I don't know what to say to this. There is a lot of truth in it. There is also very little conversation about the spiritual reasons why so many blacks choose to vote. Our ancestors died and their blood is on that ballot. In order to make peace with the past and the sacrifice they paid I vote.

I agree with Anthony too, I always suspicious of white leaders until they earn my trust. I am especially suspicious of the spiritual ones. This was a really good post and thanks for writing this.

p

Posted by: Payshun | August 28, 2008 2:37 PM

Brian,
an extraordinarily thought-provoking piece. Thank you.

Posted by: carl copas | August 28, 2008 4:27 PM

Using that reasoning, justintime, if you live in Kansas and intend to vote for a Democrat, it's just another way of not voting at all. Who says that one's vote should be determined by who is going to win? I will vote based on my principles, or I may as well not vote at all.

Posted by: Independent | August 28, 2008 5:37 PM

Unfortunately, it's too easy for many of us to take voting for granted and to forget the long struggle to win voting rights.

When Thomas Jefferson was in the Virginia House of Burgesses, he successfully worked to have the Church of England disestablished in his colony. Before that happened, one had to be a member of the Church in good standing, as well as be male and a landowner, to vote. And more than a century later, it took a long struggle and a Constitutional amendment before women could vote.

I was brought up in a household where voting was taken seriously. My parents voted in every primary and general election as far back as I can remember. Therefore, I don't think I've missed more than one election since I have been old enough to vote.

We should never take that privilege lightly. While it might be easy to dismiss it on some of the grounds cited here, I just cannot do it. The notion that we're supporting the empire by voting simply rings hollow to me.

I'm not often happy with the choices we're presented. But I would never voluntarily miss the chance to make the best choices I can.

Peace,

Posted by: Don | August 28, 2008 7:10 PM

Kevin,

I'll be interested in your take on the Obama speech?
You do plan on watching it, don't you?

Posted by: justintime | August 28, 2008 7:30 PM

I agree on many fronts with Rusty here.

If there were a proportional system for voting I'm sure I would be more interested in voting, but as it is I'm not in a swing state.

The system of voting gives a 'token' freedom, but its meaning and practice in our country is vastly different than others (sadly).

If Christians in America spent as much time discerning how to vote with their dollars and vote with their time (by pursuing kingdom values) as they do trying to figure out how/if to vote with a ballot, the world would certainly change.

Posted by: Geoff Holsclaw | August 28, 2008 8:05 PM

I don't see voting or non-voting as something that a Christian has required or not required to do to in order to accurately live out his or her faith. I think engaging in civil society is very important for Christians, but I don't see the act of voting as all that important.

However, from the perspective of an American citizen, I see voting as extremely important. It's a privilege we have living here today that many people in the past didn't have. We should take advantage of it.

Justintime - How would proportional representation work for the presidential election? Under PR, I still don't see how a vote for a third party candidate wouldn't be throwing away a vote in your mind. In the end, only one guy/gal can win, right? Or do you just mean proportional representation for Congress?

Posted by: Eric | August 29, 2008 9:27 AM

Eric:

I'm not sure exactly what justintime has in mind, but these are my thoughts.

We already have (more or less) proportional representation for the House of Representatives. More populous states (e.g., Texas, California) send more Representatives to Congress than less populous states (e.g., Vermont, Wyoming). The problem here, of course, is gerrymandering--partisan manipulation of the district boundaries to favor incumbency and to discourage competitiveness. That needs to change, though how to change is is a matter for debate and discussion.

In the US Senate, we have two Senators from each state regardless of size, so the Senate is not selected under proportional representation.

In the Presidential elections, neither are presidents directly elected by the voters, nor are their votes counted proportionally. Each state appoints electors to vote for President in the Electoral College. In almost all states (I think Maine is the only exception), the winner of the popular vote in each state secures all the electoral votes for that state. That isn't proportional.

The Electoral College system seems unfair and inadequate, but so far nobody has come up with a better idea. The problem with direct election of a President by popular vote is that candidates could safely ignore rural areas and smaller states and concentrate their campaigns in the larger media markets.

