Schrodinger's Cat, the Limits of the Possible, and Hope for Eternity

Originally published on Misfits Theology Club

The famous Schrodinger’s Cat problem is much more complicated (and, perhaps interesting) than I’m going to make it here, but for my purposes, it’s all about how reality affects possibility.

The basic description of the problem is that an airtight box exists, inside which we place a cat and the exact amount of poisonous gas whereby the cat has precisely a 50% chance of dying.  The problem comes when we ask, before looking in the box, “is the cat alive or dead?”  We don’t know and neither answer is more likely than the other.  In some sense, the cat is both alive and dead, because reality has not yet come to bear on possibility.  Until we open the box, the cat is both or neither.  Yes, the cat is either alive or dead, but until we look, we can’t know.

This problem speaks to the role of an observer in reality and asks a lot of questions about whether there is some “higher” observer of our universe that forces our possibilities to become realities.  Those are cool questions, but almost definitely beyond my ability to tackle today (or, probably, ever).  I am 

interested, though, in what this perspective has to say about our own prior actions.

My family loves to play board games.  Upon marrying into said family, my wife, almost immediately, noticed (to her chagrin) that my brothers and I spend an inordinate amount of time after each round, hand, or game, analyzing prior play.  We talk about strategy and possibility and alternatives while my wife would rather just get on with what’s next.

I think this analytical nature, while helpful to learn and change moving forward, hasn’t actually served me well overall.  I tend to spend an inordinate amount of time looking backwards.  I hate to fail.  Most people do, but I seem to have a more difficult time than most, especially if a poor choice, on my part, is likely the culprit.

When I watch Jeopardy, I’m much less bothered by the questions to which I don’t know the answer than I am by the questions whose answers exist in my brain, but I’m unable to recall.  The notion that I could’ve answered correctly under different circumstances bothers me.

I suspect this is a trait many perfectionists share.  Lots of hesitation and second guessing.  In school, I typically did all my assignments at the last possible moment, because, if I’d finished earlier than the deadline, I’d obsess over how to improve upon the assignment and stress myself out.  Not everyone obsesses about the possible as often or as deeply as I do, but we all obsess about the possible at some time or another.

Imagine I’m playing ball in the house and knock my mom’s glass vase off the shelf and it shatters on the floor.  When she comes into the room, I have two choices.  Well, I have infinite choices, but they all boil down to two main categories: 1) take responsibility; 2) attempt to avoid blame.  In hindsight, most of us would’ve preferred to go with option 1; in the moment, we’re less sure.

This is how nearly all of our regrets come about.  We have a choice.  We reject the choice we later believe we should have made.  If its a big enough regret, we can get caught up in shame and guilt and self-hatred that really takes a toll on us and our psyche… and pretty much everyone around us.  If we obsess about all our mistakes the way I obsess about Jeopardy answers or board games, life is pretty miserable.

What if I told you, though, the actions you took were the only actions you could have taken?

That might be a relief to the conscience, but it doesn’t really ring true.  Clearly, in the moment of the broken vase, there are two possibilities: own up or deflect.  I wonder, though, if this isn’t like Schrodinger’s cat.  We may have two theoretical options in the moment, both very real, very possible, but its only with hindsight, with action, that we can see which one was actualized.

I’m not arguing for a fully pre-determined world here.  By no means.  I do believe in choice.  I don’t, though, believe in unencumbered choice, uninfluenced choice – and I don’t think anyone else does either.  We’re not – none of us – as perfectly free as we’d like to think we are.  We’re all governed by the past.

Yes, I could possibly have apologized to my mother, taken responsibility, and refused to lie or blame-shift in that moment; I was physically capable of doing so.  I might argue, though, that in that moment, that particular action was actually impossible.  I could not have acted differently because I didn’t.  Beforehand, anything was possible, at least in my mind, because it hadn’t happened yet.  Once it did happen, though, it was the only thing that could’ve happened.  

