Voting thoughtfully

Many countries around the world will this year be facing important elections: the UK, US, India and South Africa are just some of the more than 40 nations going to the polls. The Economist describes 2024 as ‘the biggest election year in history’.

As Christian voters, we have a responsibility to pray for those in authority (1 Tim. 2:1-3). But how do we choose how to cast our vote? We perhaps do not pay close enough attention to what Scripture has to say about the sort of leadership which is close to God’s heart. But one good place to start is Psalm 72. It does, of course, point to Christ – yet is not purely Messianic, for it was prayed for the reigning king and we should not therefore miss the plain meaning of these words: ‘May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice! Let the mountains bear prosperity for the people, and the hills, in righteousness! May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the children of the needy, and crush the oppressor!’

There is a legitimate debate to be had about the best ways of achieving these things – but we should have no doubt of the end in view: ‘The great king depicted here brings social justice to the poor and marginalised,’ Tim Keller wrote. At the same time, ‘the psalm provokes us to long for a better king than the best government has ever provided.’

We are only too aware of the traumatic consequences when justice and righteousness are not forthcoming – or delayed. The scandal we have all seen and heard in the news recently, involving over 700 sub-postmasters being wrongly convicted of theft, false accounting and fraud between 1999 and 2015 – when in fact they were innocent, and faulty computer software was to blame – is a painful reminder of this.

Our choice of vote for individual Parliamentary candidates in the UK, or Presidential wannabes in the US, must therefore be shaped by Biblical criteria such as Psalm 72. For example, recent language in the US such as ‘poisoning the blood of our country’ in relation to immigrants, and ‘may they rot in hell’ in a Christmas message to political opponents, is vile – and far from Scriptural thinking. Likewise, a desire to extend and entrench the slaughter of unborn children via new legislation on abortion is repugnant and unconscionable. American voters really do need God-given wisdom as they vote in Primary elections imminently.

In the UK, US and no doubt elsewhere, we will find individual candidates in more than one political party who appear nearer or further from the vision of godly leadership set out in Psalm 72. We do not need to be mindlessly partisan. We do need to be thoughtfully prayerful.