Perhaps the easiest way to improve the presidential election process and make it more proportional would be to make the Electoral College selection itself more proportional by doing what I think Maine does. Each state has as many electors as it has Representatives and Senators in Congress. The electors representing the Senators could be elected at large--that is, two electors from each state would be given to the candidate who won the election in the state as a whole. The other electors would be assigned to individual House districts and given to the candidate that won in each district. The result would be that a candidate would have to win not only the popular vote in a particular state overall to win all of that state's electoral votes. He or she would also have to win in each House district in that state to do that. Having states split their votes in such a way would make it even more important for candidates to campaign in every part of the country

This could also possibly open things up for third parties to have a real shot at winning. If a third-party candidate were to run strongly and win in several House districts in several states, it could cause no candidate to win a majority of the total electoral votes. Currently, under the Constitution, that would send the election to the House of Representatives. However, the Constitution could be amended to allow for a runoff election between the two top electoral vote winners in the event that no candidate won an absolute majority of electoral votes. This could open the door for a third party to win.

Posted by: Don | August 29, 2008 10:24 AM

Thanks to Eric, Don and David of fox lake for expanding the discussion of proportional representation (PR).
I'm leaving on a Labor Day weekend retreat so this will be brief.

Don's well stated piece is exactly what I had in mind for selection of a president.
PR might also be considered for the House of Representatives. This would allow for direct participation by multiple parties in the creation of new legislation. Have you ever watched CSpan coverage of Britain's House of Commons? Much more entertaining than our House.

As David of fox lake points out, PR in the Senate would be nearly impossible to accomplish as it would be in conflict with the original concept of the Senate as laid out in our Constitution.

Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) could resolve close elections without having the Supreme Court meddle with our democracy.

Wish I had more time to kick this around with you.
Have a great weekend.

PS/ Was that a great speech or what?

Posted by: justintime | August 29, 2008 12:38 PM

PS/ Was that a great speech or what?,/i>

Yes, it was. I hope at least Obama can keep the campaign on the high road, whatever the McCain campaign decides to do.

D

Posted by: Don | August 29, 2008 1:09 PM

Third try...

Returning to the topic of McLaren's column...

My own history of voting involved a bit of an odyssey.

Like a another poster, voting was always taken seriously by my parents. Beyond that, it was clearly taken seriously by my teachers at school, and by the community at-large. I grew up looking (solemnly) forward to the day.

After watching Kennedy's, then Johnson's war in Vietnam, then the sea change that Nixon began in 1968, I went out of my way to cast my vote in November, 1972, to re-elect Nixon. (I was still registered in my home state of Oklahoma, but was living in Kansas City, so I took time off of work and drove the 200+ miles each way to cast that vote.)

Then came Watergate.

Totally disillusioned--"the Democrats want to tax us to death and take us to war, and the Republicans want to be kings" was how I put it then--I resolved to be done with politics and voting.

Then I found myself the potential stepfather to a 3-year old girl. That got me to thinking about schools and school boards--and elections. I realized that I owed it to my children, if not to myself, to be involved, regardless of the emotions aroused by ballot issues and candidates.

So, I wound up never missing a presidential election. And it's been some time--at least 26 years--since I missed a midterm election.

As I approach my senior years, I find myself more motivated than ever to participate in the political process: writing letters to candidates, representatives, and to newspapers...not to mention fori such as this one.

My friends who are naturalized citizens, especially those who risked their lives to escape from behind the Iron Curtain, my friends who have served in combat with our armed forces, and most recently, and poignantly, all those Iraqis with their purple fingers: all these serve to remind me just how precious a privilege it is to be able to cast a ballot.

Even in Illinois, where the outcome is often a foregone conclusion, even in Detroit precincts that (oddly) never record a Republican vote--no matter where, or against what odds--even there it is a precious privilege.

We call it a right, and protect it by law, but taking a brief survey of the rest of the world, and skimming a bit of history leads to the inescapable conclusion it is a privilege, truly a privilege.

Peace to all.

Posted by: david of fox lake | August 29, 2008 4:08 PM

Yet, Sen. Obama has proposed growing the "giant", not shrinking it. How does that square with what you think we, as a nation, should be doing?

Well, that's not quite what I heard last night. What I heard is not growing the "giant" but redirecting it.

Let's never forget that the "giant" was actually put on a diet during the Clinton years, and he ended his second term with a budget surplus--the first in thirty-some years. I was never much of a fan of Bill Clinton's and still am not, but these are facts. The "giant" was given its latest prescription of growth hormones by the Bush administration, during which we watched as the Clinton surplus turned into largest budget deficits in history. Much of this growth was wasted on trying to implement the failed neocon global dominance vision and the foolhardy attempt to impose a pax americana on the world.

What I heard last night was that Senator Obama wants to take the federal budget apart line by line, eliminate the waste, and support the things that work. That makes sense to me. I also heard him say he wants to redirect our military effort to Afghanistan, where the fight against al-Qaida really was in the first place, and, aided by requests from the Iraqi government, find a solution that would end our occupation there. That would do more to keep the "giant" from further weight gain than anything else.

