Christians and Elections — Part One

How should Christians be involved in elections?

Credit: Commonwealth Secretariat.

Preamble

Every year around the world, elections hold in many nations for appointing or re-appointing leaders who would govern the nation’s affairs. Christians reside in these nations and may be affected positively or adversely by the policies of those elected to office. Whensoever you are reading this article, it will be election season in one part of the world or another. It is, therefore, needful to seek God’s guidance on how Christians should get involved in elections.

This article discusses the lack of biblical precepts on elections which is foreign to biblical dispensations. We shall, nonetheless, discuss patterns that we can relate to the subject matter from Scripture. Finally, we shall conclude on the issue and counsel how Christians should conduct themselves in any election cycle.

For easy readability and assimilation, we shall split this article into two parts: in this first part, we will look at the scarcity of biblical precepts on elections and two scriptural patterns we can learn about the Christian’s role in choosing civil leaders. In the second part, we shall continue our discussion on scriptural patterns by which Christians can choose civil leaders and draw our conclusion on the subject matter.