Why I, a Christian Woman, Vote

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“I am offended by the assertion that Christians who use their voting power to improve the welfare of others are idolaters for doing so. What if that’s exactly what we’re called to do? What if part of our role in society is to exercise our right to vote out of love for our neighbor?”

–REAGAN ESCUDÉ SCOTT

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In the past few election cycles, liberal evangelicals have jumped onto Twitter in an attempt to blur the issue of whether or not Christians should vote. They say things like:

“Christ has no political party.”

“Christians should be more winsome/nuanced in their thinking.”

“You just can’t legislate morality.”

And don’t forget the big, scary accusations of Christian Nationalism hurled towards Christians who stand for conservative principles.

Christian women, especially, may be the most easily influenced by these lines as they consider their vote in an election. Some Christian women may relinquish their vote altogether.

As a Christian woman myself, however, I am offended by the assertion that Christians who use their voting power to improve the welfare of others are idolaters for doing so. What if that’s exactly what we’re called to do? What if part of our role in society is to exercise our right to vote out of love for our neighbor?

Policy has a significant impact on everyone in our society, and it is written by the politicians for whom we vote. Proverbs 3:27 reminds us,

“Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it.”

In God’s sovereignty, He has placed you and me on this earth and in this country where we have been given the opportunity to vote, for this time. To withhold our vote would be to withhold good from those around us. As 1 Corinthians 10:24 commands:

“Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor.”

In fact, it should be the conviction of all Christians to take every opportunity to carefully cast their vote as a way to show their love for their fellow Americans. Voting is a “talent” provided to us by God (Luke 19:11-27) to exercise for His glory and purposes, and therefore voting is an important gift we must use to do our part to create a more righteous society.

To be more specific, here’s why I, a Christian woman, vote:

I vote because babies in the womb deserve to be protected from lost or confused mothers and their murderous doctors.

I vote because children deserve to be protected from predators who will unabashedly convince them that they are not who God created them to be.

I vote because children should not be the un-consenting victims of medical experimentation that permanently mutilates and sterilizes their bodies.

I vote because families in large cities deserve to feel safe instead of feeling fearful that they may encounter unwarranted violence due to the obscene policies that have led to more crime and misery.

I vote because parents shouldn’t have to wake up to a phone call that their son unknowingly overdosed on fentanyl that has been trafficked across the border.

I vote because fathers should be able to provide for their families without worrying whether they can fill up their gas tanks to go to work the next day.

I vote because mothers should be comfortable sending their children to school without wondering whether Marxist and atheist teachers are deconstructing traditional Western values and historical truths using Critical Theory.

I don’t vote for the perfect candidate (because, in this fallen world, there isn’t one). Often, I don’t even have the opportunity to vote for the Christian candidate. But I do vote for the candidate whose policies will best uphold biblical principles like the preservation of life and the nuclear family.

I vote for the candidate who recognizes that all things do not belong to the government, as Jesus pointed out in Mark 12, wherein He exhorts the Pharisees to render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to render to God what is God’s.

Now, it would be an act of lazy hermeneutics to presume that rendering to Caesar what is Caesar’s means that Christians can sit back and do nothing. For, as history has shown repeatedly, it is the nature of government, especially a tyrannical one, to move in and take whatever isn’t being strongly defended.

The family doesn’t belong to Caesar, our children don’t belong to Caesar, and our overall welfare does not belong to Caesar. Unfortunately, too many professing Christians have been comfortable sacrificing families and children and welfare to the government for the sake of “nuance,” but I submit to you that this is a failure to render to God what is God’s.

So how can we, as Christians in America, render to God what is God’s?

By voting.

And, whether we’d like to believe it or not, voting does make a difference. For example, in the first month since Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court, abortions in Texas went from 2,500 per month to 68 per month. It’s not a random occurrence that 2,400 fewer babies were murdered in the womb in Texas after this ruling. Those 2,400 babies are alive today because people — Christians — voted. They voted for a president who seated Supreme Court justices who ruled in favor of life, and they voted for Texas legislators who wrote policy that makes performing an abortion a felony offense.

Voting is a necessary means of loving our neighbors.

As a Christian woman, a wife, and a mother, I exercise my right to vote for the country I want my children to grow up in and for the betterment of society as a whole. Although Norman Rockwell’s idyllic America may be long gone, I’d like to think that a rising up of voting Christians can one day restore biblical truths to our nation.

I’d like to think that one day in America, it will be seen as a moral necessity for children to have a mother and a father in the home and that having babies is a gift and a blessing. I’d like to think that one day families will sit around the dinner table again, able to raise their children on a single income, that the bad guys will again fear the good guys, and that the government returns to its God-given post of protecting religious liberty rather than undermining it.

But even if none of this comes to fruition, Christ is King. And until He returns, we bring Him glory, we love our neighbors, and we vote.

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Follow Reagan on Twitter! @thereaganscott

Ready to dive deeper into the intersection of faith and policy? Head over to our Theology of Politics series page where we’ve published several long-form pieces that will help Christians navigate where their faith should direct them on political issues.