My wife cheered when he talked about health care. Fifteen years ago, she was opposed to the Clinton health care proposal. I think I know why she's changed her mind. She has watched as our health coverage costs more and more for less and less protection. She has watched as insurance companies get away with practicing medicine without licenses as they refuse to pay for procedures recommended by patients' doctors. She now believes, as do I and many Americans, that we need some kind of universal coverage.

The conservative line is that universal coverage is socialism, it's expensive, and it's hard to get care when needed. However, PBS did a recent series of reports about nations that have universal health care, and, while each has its own approach to funding and offering health care to its citizens, three things can be said about all of them: first, they do provide virtually universal coverage to all their citizens, something America fails to do; second, they found that in most countries proper care was easily available, something that's also not true in America; and third, the per-capita cost in every case was less than the average that Americans pay--in some cases, much less.

If they can do it in Germany, Switzerland, France, Britian, and Italy, then we should be able to do it here. But don't tell me that universal care would just feed the "giant." It certainly doesn't have to.

Peace,

Posted by: Don | August 29, 2008 8:26 PM

Hauerwas once had me in his minions, but love of neighbor and the utter impracticality of anarchy and, less so, of tyranny, caused me to put my idealism aside and act for the good of the world. That said, hooray for voting. But I'm growing increasingly disillusioned with the triumph of emotionalized rhetoric that has become political campaigning. What ever happened to genuine, intelligent debate? The American public buys the cheap lines and fails to see through the veil of promised intentions. Christians, no less.

Posted by: Matt Stephens | September 1, 2008 11:32 AM

The thing about McClaren's poat is that it once again attempts to paint all Black people living in America and their struggle for freedom and equality with a brush that covers over any and all disputes and differences that exist.

Not everyone during the civil rights period saw voting as the powerful practice for liberation as it is often talked about now. For example, SNCC was almost split in two over whether to make voter registration a primary activity of the group. Some saw it for what it was--an attempt to co-opt the movement and rob it of its radical-ness and a government approved strategy for calming the masses who wanted more than just "the right to vote"--but desired the ability to be free, to be treated equally, to be recognized as people. And honestly, I think that faction of SNCC was right. Today Black people have the right to vote, but our fathers and sons are being gunned down in the street by police officers, they are being shipped off to other lands to kill other brown and black peoples just so they can "get an education", our mothers and daughters have the double pain of being oppressed both because of their race and their gender...but I'm supposed to click my heels and be glad I have a ballot in my hand? I think not.

Other Black people during the civil rights movement, including groups like the Black power movement and the Nation of Islam didn't wanted to be part of the system because they realized that it wasn't going to do anything to really move Black people to a place of independence and freedom from oppression. In fact, I just watched an early interview with Malcolm X (whose position on this may have changed over time, I am not sure) who was talking about all the Black people going back to Africa or getting their own separate state where they could make do for themselves. Now that was more than a little unrealistic on his part, but the point is to show that not everyone thought getting the right to participate in what was and remains a blatantly racist system was the best place to put our energies and our focus as a people. As a Christian pacifist, I am not pointing to some of these positions because I agree with them. But what I am trying to say is that it isn't as if all Black people who have ever lived in America throughout its history thought that voting was a significant step toward achieving freedom from oppression. I think it is a convenient retelling of Black history that makes it seem that all any of us really wanted was the right to vote.

Now I want to be exceptionally clear here that I am not saying that I want Black people's right to vote to be repealed. I think that would be disastrous precisely because it would say that Black folks aren't even worth the breadcrumbs the state has given them. I am also not saying that I will go around telling Black people that they shouldn't vote. I agree with Anthony that the symbolism of the struggle to attain the ability to vote and the fact that it was one of the few things we were able to achieve as a people is powerful. At the same time folks ought not treat any Black person that chooses not to vote on political and faith grounds as if they are somehow standing outside of the tradition of the Black movement for freedom and equality or that any Black person who decides not to vote is somehow doing it because white people told them not to. Both positions are actually quite insulting.

If McClaren cares to take Black positions on voting seriously and not just attend to the Black people whose positions suits his agenda, then he should take a moment to read up on the Black anarchist movement who are saying very similar things as I have--that neither voting or the state can free Black folk from oppression. It would make me at least a little more sympathetic to his position if he would take all of our voices, both from the past and from the present, just a little more seriously.

