Should you vote in American elections? If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, then you are not an American. The Bible says that once one of Christ’s apprentices pledges allegiance to him and his Kingdom, then they cease to have citizenship in the pagan nation they were born in (Philippians 3:20). This is the essence of being ‘born again.’ You are born into a new citizenship in a new nation. You become a stranger, alien, and foreigner in the nation that claims ownership of the land you live in (Hebrews 11:13; 1 Peter 1:17, 2:11). Scripture says you have now become an ambassador that represents the nation of Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:20). Foreigners don’t vote in foreign countries. For this reason alone, a Christian shouldn’t vote, but there are many other reasons as well.
Statist Americans will try to tell you that “voting is your civic duty” or that it is a privilege and a responsibility. Some will claim that soldiers died to give you the right to vote. Christians will add that voting is “a gift from God.” You’ll often hear, “voting is a vital part of democracy, the greatest form of government the world has ever known.” Even if this was true, the entire premise it is built upon is an evil deception. As shocking as it may seem at first, this is all sad propaganda, and much of it is repeated unknowingly that it is such. Voting does nothing. Voting is evil, immoral, and contemptible. Government is an affront to God. Human rulers are a rejection of God. Voting is the validation of sinful rebellion. What you are about to learn will unsettle you, but continue reading to discover how Scripture and logic teach the truth about human authority.
God Doesn’t Want Human Government
Voting for political authorities is a hallmark of the U.S. government, but before we can examine what makes voting wrong, we have to explore why human authority itself is wrong. The Old Testament tells us the story of how humans filled the earth, formed various peoples and nations, and started civilizations. Every nation except Israel was considered wicked and pagan because they did not worship the supreme God, Yahweh. While every nation installed human rulers over themselves, Israel was to be different, for God alone was their ruler and King.
God didn’t want Israel to have a human ruler because, ultimately, God didn’t want anyone to have a human ruler. Israel was called to become an example to the world for how God wanted things to be. Eventually, Israel succumbed to temptation and demanded a king to rule over them (1 Samuel 8:5). Israel wanted to feel safe, and by wanting a human ruler, they were demonstrating that they didn’t trust God to protect or rule them (1 Samuel 8:19-20). God, being gracious but not overriding their free will, gave Israel a chance to change their mind with a detailed warning about what would happen if they chose this path of sin (1 Samuel 8:9).
God warned that with a human ruler over them, they would become the king’s slaves (1 Samuel 8:17). This slavery would come in the form of taxation. A major portion of their income would be given to enrich the king’s wealthy attendants (1 Samuel 8:14-15). Boys would be conscripted into military service to fight in the king’s wars (1 Samuel 8:11). Lastly, God warns that the people will cry out for relief from the human ruler they have chosen, but God will not hear them (1 Samuel 8:18). God flat out says that wanting a human ruler is a rejection of him (1 Samuel 8:7). Having human rulers led Israel into civil war, captivity, and occupation.
You cannot serve two masters. You will hate one and love the other, or you will be loyal to one and not care about the other.
Matthew 6:24
God does not view pagan nations favorably (Isaiah 40:17, 23), and remember, all nations except the Kingdom of God are pagan. Within God’s warning, he likens the desire for a human ruler to serving other gods (1 Samuel 8:8). Jesus confirms this when he tells us that everyone who has political power and rulership has been given that authority from Satan in exchange for worshiping the devil (read more here). Since God doesn’t want people to have human rulers over them, then the act of appointing human rulers is, obviously, a sin. Voting is an attempt to “appoint a king to lead us,” which makes God say, “they have rejected me as their king” (1 Samuel 8:5-7). Voting is trying to appoint a human ruler, appointing a human ruler is rejecting God, rejecting God is a sin; therefore, voting is a sin. Voting is a sin. The cognitive dissonance is probably kicking in pretty strong at this point so let’s move on to look at how this Biblical truth proves itself time and time again in the real world.
