Staying Out of the Booth

I found this article interesting. He talks about why evangelicals may stay out of the voting booth come november. His main point is that there are theological reasons why evangelicals may not vote.

Broadly put, the theological case for the religious to steer clear of politics, or at least to avoid believing that the accumulation and exercise of earthly power should be one’s focus, lies in words Jesus spoke to Pilate. “My kingdom is not of this world …” he said to the proconsul, a point echoed by St. Paul, who said that, for Christians, “all are one” in Jesus, and that God favors no nation or class or race or sex. “We have no lasting city,” writes the author of Hebrews, “but seek the city which is to come.” Politicians can be false gods; for believers, the argument goes, there can be no other god before God.

The kind of pietism he refers to is making somewhat of a comeback. Greg Boyd, the prominent (or should I say notorious- due to his openness theology) theologian and pastor recently wrote a high profile book on the subject.

If it turns out that exit polls confirm that evangelicals stayed home on Nov. 2, I wonder if this is going to be the angle pursued by the media. Are they going to write stories about how Mark Foley and other abuses of Republican power turned off christian voters? Because the reality might not be that evangelicals turned sour on political power. It may be (and the article hints at this) that Republicans didn't use their power enough when it came to the issues that evangelicals care about, such as abortion, same-sex marriage, etc.

This brings about the next question: will the Republicans and the Pat Robertson's of the world learn the right lessons, from what seems like certain general defeat, if they misunderstand why they lost?