Posted by: nab | September 1, 2008 6:04 PM

I am impressed that many in this conversation seem to assume that as Christians we have a responsibility to exercise our vote as a means of accomplishing God's purposes in this world. If I am reading the biblical narrative correctly, it seems to me that God usually (always?) accomplishes his purposes in spite of the power systems of the day and not primarily through them. Isn't this a significant part of the witness of the civil rights movement? God's purposes may at times merge with the powers and he may use them for a time, but they are really little more than incidental pawns compared with the reality of the kingdom (follow here the narrative of Joseph in Egypt). The problem with thinking that our responsibility must be exercised through the practice of voting makes voting more determinative of our responsibility than, say, faithfulness (or our baptism). So, for example, I think we saw an emerging militarism in Obama's speech last week--presumably directed to rebuff accusations that Democrats are weak on national defense, but there nonetheless--that demonstrates the formative nature of our political system. Martin Luther King Jr. as opposed to Obama actually became more committed to nonviolence and the anti-war position before being martyred. On this point we should be hearing much more of a contrast between MLK and Obama. MLK was a prophet, Obama is a politician. It would seem that by being sucked into the game we risk being silenced by the powers and losing our prophetic vocation.

This said, voting must be seen as a possibility for witness, not a responsibility. When we start seeing it as a responsibility we lose our prophetic edge and give up the radical and hopeful dream of MLK for the banal politics of Obama. I like what a friend of mine from seminary wrote reflecting on the church's responsibility to concrete political concerns: “the church may have to carry out this task by refusing to endorse one party or another, but its neutrality is not benign. The church’s neutrality is an open rebuke against the self-deifying claims and dehumanizing practices on both sides.” [See G. Scott Becker, "Serving by Abstaining: Karl Barth on Political Engagement and Disengagement" in Electing Not to Vote: Christian Reflections on Reasons for not Voting (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2008).]

peace,
Sam

Posted by: Sam Adams | September 2, 2008 12:48 AM

Mr. Adams: Powerful prose and excellent quotes.

"...many...assume that as Christians we...exercise our vote as a means of accomplishing God's purposes in this world. [In the]...biblical narrative...God...accomplishes his purposes in spite of the power systems of the day and not primarily through them. ... God's purposes may at times merge with the powers and he may use them for a time, but they are really little more than incidental pawns compared with the reality of the kingdom...."

First, my editing of this quote was for length, surely, but also to emphasize what I understood its key strength to be.

It has been pointed out in other venues, that in foreign relations, the US has permanent interests, but no permanent friends. Regardless of how we may react to that worldly truth, we cannot ignore the significance of that very idea in God's dealings with man through history. Moses did not get to set foot in the Promised Land. King Saul did not get to die of old age. King David did not get to build the Temple. All of them served God and his purposes--for a time.

To the extent that our nation has yielded to God through its governmental structure, policies, and laws, I am comfortable with the idea that God's work has been accomplished. The present debate--in these fora--over just what God's agenda is, and how, or to what degree his followers should attempt to use secular political means to advance it, is precisely the debate that we Christians should be having.

Since it is clear that there are opposing viewpoints on fundamental issues, and in light of the fact that both sides are "right = biblical", it has occasionally proven especially frustrating to participants that they can't "prove" their viewpoint, and extract admission of defeat--and with it, agreement--from their opponents.

We must approach this matter with humility and humor.

"[The church's] neutrality is not benign. The church’s neutrality is an open rebuke against the self-deifying claims and dehumanizing practices on both sides.”

Amen.

The church must proclaim the Gospel and teach the Scripture, but it must also teach Believers how to apply its precepts in their lives. It is appropriate for the church to decry injustice, but probably unwise to ally itself with any government or party. While the church stands neutral in open rebuke (I especially like this phrase), members truly live in two worlds.

In the framework of the secular state, where the form of government is a representative republic, Christ's followers are left to make the best decisions they can: how/whether they will vote, promote a candidate or ballot question, or seek office. I believe there is practically no place, in all of this process, where a Christian is out-of-place, from the voting booth to the highest office.

Let's have all the discussions we want about its importance, or lack thereof, or about its historical significance for whomever. But let us not lose sight of the fact that it remains the periodic opportunity to tally the voice of the people.

The only voter I fear is one who is uninformed.

None of you here are uninformed.

Let's all vote.

Peace to all.

Posted by: david of fox lake | September 2, 2008 10:58 AM

Sam: Check back, please...give me 24 hours. Thanks.

Peace to all.

Posted by: david of fox lake | September 3, 2008 11:50 PM