Some kingdom Christians vote for local offices or for local referendums issues, but they do not vote for politicians whose duty is to carry the sword. Is this a legitimate differentiation or is all voting for public office matters a no-no for Christians? And Dean, do you want to? It's a great question. And it comes up in Anabaptist and Kingdom Circles a lot.
I mean, I think even George Brunk II, maybe even the first, I can't remember, you know specifically talked about that in their setting in Virginia and everything. And it's helpful to frame this in a couple broad things, and then I'll just give you my take on it. First of all, I think Brother David and I both do not view voting as a sin in and of itself. And I think that's an important thing.
We're not going to be able to point to a command of Christ and say, oh, if you give your hand to voting for this, then that's necessarily a sin. Most of our caution comes from two different directions.
And the caution comes from the leaven of what we've seen you know in looking at historical theology and looking at what's happened to the church, what's happened even to our own people with the Anabaptists and the Kingdom people through ages, and what's happening to us today, and the idea of us being involved, so involved with another kingdom that this is foreign to us. And then how that all mixes and everything like that. So that's an important thing.
So a lot of times this question comes kind of like as a pinpoint if it's like, well, if you can, if you can give your opinion on whether or not they should build a new sewer out in the street, well then why can't you vote for president? And it kind of smears. It's sort of like the same discussions that oftentimes come with a non-resistance is if I can hold someone back from killing my grandma, well then I can condone atomic warfare or something. And it's just false dichotomies and things like that.
But it's still a very good question. And here's my take on it. So in the world of people who have drawn this line, and I'll speak specifically to that at this point. So we're talking about kingdom people, Anabaptist people, people who have a strong sense of the two kingdoms usually are pretty strong on, let's say, not voting. And let's say this is the only area where you would allow yourself to have some leeway with different things.
So imagine this scenario where somebody comes in and says, so what would it take for you guys to make it to the polls? So like what do you mean? Well, let's say you know the Islam was coming against America and we had to vote on an atomic strategy on how we're going to deal with them and bomb them and everything. Would you Anabaptist and Kingdom people come and vote? No, you wouldn't vote. All right, well, what about for president? I mean, that's a pretty important thing. Would you come out and vote for president?
No, he wouldn't vote. What about, you know, and you can imagine all these different scenarios where they're bringing us down to the very important things that would take us to the polls. It's like, no, no, and you can imagine the guy just saying," No." So what would it be? Well, it would be if whatever they're asking us would cost us money, then we would go out and vote.
Because what I have noticed, what I have noticed is usually, not always, but usually this question comes to play that someone wants to build a new school, someone wants a bridge, someone wants to help a hospital, somebody wants to help this over there, and they're having a referendum, and they're trying to gather some money, and they're saying," Okay, well, what are we going to do? Are we going to help out with this?" We're like," We better get to the polls," you know?
And so we get to the polls and then start voting for these things. And I just think that's a poor reason to be the one thing that drags us to the polls. Is it some sort of sin, just in your opinion, on this referendum or not? I can't say that it is, but I'm just saying that it's a leaven. You have to register to vote. That brings you into the whole leaven of things. And I have a feeling it may represent that there's something in your thinking that could be off and that's motivating some of these things.
But I would not pass any big judgment on it. So that's kind of my thought is I've seen it played out in my life in our circles. One little thing to that because it happened in my own life. As the first question brought up, I was raised Jehovah's Witness and who neither go to war nor vote. Okay. Uh-oh. I lost the screen there. Family, nice to see you. Oh, boy. Anyway, so when I left the witnesses, now these were things I was raised with.
And I mean, the witnesses are absolutely correct on their view of the two kingdoms. They didn't call it the two kingdoms. They called it neutrality. But that's definitely one teaching. They're absolutely correct. But when I left them, yeah, I was going to start from scratch and I was going to examine everything, which I think was a good idea.
So yeah, I remember asking myself, so if I'm supposed to pay taxes, which is what Jesus commanded, well, okay, Caesar says I get to have a say whether I want to pay taxes for this bridge or for this stadium. So yeah, I should be able to vote on that. And so I did. So that's how I got involved in voting. And it ended up being a slippery slope. And six years later, I was voting in the presidential election.
You know And so from that, and I finally then backed out of the whole thing because I saw, yeah, my toe in the water and it sucked me in. I'm not saying it's going to always work that way. But I realized, yeah, that's somebody else's world. Let them make those decisions. I'm going to pay my taxes as Jesus commanded us to do. And it's hard to be just a little bit involved in politics. You end up getting sucked into all of their thinking.
Just those two introductions you gave Clark, to me, are the epitome of the whole problem. Both of those men who are outspoken, quote," Christians," each one trying to encapsulate what a particular political party stands for. And neither one, it has anything to do with the Bible. The United States is not the city on the hill. Wow, that's something God's kingdom is, not the United States. And yeah, as far as, yeah, the Republican Party being this whole Satan embodiment, yeah, that's just a total misrepresentation.
But that's what happens when you start believing all of these lies and you put a halo on one side and a devil and horns on the other. And it's just not that simple. It is a mixture of evil and good. And you can't get involved with either party without getting involved in that mixture. Yeah. Thanks for that. I appreciate that. I think that this next question probably has already been answered to some extent, because I think it's really wondering, is it okay for Christians to ever vote in any context ever?
And I think Dean, you might have kind of touched on that a little
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