Get Out the Vote: Participate in the Democratic Process

You cannot unsee what you have seen this past year. I don’t even really have to detail it for you. If Christianity Today has given abundant counsel to U.S. evangelicals on third way politics that abstains from voting or votes third party, then we have all seen who they really are. The evidence catastrophically indicates that evangelicals have lost confidence in their long alliance with the “Grand Ole Party”. It’s because they have shown us who they are. This is why it is so critical to get out the vote and just participate in the democratic process.

So let me plead to you against pursuing a third way. I am not coming to you as an evangelical in this pleading but as an American citizen. Do not cast aside your right to vote in a free election. If you do, it may be the last opportunity you get. It may be that you will fritter away your children’s right to vote. Do you want that for your children? Do you want that for your country?

We talk all the time about preserving the legacy of America. Evangelicals talk all the time about how public education has corrupted that legacy. But here’s the brass tacks about it. In any public school, teachers encourage students to understand the electoral process. They teach them about civic citizenship. They promote participation in the democratic process.

An irony of evangelical education and thought in our current era is the mood of the third way. Evangelicals perform a gargantuan effort to demonstrate the ethical quandary of voting for either of the two parties. They present the dilemma of the “lesser of two evils”, as if we have all only now learned about original sin and total depravity and a lifetime of catechesis into historic orthodox, catholic Christianity has failed us. Now there is this movement to forego participation in free elections. Hmm. This is just one step away from suggesting we do away with them altogether.

Regrettably, what evangelicals may tacitly be suggesting is for us to become Pilate, to wash our hands of this mess. But we can’t. We’re all culpable. And we all will be held accountable…when the ghettoes take shape; when the death camps are built; when people start to disappear. People will remember when evangelicals decided not to participate.

People say that this will never happen. That it’s all sensationalism or exaggeration. But then they just haven’t listened to the overt prejudice, racism, and campaign promises of Trump. The New York Times has made it quite simple for you to read these promises.

It doesn’t take a biblically fluent person to realize that a pact with Trump is a pact with the devil. They say that this couldn’t happen in a matter of years, but then they don’t realize just how swiftly the Third Reich power swept through Germany. How fast the “reforms” took place. How soon the bodies piled up. Friends. It took less than 10 years for it to happen.

The reality is that it doesn’t take evil to make this happen. It just takes stupid people. Sleepers. People in denial that they themselves might permissively allow atrocities to happen. People who do not participate.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer explains it so well in his essay, “After Ten Years”:

Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind at least a sense of unease in human beings. Against stupidity we are defenseless…For that reason, greater caution is called for when dealing with a stupid person than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous…If we want to know how to get the better of stupidity, we must seek to understand its nature. This much is certain, that in essence it is not an intellectual defect but a human one…We note further that people who have isolated themselves from others or who live in solitude manifest this defect less frequently than individuals or groups of people inclined or condemned to sociability. And so it would seem that stupidity is perhaps less a psychological than a sociological problem. It is a particular form of the impact of historical circumstances on human beings, a psychological concomitant of certain external conditions…Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. It would even seem that this is virtually a sociological-psychological law. The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other…Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances…In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil…This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings. Yet at this very point it becomes quite clear that only an act of liberation, not instruction, can overcome stupidity. Here we must come to terms with the fact that in most cases a genuine internal liberation becomes possible only when external liberation has preceded it. Until then we must abandon all attempts to convince the stupid person. This state of affairs explains why in such circumstances our attempts to know what “the people” really think are in vain and why, under these circumstances, this question is so irrelevant for the person who is thinking and acting responsibly. The biblical passage, that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, states that the internal liberation of human beings to live the responsible life before God is the only genuine way to overcome stupidity…It really will depend on whether those in power expect more from people’s stupidity than from their inner independence and wisdom. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, After Ten Years, 34–36)

The above quote is the fundamental reason why I endorsed Kamala Harris as an “Evangelical for Harris” months ago during the August Zoom rally.

Frankly, I’m not here to tell you who to vote for, and I’m not here to vindicate my decision. But, as an American Citizen, who believes in liberty and democracy, I plead with you to exercise your right to vote this week. Participate!

Allow me to rehearse with you once more my suggestions for what you can do this coming week as a democratic citizen of the United States. In my brief 5-minute address in the Zoom rally I gave suggestions on how to be loud and local citizens as the election approaches. All my suggestions were non-partisan.

• You can knock on doors this week and suggest that people just exercise their right to vote. Millions of citizens choose not to go to a polling location at every election.
• You can hand out water bottles and chat with people as they wait to vote. You don’t have to talk about politics. Just make people feel comfortable with the idea that it’s worth their time to wait.
• You can watch someone’s kids, so that they have time to visit a polling station.
• You can cover part of someone’s shift, so that they can visit a polling station.
• You can offer someone a ride. You’d be surprised how much transportation can be a barrier for someone to vote.

These five suggestions have one aim. Help people exercise their rights. If we just get people to go to polling stations, they will participate in the free election process; they may just decide that they like it, and they will want to see it continue.

Now, without doubt, we will not know who the victor is by the end of November 5th. And it’s likely that one candidate will never concede a loss. I mean, he never did the last time. So, I want to direct you to Kristin Du Mez’s recent substack that offers tools for you to use to understand and interpret this week’s results. She has curated a wonderful list for you to stay informed and to act as a citizen this next week.

Just participate. We all need to participate.