Should I Vote? — Nathan Zook — Ep. 070

Hello everybody, welcome back to another episode of Anabaptist Perspectives. I'm here with Nathan Zook. We're in Washington, D.C., here at actually the Museum of the Bible on the top floor. Capital's right there behind us. You live here in this city. You've been, obviously this is the capital of the United States. And one thing I'm really curious about: what is the Anabaptist view on the political process, especially of voting? Like, how's the relationship been there with that, with the Anabaptist people when it comes to that? Of course, when Anabaptists started in the 1500s as a movement, you didn't have the potential to be a republican or a republic or a democracy. And so they weren't able to vote, living in kingdoms and monarchies and so forth.

And so when they came to the so-called New World and the British colony of Pennsylvania, it was a new opportunity to vote and be part of the political process. And so many Mennonites did, especially when the, as you're looking towards moving away from being drafted forcibly in Germany, you come here, the Quakers are in power in Pennsylvania. They had the state legislature in the colonies at the time. Some of the Scottish, Irish immigrants that came in were not so willing to allow people not to be part of the military. And so Mennonites began voting in many cases for the Quakers. Once the Scotch, Irish, and other groups sort of overtook the population of Pennsylvania and the Quakers were losing power, many Mennonites just pulled out altogether and began to stop voting in that colonial and post-colonial era.

Now, so I'm curious then what effect has in the past, but also currently, what effect has that had on the current political scene, especially, so you mentioned Mennonites, but then you have, there's other groups I think, I don't know, Jehovah's Witnesses and a few others that wouldn't be involved in voting. What effect does that have? It may not be very much because we, the Mennonites, the Anabaptists who don't vote, Jehovah's Witnesses, we're a small part of the population.

We just get wrapped up into this blurry, undecided, non-voter category. Unclear. It gives them a little more power because it keeps the politicians guessing which way we go. And so in the past couple of elections, there's been a lot of attempts, especially in the part of the Republican Party, to get Amish in like Chicane or other in Ohio to get out and vote for President Trump, President Bush, and so forth. There was some awareness that this undecided or non-voter block could be potentially beneficial in some counties. I think it's been a real testimony in a way I didn't expect for people who are so worked up by elections. And I can just be there and say, you know, my kingdom is not of this world, as Jesus said.

And we can be calm. We can be beacons of hope. We can tell. I felt like I was a therapist among my friends and neighbors after the 2016 election. Can you share a little of your personal story? I mean, you said you were politically involved at one point. You're not, so anymore. So what happened?

So I was actually really involved in multiple forms of political participation. I was involved in protesting. I know the year I was 18, 19, I was involved in 16 protests. And I stopped counting after that and just kept going. I was involved. I went to protests in Philly, Chicago, New York, D.C., Baltimore. It all changed for me back during the, it was 2002. I was living in Baltimore. I came to Washington, D.C. with some Catholic nuns in my neighborhood who were coming here for an anti-war march against the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.

And so I came here because I thought I'm going to love my enemy, the Afghan people, and show love for them by marching in the streets outside the White House to oppose war. And so we get here and the nuns that I was with were very calm and quiet and loving, I would say, but a lot of other protesters were not. And they're running through the streets burning the U.S. flag, the Israeli flag. They're saying, "Abolish, you know, Israel," and they're just against all kinds of things. And saying some horrible things against President Bush. I thought, "I'm not loving my neighbor. I think I'm loving my enemy, the Afghan people. I'm not loving my neighbor, President Bush, or anybody else."

So that was my last protest. Wow, that's a real, yeah, it's a real conflict. It's like you couldn't satisfy both. Right. I still kept voting, but that ended when I joined my current church later. But actually, the fascinating thing about that was what really drove it home to me, the importance for me of not being involved was I was still very focused on local politics.

And I had a neighbor running for office, a very small scale district election. And I didn't know the other person she was running against, but I knew she was running. So I was walking by the polls on the way home from work. I thought, "Wow, that's a long line. It's probably good I'm not voting today," but you know, I didn't think, would it have been okay to vote for that one race, not about the death penalty, not about, you know, the police force or something very minor. Something very local. Yeah. I thought, "No, I commit I'm not going to vote." Well, she lost. The next morning I read in the news, she lost 323 to 322.

My vote would have made a difference. It would have been a coin toss if I had voted for her. And so, but the next month, this is in November, the next month, the woman who won had a holiday open house at her house.

