To say that the upcoming election is momentous is an understatement.  What can we do as progressive campus ministries to encourage students to vote for the common good and for the preservation of democracy?  Here are resources for study, worship, and action before the election.  Get out on the quad and table - encouraging students to vote:  have them check their registration status at Vote.org - and make posters that share with them the differences between candidates on issues (like human-caused catastrophic climate change) that matter most to the students in your fellowship.  Check the resources below for conversation-starters in your group, rituals and worship, scripture passages for study and discussion.

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In your campus ministry community, you can hold a conversation about voting as an act of faith and love.  Are we voting just for our self-interests?  Or do we vote to elect candidates most likely to act in the interests of the most vulnerable in our society?  How does the example of Jesus inspire us to vote?  What issues are at stake in this election?  What issue positions of candidates and ballot measures matter to us?  And how does our faith inform our voting choices in this election?  Have an in-depth discussion of the candidates and issues on the ballot.  Many of your students will be registered to vote in their home districts, so they can share with each other what is on their ballots.

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While our ministries are not advised to endorse candidates directly, we can promote particular issue positions by candidates and also promote ballot initiatives.  Separation of church and state does not mean that we must separate our faith commitments from the way we vote or engage in politics.  For a comparison of the positions of the presidential candidates on a list of important issues, see this resource from NBC. For progressive Christian perspectives on the issues facing us in the upcoming election, offering conversation-starters for your group on climate change, immigration, reproductive rights, race, economy, gun safety, and LGBTQ+ rights, see Taking Back Christianity.

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VOTING AS AN ACT OF FAITH:

 

“Voting is a ceremony,” wrote the philosopher, Paul Woodruff: “... it is an expression of reverence – not for our government or our laws, not for anything man-made, but for the very idea that ordinary people are more important than the juggernauts that seem to rule them.” The likelihood that any one person’s vote would decide an election is miniscule. People don’t vote because they think their ballot will decide the outcome. They do so because it is a ritual that is meaningful for them.  In his book, "Reverence: A Forgotten Virtue", Woodruff wrote:  “If we do not understand why we should vote in this country, that is because we have forgotten the meaning of ceremony. And the meaning of ceremony is reverence.” 

 

In his opening address to Congress in January 2021, Senator Raphael Warnock, a Christian pastor from Georgia, said, “We believe democracy is the political enactment of a spiritual idea – that we are all children of God and therefore, we ought all to have a voice in the direction of our country and our destiny within it. Democracy honors the sacred worth of all human beings, the notion that we all have within us a spark of the divine, to participate in the shaping of our own destiny. The right to vote is a sacred right.”

 

Pope Francis said:  “Politics, according to the Social Doctrine of the Church, is one of the highest forms of charity, because it serves the common good.”

 

VOTING RITUAL and WORSHIP:

As Christian communities practicing deep ritual, we can enhance and enrich the voting experience, so that hearts will move hands to mark ballots for the common good.

 

As you table on the quad, or after a discussion about voting in your group, ask students: "With which hand will you be voting in the upcoming election?" Take that hand and hold it with yours, and say: "May love (or God) guide your hand to vote for the common good!"  And get students to do this with each other. This is a powerful ritual - when people tell other people, face to face, that they will do something, it is much more likely that they'll do it.  And the physical contact enhances that effect even more. 

 

As students put absentee ballots in the mail, or turn in ballots at the polling place, suggest that they salute their ballots and say: "I salute all those Americans who risked their lives for my right to vote!"

DEEPER LOVE - A song for worship (especially eucharist/communion) as the election approaches, celebrating our commitment to work, and vote, for the common good

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Here's a prayer for worship before the election:  “A Prayer for the United States Presidential Election”   by Methodist Bishop Kenneth H. Carter, Jr.

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RESISTANCE BIBLE STUDY  -  exploring biblical themes that relate to the current danger of authoritarianism in America.  Developed by Rev Jim Burklo, co-founder of ZOE.
 

SCRIPTURE PASSAGES

for study/discussion before elections

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Isaiah 1: 17: “...learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow.”

Jeremiah 29:7: “But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on is behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”

Amos 5:24: “…let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
Micah 6:8: “ …what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

Matthew 5: 14-16: “You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

Matthew 5: 43-47: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?”

Luke 4: 16-30: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Romans 8: 24-25: “Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”

I Corinthians 12:4-7, 14-26: “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in every one. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good... For the body does not consist of one member but of many… But God has so composed the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior part, that there may be no discord in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.”

James 2: 14-17: “What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”

I John 4:16-21: “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgement, because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, ‘I love God’, and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.”

Revelation 21:22-26: “And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light shall the nations walk; and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it, and its gates shall never be shut by day—and there shall be no night there; they shall bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations.”

More passages:

Prophetic Justice: Isaiah 2:2-4, 11:1-3a, 6-9; 40:1-11; ch's 27-31; 61:1-2; 65
Jesus: Beatitudes: Matthew 5:3-10
Jesus: The Good Samaritan: Luke 10: 25-37
Mary: Magnificat: Luke 1:46-55
Jesus: Golden Rule: Luke 6:27-31
Jesus: Law of Love: Luke 10:27
Jesus: Love One Another: John 13:34-35
Paul: Hold Fast to the Good: Romans 12:9-12
Paul: The Love Chapter: 1 Corinthians 13
Paul: Be Kind: Ephesians 4:25-32
Paul: Put on Compassion: Colossians 3:12-17
James: Doers of the Word: James 1:19-25