I think there are a lot of people who feel the futility of voting. And the feeling of futility might drive some people not to go to the polls at all.
I feel the futility. And if you’ve decided not to vote, or you just haven’t bothered to think about it, I’m here to let you know that there’s at least one person (me!) not judging you.
The number of postcards I’ve gotten in the mail in the last couple of weeks attempting to shame me into voting is what has gotten me thinking about all of this.
Why does voting feel futile?
Options are so incredibly limited. As my dear friend, Kevin Hargaden, has quipped with a wry smile: from Ireland’s perspective, America has two right-wing parties. I’m not looking for a true left-wing option, so don’t get me wrong. I’m just highlighting that both options represent a profound lack of imagination, and their lack of imagination is rooted in defining themselves against one another. Their captivation with one another is their homogeneity.
There are no easy answers to the intractable problems America faces. Inflation can’t be fixed with a few policies. It takes years of small decisions that might backfire. A political victor now might also have all their good work, which is almost always small, hidden, and quietly persistent (which makes it difficult to get reelected), undone by the next.
Politicians lie. I can’t think of the last time I watched a candidate through an election cycle and didn’t catch them in dishonesty well before the news anchors did. One simply cannot know what one is getting when one votes. It’s just fingers crossed.
The reason we face the problems we face today is because of the sins, failures, and weaknesses of generations past. Our fathers ate sour grapes, but it’s our teeth that are set on edge. Which is why there are no easy answers, and why we shouldn’t let the dishonesty and limited options make us anxious about the immediate future. We Christians can play the long game, like we have for the past 2,000 years.
So, by all means: vote! (if you want to)
But I want to recommend that you do so with a healthy dose of apathy. Apathy because, truly, the only politics I believe in is the politics of God’s coming kingdom. And God’s kingdom is coming whether or not America’s is waning.
Or to put it another way: vote, but don’t think you’ve done your civic duty, wearing it as a badge of honor.
Note: this is not another message of shame. I’m not suggesting that you need to become an activist, march the streets, or turn every conversation at the dinner table into a political one. “Be more engaged!” or “raise awareness!” are crippling commands: how do you know when you’ve done enough? It’s just too dang demanding.
What I want to offer instead is a word of comfort that’ll hopefully breed the kind of apathy about voting I’m advocating for:
Voting will never be your greatest political contribution to the United States, no matter how many times you do. Your greatest political contribution is what you do day in and day out, loving your neighbor as yourself.
Like,
Extending the right hand of fellowship to your next-door neighbor without ever asking who they voted for.
Teaching your kids (who are non-voters) to say sorry when they’ve done something wrong.
The pure and faultless religion of caring for widows and orphans who generally don’t think about voting because they’re thinking about their next meal instead.
Again: most, if not all, our problems will be solved over the long haul. The best thing we can do today is to let the grapes ripen rather than rushing to eat them while they’re still sour on the vine. That, and make wine with the grapes; don’t just gobble them up.
In his earthly ministry, Jesus said he was bringing new wine with his kingdom. I want to suggest that whatever political action we’re involved in during the here and now should be a eucharistic sip of Jesus’s coming rule. And we act always knowing that Jesus’s wine will burst the wineskins of late-modern liberal democracy.
Hi everyone, this is Pastor Privileged Monthly, where you get an insider’s end-of-the-month view of what it takes to be a Pentecostal pastor theologian.
In this edition for free subscribers:
Voting with a healthy dose of apathy (i.e. what you read above).
The Center for Pastor Theologians 2026 Conference
For supporting subscribers:
Preaching against money
Office Hours
Center for Pastor Theologians Conference 2026
Here’s why I love the CPT:
It’s pastors who are theologians gathering together to hear other theologians who are pastorally-tuned to talk about theology for the local church.
Which, as it happens, is also what Pastoral Theology with Joseph Lear is about. You can imagine my thrill knowing that God continues to preserve a remnant for himself in a world full of ivory tower academics and anti-intellectual clergy.
My breakout sessions was entitled Ludwig Goes to Azusa. Here’s the description:
American Christianity is defined by revival. From the Great Awakenings to Azusa Street to the Charismatic Renewal in the 1970s, renewal movements have been met simultaneously with enthusiasm and skepticism. 19th century skeptic, Ludwig Feuerbach, famously said that theology is nothing more than humans talking self-referentially. So, how do we discern revival from mere collective effervescence? What would Feuerbach say about the Azusa Street Revival, and what challenge does that present for the hope of revival in post-secular America?
The great anti-Nazi theologian Karl Barth said that as an atheistic humanist, Ludwig Feuerbach understood theology better than most theologians.
Which is quite the damnation.
So famous and important was Feuerbach for 20th century theologians, one edition included both a foreword by Karl Barth and a foreword to the foreword by H. Richard Niebuhr. I’ve put both of their introductory pieces on my Substack because that edition is out of print and they’re too good not to be out there in the world.
If you want a cursory intro to Feuerbach and why he’s so important for Christian theology today, here it is:
Ludwig Goes To Azusa (supplementary materials)
H. Richard Niebuhr’s Foreword to Barth’s Intro to Feuerbach’s The Essence of Christianity
