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Yes, I was one of the many this year who voted early by absentee ballot. My wife Carolyn and I waited in a car line almost a mile long to make sure we could drop our ballots in an official ballot box. As a pastor for more than 48 years I have never endorsed a candidate, and I will continue that practice. I won’t tell you who I voted for, but I will share the basis by which I make my voting decisions.

I appreciate the advantages of living in this country. Yet, as a follower of Jesus and his redemptive kingdom movement, my allegiance to the kingdom of God supersedes my allegiance to the United States of America.  On that basis, I seek the wisdom of biblical authority as it addresses both government and personal responsibility.

There are three biblical requirements found in the Old Testament book of Micah that I measure the candidate’s policies by: “He has shown all you people what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with God” (Micah 6:8).

TO ACT JUSTICE

Justice is a predominant theme in both the Old and New Testaments. “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice…to set the oppressed free…to break every yoke…to share your food with the hungry…when you see the naked to clothe them…to not turn away from you own humanity” (Isaiah 58:6-7). “For I the Lord, love justice; I hate robbery and wrongdoing” (Isaiah 61:8).

Here is how I try to best apply this requirement to my vote:

*Justice demands care for the most vulnerable – from the baby in the womb with the community’s full investment in that child’s development until natural death.

*Justice demands that education and health care are universal rights.

*Justice demands making wrongs right. Yes, all lives matter, but now is the time to realize the importance of black lives matter in light of 400 years of injustices committed against persons of color. Given 200 years of slavery, Jim Crow laws, enforced segregation, red-lining districts, inequality in school systems and mass incarceration of African American men, justice demands making wrongs right.

*Justice demands protecting the rights of my LGBTQ brothers and sisters.

TO LOVE MERCY

*For the unborn.

*For the elimination of the death penalty.

*For the elderly in care facilities.

*For those who have lost employment in the pandemic.

*For the thousands who have been displaced from their homes from recent natural disasters.

*For the care of creation.

*For this and more that we mercifully join together, owning the responsibility to share the cost for restoration.

WALK IN HUMILITY

*I ask myself which candidate can best put divisive partisan issues aside to unite and bring people with differing perspectives together.

*I seek a candidate who will show both strength in leadership and respect for people with different views.

*I look for the candidate who views the burden of the office as a place of sacrificial service and not a position of privileged power to establish self-promotion.

I prayerfully cast my ballot this past week based on my understanding of these three biblical requirements.

Mike Slaughter, pastor emeritus and global church ambassador for Ginghamsburg Church, served for nearly four decades as the lead pastor and chief dreamer of Ginghamsburg and the spiritual entrepreneur of ministry marketplace innovations. Mike is also the founder and chief strategist of Passionate Churches, LLC, which specializes in developing pastors, church staff and church lay leaders through coaching, training, consulting and facilitation services. Mike’s call to “afflict the comfortable” challenges Christians to wrestle with God and their God-destinies. Mike’s latest book Revolutionary Kingdom: following the Rebel Jesus is available on Amazon and Cokesbury.