And so she invited the whole neighborhood. And so my family went and walked in the door and I was able to face her. I hadn't voted against her. I was much more peaceful. I thought, "I don't have this hostile attitude because I didn't vote against her. She's not, you know, my political enemy or whatever." Even though I thought my vote would have made a difference, but then I thought, you know, I'm just so much more relaxed. Yeah. And she went on to be a great, you know, person for the community. And it's just the idea that we don't have to get so worked up about the things of this world. Very liberating almost in a way.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so actually going back to the 2016 election then, when everybody around me was all worked up about, you know, who's going to win, I actually went and watched people in different locations in D.C. I went to the Democratic Party and they were getting pretty depressed. I went to the Republican Party and they were getting pretty excited. I went to the Trump Hotel, which is in the background here, and saw people being pretty celebratory there. But just the whole night I thought, "It's in God's hands.

It's not my business. Who's in power, I'm going to love, honor, pray for whoever gets elected." Can you go into some of the reasons of why certain Christian groups don't vote? I think a big part is Jesus saying, "My kingdom is not of this world." He does say in Matthew, "The kingdom of God is at hand." So his kingdom is here. He's already instituted his kingdom, but it's not of this world. And so he wasn't seeking political power. He wasn't trying to be a revolutionary. And he didn't speak out politically against Rome. The most, you know, you could say one of the most oppressive empires, definitely that time period, but of all times. He exemplified a person who is a citizen of a different kingdom.

And so that was, that's a big part, I think, for Anabaptists to consider is that our kingdom is not of this world. Also, in 1 Corinthians 5, there's a story there about a man who engaged in fornication. Paul is encouraging the church to take action and judge this man and do something about it, not to commune with him and so forth. But then he says, "But those that are without, God judges." And so that's why we don't get involved in jury duty. We don't get involved in the kingdoms of this world. God takes care of that. I think a big thing though is the big downside I am seeing in the church, in the Mennonite church, is that because we live in this society where voting is upheld as this ultimate good, we also then try to apply that in the church structure and think that our churches should be democracies and so forth.

And if you think about it, God has called people to ministry. He has called people to political leadership in different realms. And I think he wants people who are going to be there who are going to think through things and work through things. I think the same thing happens in the church. We think we need to rally majorities and, you know, get a majority to our side and push things through. When in reality, I think in the church, God's calling for a loving approach. We're going to be seeking maybe consensus, but seeking, may not always be consensus, but we're going to be seeking a thoughtful, prayerful approach that may not look like the church politics, like the world politics.

Can you just respond to what is a very common response that says, "Oh, well, by not voting, you're not doing your civic duty to your country." What do you say to that? Yeah, I mean, there's many ways we can be involved in our civil society. If you consider the issue of homelessness, if you would put your time and energy and resources into changing government policy, you're still going to have hungry people who are in need along that time. So we're called to feed the hungry. We're called to clothe the naked and so forth. And these are real immediate needs that can be addressed. Whereas if we put our focus on politics, it might be years until the funding gets to the people in need.

There's a lot we can do in the immediate here and now. If you consider the amount of time it takes to vote, you have to get educated. You have to figure out who's running, figure out what the issues are. And then you take time out of your workday to go to the polls and stand in line and vote and so forth. And what's the end result? You have helped to elect somebody who doesn't know who you are. They don't know why you voted for them. It could have been you liked their name. It could have been you liked their party. It could have been you thought they had a nice smile. So really, voting is a very inefficient way of accomplishing things.

Whereas if you took those same three hours and donated your whatever income you made from those three hours to those in need, if you worked, you volunteered in a shelter or a children's tutoring center, there's so much good you can accomplish in that three hours. I think our civil engagement can be very valuable outside of voting, if not maybe even more valuable. Yeah. And I think maybe something something that earlier church would have really stressed is just prayer for the government. And we can't really quantify what effect that has, but God moves through the prayers of his people. I don't know what your thoughts are on this, but if Jesus were to run for president, you know, I mean, his policies would be so completely bizarre.

You know, it would, you know, love your enemies? Like what? You know, I mean, give all your money to the, you know, give your money to the poor. And just none of it makes sense even. It just doesn't mesh with the current systems that we have. It would be massive down for him too. Yeah, exactly. This is so far beneath what he has been calling for. Yeah, it's like, yeah, like how. Because right now we have a very polarized situation in America. And so you have Christians kind of, you know, planting their flags on one party or the other. But you would probably argue, I mean, neither of them really works. Right. Yeah, go into that.

