about his decision not to let his money pay for bombs. He used his noncooperation as an opening for conversation, participating much more directly and actively in civil issues than had he simply cast a vote for a third party or settled for a candidate who advocated fewer bombs.
One might say that voting itself can silence us and lull us into complacency with the government, handing over our power and responsibility to the “savior state.” Christian anarchism and personalism are central to the history of the Catholic Worker. These philosophies believe in the power and responsibility of the individual, not the government. When my neighbor asks for food and I have extra, it is my duty to share with her. It should also be my goal, though, to strive for self sufficiency so that I will not have to rely on others to feed me. Ideally, the government has no place in these relationships. For this reason, you might see anarchists gardening and sharing open meals but you probably will not see them voting for or against federal food stamp programs. Advocating government safety nets hands over our power and responsibility to a third party and takes the personal out of it. It can lull us into reliance on the government and make us feel excused from our biblical duty to “feed the hungry.”
Voting is a right, and it is a right that should be extended to all, but it is also a decision that we should approach thoughtfully and critically. There are many who have been denied even this small form of political legitimacy throughout our history and plenty continue to face disenfranchisement; new voter ID laws and bans against those with felony record are added in many states this year. I am not trying to minimize their struggle for the important symbol of legitimacy that voting represents in our culture. But when we have the right, it is our duty not to let it be used against us. The idea that voting is voice and the state is savior can easily be used to lull us into silence; it is up to us to make sure that it doesn’t.
The most effective forms of social change are not those that fit neatly into the acceptable realm of voting. When we start to believe that voting is voice, we silence ourselves. When we vote for the “least bad” and hope he remembers us next year, we risk handing over our power. When we pledge allegiance to Caesar even in opposition to the radical call of the Gospel, we miss the opportunity to live more justly. Every day, it is up to us to struggle with the balance between the two authorities under which we live and to decide how we will engage with each; that is as true this November as ever.
Lewis, Ted. Electing Not To Vote: Christian Reflections on Reasons for Not Voting
Hennacy, Ammon. The Book of Ammon
Zwick, Mark and Louise. The Catholic Worker Movement: Intellectual and Spiritual Origins