Authority Is An Illusion
God gives free will to his creations, but not for the purpose of overriding other people’s free will. Jesus tells us that human rulers of pagan nations exercise authority over others, but in his Kingdom, this isn’t allowed (Matthew 20:25-26). This is because human authority is a deception. It is Satan himself that deceives the entire world into believing in the destructive myth of human authority (Revelation 12:9).
‘Authority’ is the idea that some people have the moral right to forcibly control others, and consequently, those others have the moral obligation to obey. The superstition of human authority is the only belief that legitimizes acts that most would otherwise denounce as evil and immoral. If a street gang tells a store owner, “give us half your profits or we will kidnap you,” no one would consider the store owner a criminal if he resisted such extortion. But when the same demand is made by those who we deem to have “authority” by calling such an act “taxes,” then the very same store owner would be viewed as a criminal if he refused to comply. The extortion or robbery of money under threat is the same no matter who does it. If you do not pay your taxes, you will be put in a cage. If you refuse to go into the cage, you will be killed.
Why can those with political power take the store owner’s money under threat but not the citizen? The deception of human authority allows for morality to be seemingly inverted. But no political ritual such as voting can alter morality. No election can make an evil act into a good act. If it is bad for you to do something, then it is bad for those in government to do it. Electing human rulers is buying into the deception that Satan has created and worked through for thousands of years. Voting to empower certain people to control others would not even be possible if not for the deception of human authority. You cannot give that which you do not already have. You do not have the right to rule over others, and therefore you cannot give anyone else the authority to do so.
Human authority is a deception. It doesn’t matter if they’re called kings, czars, presidents, senators, “representatives,” or city councilors. No human has the right to rule another. One evil individual who loves to dominate others is a trivial threat to humanity unless a lot of other people view such domination as legitimate because it is achieved via the laws of government. This is the story of Caesar Nero who slaughtered countless Christians. This is the story of Hitler and countless other human authorities who gained their power through so-called legitimate means. This is the story of history’s largest genocide. The problem is not that evil people believe in human authority; the problem is that basically good people believe in human authority, and as a result, end up advocating and even committing acts of aggression, injustice, oppression, and even murder. They just sanitize and legalize the evil through words like policing, imprisonment, taxation, and war. The right to rule belongs to Jesus alone, but yet every four years in America, the people cry out for another king to rule them.
Representing the Slaves
The Bible tells us that when we elect a human ruler over ourselves, we become their slaves (1 Samuel 8:17). But in America, we are told that political power wielders are representatives of the people. This means we aren’t slaves, right? No. The concept of “representative government” is inherently deceptive because government cannot possibly represent the people as a whole unless everyone wants exactly the same thing. Even if human authorities did exactly what a majority of its subjects wanted, which never actually happens, they would not be serving the people as a whole; they would be forcibly victimizing smaller groups on behalf of larger groups. To represent someone is to act on their behalf, and a true representative can only do what the person they represent has the right to do. But in the case of government, the people whom the politicians claim to represent have no right to do anything that politicians do: enact laws, impose taxes, imprison people, and make war. Average citizens have no right to forcibly control the choices of their neighbors, tell them how to live their lives, and punish them if they disobey. So when a government of human authority does such things, it is not representing anyone or anything but itself.
While logic tells us that political authorities don’t represent us, the facts and data tell us this as well. Researchers at Princeton University looked at over 20 years of data to answer a pretty simple question; “Does the government of America represent the people?” It turns out, it does, at least if you happen to be part of the top 10% wealthiest Americans. The use of lobbyists allows corruption in the government to be 100% legal. Political influence is purchased, not voted for. If you happen to be in the bottom 90%, then you’re out of luck. The study determined that when it comes to voting, “the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.” 1 Your votes don’t matter.
People are deceived into describing human rulership in America by using deceptive euphemisms and inaccurate rhetoric, such as “will of the people,” “consent of the governed,” and “representative government.” The only purpose of the rhetoric is to obfuscate the fact that the relationship between every ruler and their subjects is the same as the relationship between a master and a slave. One master may whip his slaves less severely than another, one master may allow his slaves to keep more of what they produce—but none of that changes the underlying nature of the master-slave relationship. The one with the right to rule is the master; the one with the obligation to obey is the slave. That masterful deception of Satan’s greatest nation is that the slaves think they can choose their master.