Maybe certain physicists are correct and there is a multiverse out there in which every possibility is a reality in some particular universe.  But in this world, in this universe, in the reality in which we’re all living right now, the only thing that could’ve happened is what did happen, because that’s what happened.

We can go back farther than that moment, of course.  Perhaps if I’d been punished more severely the previous time I’d lied to my mother, it would’ve changed what happened in the moments following the breaking of the vase.  Maybe if I’d seen her cry over my betrayal instead of her retreating the bedroom to mourn my disobedience, my later reactions would’ve been different.

Of course, the same logic that says my action in the incident of the broken vase was determined, means those prior actions were also determined – by the actions that preceded them – and so on and so forth to the beginning of existence.

This is the essence of the Prime Mover argument for the existence of God, by the way.  Everything is influenced by everything that’s come before it, so either existence has always existed or there was some source by which all that is came into existence.  There’s a lot to think about in that argument, too – but it’s also beside my current point.

What I think we need to learn from this whole concept is not to look back, but to look forward.  That doesn’t mean we should leave the past unexamined – in fact, the very act of examining and evaluating the past may be the instrument for changing the future – it just means we shouldn’t worry so much about what I could’ve done differently in some past decision, but we should focus on how our prior actions might inform our future choices.  How do I become the kind of person who makes fewer regrettable choices moving forward?

The bad news is, there’s no real way to get out of this cycle.  We can’t find a reference point outside our own existence by which to influence what happens within it.  We can’t omnisciously control our own lives any more than God can (hey, here’s another complicated argument for another time; we’re up to three now), but, I think, an embrace of this process does help us have faith in the future.

What I have noticed about the world, is that each of our choices, whether positive or negative, influences us in a positive direction.  You may argue that’s not true and give evidence of people who’s lives have spiraled into a morass of sinister evil, one sin compounding upon another until redemption seems impossible.

You’re not wrong, but this is where my Christian perspective comes into play.  Christianity teaches that we’re living in an eternity (ironically, this belief might be more consistent with the notion of an eternal past over that of a Prime Mover, but this is, alas, a fourth complex distraction we don’t have time to address today).  That means our physical death – perhaps at the bottom of this evil downward spiral – is not actually the end of the story.

Given an infinite amount of time, redemption is the only possible future.

The only thing that ever gets us in trouble in our decision making is a prioritizing of short term thinking.  If we’re operating in fight or flight mode, for example, we’re only thinking about the immediate results of our actions, which may lead us to make choices we’ll later regret.

Even if we’re forward-thinking, through – willing to sacrifice the immediate best result for an improved result down the line – we may not be (or even be capable) of thinking far enough ahead.  What seems like the right decision two years later, may prove, in hindsight, the wrong decision a further two years beyond that.

Thus, the only time we make the wrong decision is when we’re not thinking far enough ahead.  In an infinity, we have both an infinite amount of future time to consider, but also an infinite amount of time to learn to think farther ahead.

Experience also tells us there is a “rock bottom” for almost everyone.  There’s a moment in which we’re so obsessed with the immediate that our compoundingly poor choices become so immanent to our experience that we’re thrown out of that downward death spiral and finally capable of making a better choice – largely because there’s now no worse choice available to us, there is no shorter term for us to falsely consider a priority.

At the very least – an absolute worst case scenario – in a world of infinite time, we’re getting infinitely closer to that rock bottom with each increasingly poor choice, but never reaching it.  This is basically what people, who believe in Hell, mean when they talk about Hell.

In a world of infinite future, with infinite time and infinite choices, the chances of that worst case scenario are infinitesimally small.  If there is just one outcome from which redemption is impossible, where “rock bottom” is actually unreachable, then there are a near-infinite number of outcomes where redemption is possible.

Now, by this same logic, the chances of a perfect redemption are also infinitesimally small.  There’s only one possible outcome in which our choices become so positively influenced as to eliminate entirely the impact of negative choices – a sort of escape velocity from the orbit of sin, if you will.  However, between these two extremes, there’s an almost infinite number of possible infinite futures that hold the hope of redemption.

