Political Vices, Political Virtues

Books about the political scene are beginning their four-year-cycle of pouring out. The aim is to influence the electorate. I don’t know the numbers of influence. In darker moments I wonder if the electorate is influence-able. Seriously, will Tim Alberta’s new book shift many Christian nationalists to moderate? I suppose some will shift.

Photo by Mimi Thian on Unsplash

The reason the news media do what they do – and they’ve been active since the days of Benjamin Franklin, and they’ve been apocalyptic all along – is because they believe their opinions and reports influence the electorate. So, we’ll be seeing book on top of book, broadside next to broadside, and internet post followed by post. Today’s Substack is another, but I hope a different sort altogether.

It doesn’t matter for whom you vote; it matters how you reason toward your vote. It matters if your reasoning is Christian or not.

I want to propose a Christian approach to elections and voting. Chuck party and vote ethics. Sounds good, and I hope many do believe their voting is based on ethics. On a recent podcast I was asked about how Christians could sort the candidates, and I proposed five vices and five virtues. I had these handy in my Moleskine waiting for the opportunity to say something, and today is the opportunity.

On the vices of election seasons:

Turn away from a desire for power and winning.

Turn away from practices and policies that promote greed and the Almighty Dollar.

Turn away from candidates who fail to see the exploitative power of how employment and housing work.

Turn away from policies that expand our country’s capacities for war and violence.

Turn away from sheltering our country into harbors and houses of nationalism.

Each of these has a corresponding virtue, but I don’t want simply to flip the script. That is, instead of desiring power and winning, desire serving and losing. Instead, I want to turn to five supremely Christian virtues that can reshape how we approach voting. People of good will can and do join in on these virtues, but I want to appeal to Christians to think of our systems of virtue.

Virtues that pierce platforms and partisanship.

Turn toward peace-making, locally and internationally.

Turn toward justice for all – again, locally and internationally. That is, turn toward candidates who do and want what is right for all.

Turn toward economic justice – in wages that sustain life in a community, in businesses with a conscience, in employment policies that refuse to exploit, and salaries that make for a just living. Equity can be a vision.

Turn toward responsibility for each person’s actions, behaviors, and words. Toward responsibility for a group’s, a village’s, a city’s, a state’s, and a nation’s actions. That is, away from loopholes and lies and loyalties.

Turn toward respect for (all) others – whether we agree or not, whether they are “our” sort or not, whether they speak “our” language or not, and whether they observe our holidays, national or religious.

Sort the candidates on the basis of vice and virtues instead of power and parties. I have friends on FB and in the academy with very strong opinions about politics. What I like about them is their moral reasoning.

We need more moral reasoning.

Turning away from and turning toward make up an ethical-political conversion. Those who have made these turns are capable of affirming leaders on both sides of the aisle, and also capable of criticizing leaders on both sides. Those who have made these turns will lead our nation away from exploitation and violence toward justice and peace.