What if everyone who confessed to being a follower of Christ would agree to, and then to comply with, the following terms of political engagement?

To avoid denying our citizenship in the kingdom of God, and to reflect well on the real Leader of our lives,

1. We will be so committed to truth telling that those who oppose us could say, “I don’t agree with you, but you have fairly and accurately represented my position.”
2. We will give others reason to see that our political arguments and alignments are not merely a way to protect ourselves at the expense of others.
3. We will not pass along scandalous rumors about political leaders or parties with the excuse that “this is pretty funny”, or “I don’t know if this is true or not, but here’s something that someone sent me…”
4. We will not participate in a political strategy that calls attention to the faults of the opposition while concealing or denying its own.
5. We will support our issues with honor rather with an anything-goes-in-war-and-politics attitude.
6. We will not vote as if the future of a country or community is more dependent on its financial or military strength than on the character of its people.
7. We will speak about the leaders and members of another party as we would want them to speak about us or our leaders.
8. We will vote as if our responsibility to the Kingdom of Christ is more important than our civil responsibility.
9. We will vote.
10. We will vote with a determination to show by how we win or lose that, as important as this election may be, our lives are grounded in something infinitely and eternally more important.

And if we say, that’s idealistic nonsense, impossible to practice, and a sure way to use spiritual talk to surrender political defeat, what then are we saying about our values, our Teacher, and our political engagement?

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