Picking Your Master
By keeping in mind that only those who worship and serve Satan are able to obtain political power and authority, it is easy to see why politicians are so notorious for being evil and corrupt. All politicians are seeking power from Satan. So how do you get the majority of the country to vote for a horrible person to be their master every four years? All you must do is have an option. In America, the only other option is one other candidate who you view as slightly worse than your candidate. That is the whole idea behind “negative campaigning.” Your guy is worse than my guy, so vote for my guy. Political campaigns and elections are barely disguised gang warfare, with all the ugliness and viciousness the term connotes. They divide friends and families and pit neighbors against one another. People who might otherwise get along are set at each other’s throats, metaphorically and sometimes literally.
The system selects the candidates; you just get the illusion of choice by having two to choose from. Democracy is the best illusion that tyrants have ever come up with because it gives the citizens the illusion that they have some say in the matter. Obviously, it would be difficult to trick people if there was only one person on the ballot, but U.S. history has shown that if you have two, that seems to be enough to trick most people. According to polls, 2016 saw the two most hated candidates in recorded history be presented as the only two viable options for the presidency: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. These two were the best that America had to offer? Sure, okay. Many felt they were forced to pick “the lesser of two evils.” But voting for the lesser of two evils is always voting for evil. Why would a Christian ever vote for evil? They only do so because they have been deceived by Satan into thinking they have no other option.
Unfortunately, most won’t even question whether or not there even should be a president. They are too busy fighting each other over whether it will be candidate A or candidate B. The belief in democracy makes us at war with each other. The question stays ‘who will wield the sword of authoritarian power’ instead of whether or not anyone even should. Citizens of empire squabble over which authoritarian leader should rule, each picking one of the two which most lines up with their values and beliefs and then try to elect them so they can violently force their will on all other people. Christians should be the first to wake up and reject the enslavement that 1 Samual 8 warns us about.
Validating Your Own Enslavement
Human authority is a deception from Satan. It isn’t real. It is a superstition that evil people use to control other people. Humans don’t have the right to rule other humans. That right belongs to God alone. If you do not have the right to rule another person, then you cannot grant a president that right because you didn’t have it to begin with. We dress up presidential elections with religious-like rituals in order to feign legitimacy, but that doesn’t make it legitimate. Voting plays a major role in making people think that having a master over them is legitimate because they participated in the ritual.
Voting is a sin. Voting for the lesser evil is voting for evil. When you vote for who you think should be president, because you think the other candidate is worse, you are legitimizing the office of the presidency. In four years, when the next presidential candidate gets elected, that you happen to hate, you have already participated in the system that is giving them the very same power you legitimized. Just by voting, you are legitimizing the power of every president in the future who wins, whether you like them or not.
Imagine two robbers show up at your front door. They ask you if you’d rather be punched in the face by one or kicked in the crotch by the other. Just by answering the question, you are legitimizing them. Picking the punch in the face of the kick in the crotch is voting. Closing the door in their faces is not voting. Sure, they will break down the door and one of them will dominate you, but you didn’t contribute to the injustice. This is the difference between voting and not voting.
If your goal every four years is to have the ‘nicer’ slavemaster over you that you prefer, then you will never be free. By voting, you aren’t even trying to achieve freedom; you are just trying to have a more pleasant version of slavery. Voting is the masterful illusion of choice that legitimizes having the sin of human rulership over you. It is the act that enslaves your mind to Satan’s system of violent power. Voting is a religious cult ritual that shows everyone that you accept the premise of the cult, a ruling class that controls a subject class.
Forcing Yourself on Others
Voting isn’t just a sin against God; voting is a sin against your fellow man. Voting is taking part in the act of trying to appoint a ruler over every other American, 300 million people that you don’t even know. Voting is expressing that you want someone to be placed in power that will force their opinions and values on everyone else. Voting is an attempt to force everyone else to pay for the things that you want. Voting is saying you want men with guns to violently enforce your opinions on your neighbors. Regardless of what the Bible teaches, that is just immoral, but of course, the Bible does teach us that voting is immoral.