So I mean, you have a strong group saying to be Christian, it's the Christian right. The Republican Party is closer to Christian principles that sound abortion and so forth. But on the other hand, what about the Christian left?

There have been many people throughout recent history who are strong professing Christians, but yet they see liberal politics as being stronger. So like on the environment or on maybe the death penalty, they feel that's closer to scripture. In reality, I think the two parties are not going to really address the fullness of Christ's kingdom on either side. And so being forced to make a choice between the lesser two evils, well, the lesser two evils is still evil, perhaps. And so we don't have to lower ourselves to make that decision. There's other ways we can engage instead of saying, well, I will compromise biblical values on this issue to get this other issue accomplished, which is what Republicans and Democrats have to do all the time.

The capital is all about compromise. It's all about trying to negotiate. It's all about compromise. When in reality, there are certain principles that we can't compromise. We can't, you know, say this sin is now okay just because we want that party to accomplish some other greater good. So moving away from the idea that we need to compromise or we need to be hostile to each other, either way, Christianity can take a third perspective and say we can be outside of that. It's the third option. Yeah. Kind of like, I mean, Anabaptism, I think has been called that before, you know, the third option. Yeah. You know, not this, not this. It's another, which I mean, as in not saying, oh, we've got it all perfectly right, but I think that the Anabaptist worldview of simply, what does the Bible say?

And we're going to go do that means you can't really plant your flag in either place. Exactly. Yeah. It can be more consistently following Christ if we don't get derailed and distracted by the things of this world, whether it's politics or something else. Okay, so now that we've kind of outlined these convictions, what would you say to the people listening or watching this right now when it comes to current political things or upcoming elections? How should their response be? What would you encourage them to do? I would say be very careful not to agree when somebody is going on the attack against a politician or a candidate.

That person could end up being your next president or governor or mayor. It could be the current leader, and we're called to honor that person. And so it's going to be hard to, it's going to be really hard, let's say 2021, to honor the president if we have spent all of 2019 and 2020 attacking their candidacy, attacking their campaign promises, making fun of them, making jokes about them. And so I think that was a big part for me looking back at 2016 and 2017 is that, you know, if I get all worked up about the election, even though I knew I wasn't going to vote, if I get all worked up about the election and make big statements, I can't believe, you know, he said this or she said that, she or he could have been my next president.

Instead of trying to backtrack and then take back what I already said, it's better to only have loving things. We are held accountable not for whether we have voted for somebody, we are held accountable for what we have said about them, what our tongue has said.

And the tongue is a powerful weapon. And we're hurtful. And are we leading other people astray from not honoring their king, not honoring their God-ordained political leaders? Yeah. And God talks throughout scripture about, you know, the Pharaoh was his servant and Cyrus was his servant. These were not godly people. They worshipped false idols.

Cyrus, the great, accomplished many great things for the Lord, but he gave credit to Marduk, some other false idol. Are we pointing people towards Christ or towards attacks against who he has put in place? And so I think a big part of it is not mocking, not making fun of, not, you know, being disgusted or complaining. We're not to be complainers in scripture either. And so what we say, our tongues are a big part of that step of faith in allowing God to be God and to rule in humanity as he sees fit. We don't know the consequences of voting actions, and so it's better to remove ourselves from that. But I think a big part is our attitude.

A Christ-like attitude. If Jesus lived here today, right here, and he was here, how would he be discussing this? How would he be looking at these people? How would he treat them? Right. Would he be all worried and, you know, exhibiting disgust at who is in power or what Herod's going to do next? And he, of all people, he, you know, just barely escaped with his life from an evil king who's trying to get rid of male children and him in particular.

So yeah, there's a lot of things that could be said about abusive government in that time, but he doesn't go there. That's a very, it's glaringly absent in Jesus's teachings of, oh, we need to, you know, this and this and this. He just didn't go there. Yeah. But yet, what he did had definite political ramifications as he allowed zealots to be part of his disciples and tax collectors. I mean, he brought in both sides of the political aisle, so to speak, much more radical than what we see in Republicans and Democrats. He had anti-government disciples, and he had government employees as disciples. He's calling them to a higher calling. Well, thanks so much for sharing.

Thank you. Yeah, taking the time. And yeah, this has been really good. A lot to think about here. Yeah. Thank you.