How should Christians view the practice of voting?
Question 91 in Faith Seeking Freedom: Updated & Expanded
How should Christians view the practice of voting?
This question is from Faith Seeking Freedom: Updated & Expanded, launching June 2026 in paperback, PDF, and Kindle. Subscribe to this Substack so you don’t miss updates, previews, and the launch announcement.
Voting is sometimes regarded as a civil sacrament in American culture. Many activists across the political spectrum, opposed in nearly every policy area, will nonetheless agree to the secular “article of faith” that voting is inherently good, and that everyone should vote no matter what!
Christians should be wary of the quasi-sacred treatment received by ballots and elections in popular culture. In a way, politics is like two neighbors wrestling in the front yard over a loaded gun. The state is a violent enterprise (see Question 34), and voting is designed to allow a polity to decide which candidate to entrust control of that violent organization.
Some libertarians claim that casting a ballot somehow signals consent to the government under which the election is taking place. The abolitionist Lysander Spooner famously argued that under a government you never chose and can’t escape, voting is mainly an act of self-defense, not a genuine sign that you consent to be ruled.
It may be the case that a Christian prayerfully concludes that one candidate is more dangerous than the other to justice and peace. We often hear about voting for the lesser of two evils. The basic problem with that is that it leaves the voter supporting some kind of evil in the end. If a vote might injure a Christian’s conscience or public witness as a believer it is best for the believer to abstain from attempting to influence the outcome of that election through voting. Eternal things are simply more important than transient concerns of a particular time in history.