Though democracy is often praised as the height of human civilization, it is the exact opposite. Voting is an act of aggression and oppression. Political elections are not about unity; they are about arguing over how everyone in the nation should be forced to behave, and what everyone should be forced to financially support. Voting isn’t a sign of a free society; it is the validation of an enslaved society that is allowed to bicker over which slave master they want to hold the whip.
Everyone who votes is attempting to empower a gang, colored either red or blue, that they know will commit mass theft, yet none of those voters take any responsibility for doing so. All voters know what their candidates will do if put into power, they know they will extort money from millions in order to fund their agendas, but the belief in human authority as valid and acceptable makes the voters psychologically incapable of recognizing that what they are doing is advocating widespread violence. Voting makes you your neighbor’s enemy.
Voting is Violence
“A government for the people, by the people.” If the government derives its powers from the governed, how can it be “legal” for someone in government to do things that are “illegal” for the individual? It can’t unless it gets its power from someone else. That is exactly what happens. That person you voted for has only achieved political power and authority because it was given to them by Satan. All the evil things that will happen once that person is elected are because you validated it by participating in the ritual that put them in power. You are responsible for the IRS that steals trillions of dollars. You are responsible for the military that kills millions of innocent people. You are responsible for all the evil that pours out of Satan’s system of power called “government.” When the new president uses their power to steal from, oppress, hurt, or kill other people, it is your fault. You put them there.
Your vote is violence. Your vote results in a ruling class that can and will violently enforce their will on millions of people. Every four years, there will be the carefully curated near-50% of the population who thinks they did the right thing by picking the lesser of two evils. But 200 years of people voting for ‘the lesser of two evils’ is 200 years of people voting for evil. Millions of people have wondered at the brutal horrors of history, with its countless examples of evil, from the genocide of the American natives to the legal lynching of black people by the thousands, and wondered how could such things have happened? The vast majority of suffering and injustice in the world, both today and going back thousands of years, can be directly attributed to a single deception. It isn’t greed, or hatred, or racism, or lust—it is the belief in the deception of human authority. It is the voter, who with their vote, consents to the ritual of appointing a ruler over their fellow citizens. It is the voter who validates Satan’s system of oppression and violence.
The irony is that the voter doesn’t even want a ruler. The voter is not actually consenting to be governed, even though they are tricked into it. Voting is an attempt to dominate others. If the consent to be governed was genuine, it would mean that each person’s political preferences would be imposed only upon himself, unless others happened to advocate the exact same agenda. Individuals don’t need someone else to compel themselves to do what they already want to do. Obviously, the goal of the voter is not to compel themself to financially support things they like, nor is it to control their own choices and behaviors; the goal of every voter is always to use the mechanism of human authority to coerce other people into making certain choices, funding certain things, and behaving in certain ways. Voting is coercion. Voting is oppression. Voting is violence.
I Can’t Just Not Vote!
If you vote and are in the majority, you violate the rights of the minority. If you vote and are in the minority, the majority is violating your rights. The implication is “might makes right.” If you vote, you are implicitly agreeing to play the coercion game and must accept the results either way. If a person doesn’t vote or otherwise participate in the aggression of government, they are on very sound, consistent moral grounds as they attempt to live at peace with everyone (Romans 12:18). It is commonly said, “If you don’t vote, you have no right to complain about the outcome.” The opposite is true. By playing the game, voters agree to the rules. Only those who don’t play and withhold their consent have a right to complain about the outcome.
Some might say that the election will happen regardless of what they believe, so they might as well participate. That is like saying that the murder rate won’t be zero tomorrow, so I might as well murder someone and steal all their stuff because it’s going to happen anyway. No, when you check a box on the ballot, you are approving everything that the winner will do with the massive amount of power you are giving your consent for. The blood is on your hands regardless of who wins because you gave your consent and validation to the system of evil.
So what then, should Christians just not vote? Exactly. Voting is way worse than not voting because it is saying that whoever is picked as ruler has the moral right to violently dominate an entire nation’s population. If a person or people have the power to create rules that you must obey or else suffer imprisonment or death, then they own you. If you must constantly pay tribute to rulers in the form of the extortion of taxes that they can spend as they wish, then they own you. Voting is not only consenting to be someone else’s slave, but it is also volunteering 300 million strangers that you don’t know to be slaves as well. The only moral choice is to opt-out of the system entirely.
The check mark on the ballot you cast is the consent you give to the electoral process by virtue of participating. No wonder the government and all the media agree on one point: you should vote! First and foremost, politicians want you to sanction the process by which they acquire power and money because, without that sanction, they have no legitimacy. Voting is an essential aspect of the deception. Voting is not an act of political freedom. It is an act of political conformity. Those who refuse to vote are not expressing silence. They are screaming in the politician’s ear: “You do not represent me. This is not a process in which my voice matters. I do not believe you. I do not believe in having a human master over me.” Not voting is agreeing with God that only He has the right to rule.
Setting Yourself Free
Since God doesn’t want human rulers, voting for one every four years is a sin. When you turn on the news and fawn over your candidate while becoming enraged at the other candidate, you are falling into the same trap that the Israelites did when they demanded a king to rule over them. God is trying to warn us: do not vote, do not appoint or accept human rulers. God has sent his Son to rule. We, as Christians, at one point in history, understood this. The early Church was persecuted and put to death because they claimed that Jesus was King and Caesar was not. When Christians vote, they are like the Pharisees that said, “We have no king but Caesar!” (John 19:15). When Christians refuse to participate in Satan’s game by not voting, they are like the early Church, who said, “We have no king but Christ!”
They are all guilty of treason against Caesar, for they profess allegiance to another king, named Jesus.
Acts 17:7
Thousands of years ago, megalomaniacs claimed to be gods in order to rule over their subjects. Once that stopped working, they claimed to be representatives of the gods in order to rule over their subjects. Once that stopped working, they claimed to be representatives of their subjects in order to rule over their subjects. One day that will stop working too. The propaganda will stop working eventually as more and more knees bow and tongues confess that Jesus Christ is King (Philippians 2:9-11).
He disarmed the rulers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.
Colossians 2:15
Setting your mind free from the slavery of human authority is a painful and difficult process. A thousand years ago, people believed that it was a proven fact that the earth was flat, and they would have proclaimed it with as much certainty as we now do that the earth is round. To them, the idea that the earth could be a giant sphere floating around in space, attached to nothing, was absolutely ridiculous. The same is true of us today with the belief in human authority and the validity of human government. To most people, government seems like an obvious reality and completely rational. Few people have ever objectively examined the concept of human rulers because they have never had a reason to. Everyone just assumes it is valid, correct, and the best way of doing things, so why would anyone question it? Not only that, people have a very compelling psychological incentive to not question it. It is uncomfortable, disturbing, and terrifying to call into question one of the foundational assumptions upon which you view reality. It is not easy or pleasant to contemplate the possibility that your entire belief system about how the world should work is based on a cosmic spiritual deception.
If you are a follower of Jesus who lives as one of his subjects, because he is your King, then your efforts should be spent proclaiming his Kingdom, his nation. Voting isn’t the solution; voting is a sinful, destructive deception. Christians should be telling Americans that there is a better way, a better nation, ruled by the only one rightful ruler. Salvation is salvation from the world, from pagan empires like America, and salvation into the Kingdom of God, where Jesus is King. The solution to all our problems, that voting tries to solve but always spectacularly fails, is to leave nations like America and gain citizenship in Christ’s nation. God tries to warn us about human rulers, but God also will not hear our cries for help (1 Samuel 8:18), because he has already given us the solution: subvert human rulership by giving your full allegiance to King Jesus. Go forth and preach the Gospel that the true King has arrived (Mark 16:15).
Go Deeper
Footnotes
- Gilens and Page, Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens, Perspective on Politics, 2014.