That might sound hopeless, but this is where we can go back to Schrodinger’s Cat.  The unknown reality in the box is only unknown so long as the gas inside provides a perfectly equal chance of the cat living or dying.  If that balance is off, the likelihood of one result or the other improves.

We sometimes take for granted an existence in which the forces of selfishness and selflessness are eternal opposites, pushing in different directions towards diametrically opposed ends.  I’m not sure this is a given, though.  Certainly from the creation of the universe, this has been the case – the trajectory of those two forces were divergent.

One of the great mysteries of Christian faith – or at least one of the challenges – is our struggle to describe the tangible change wrought by Christ’s life, death, and resurrection.  We’re pretty good at spiritualizing the difference before and after, but we’ve not always been great at naming what is genuinely different in the world.

What if the result of God’s intervention through Christ was an ever so slight alteration of the cosmic trajectory of those two forces: selfishness and love?  What if their divergent paths were skewed just past parallel to ensure an inevitable merging in some far future?  What if there is some future moment, determined and set in stone, when our desire for self-fulfillment will be entirely satisfied by and aligned to a complete emptying of self?

In a world of complete determinism, we’re stuck between the extremes.  The possibility of an eternally degenerating hell or the achieving of some miraculous escape velocity from the cycle of success and failure are so minuscule as to be illusory. But, if the elemental forces of the universe are not actually speeding away from each other, but instead gradually approaching, there is nothing but hope and optimism for the eternity to come.  There’s no way to necessarily prove it, of course, but this is the Christian hope.

While our futures are, in many ways, determined by the past, they are not mindlessly or randomly determined.  Love exists.  And love expressed, is love compounded.  There is a force in the universe that is working in each of our infinities to push us towards the preferred future and away from the worse case scenario.  We are not equally likely to move towards one extreme or the other; the cat has a much higher chance of being alive than dead.  In fact, if we persist long enough, the cat can only be alive.  This is why some of us, who believe in Hell, believe its likely no one will end up there.

Given infinite time and infinite possibility, I believe in love.

**And, even if life is limited to the 80-odd years we get on this Earth, or if, biologically, we’re someday capable of extending life indefinitely, or, perhaps, if infinity is not, in fact, destined towards anything at all, then, even still, when it all comes down to it: love still seems pretty worth pursuing.

The Not-So-Secret Evangelical Problem Exposed by the Atlanta Massage Parlor Murders

This post originally published at Misfits Theology Club.

The recent shootings in Atlanta have galvanized a long-simmering conversation about racism against people of Asian descent in the US.  Whether the shooter, in this incident, has any conscious racial bias is sort of irrelevant when you recognize the race-based correlation of Asian women and massage parlors in this country.  If you attack a massage parlor, you are attacking Asian women, whether you intended that connection or not.

I don’t have any standing or perspective to talk at length about AAPI discrimination of the history of othering that continues pervasively in society – other than to apologize for my participation in its perpetuation.  I also don’t want to distract or devalue the necessary conversations taking place around this issue, stemming from the Atlanta murders.  I do, however, think there’s another issue that a specific subset of people, my people – evangelical Christians – need to address coming out of this tragedy.

Law enforcement is slow to label this a hate crime, specifically because there isn’t a ton of evidence this guy had any race-based animosity towards people of Asian descent.  Obviously, racism doesn’t have to be intentional, as racism is measured by results, not motivation.  What the police seem reluctant to say is that this crime likely did have an intentional, hate-filled motive, specifically against women.

Gender bias is an identifier by which a crime can be escalated to “hate crime” status under existing laws, but misogyny is rarely punished in this way – at least for straight, cis-gender women.  I’m not an expert, but I’d imagine this is an ongoing legacy of patriarchy, at the very least.  For people, like me, who grew up evangelical over the last 40 or so years, this story is an easy one to recognize.

We’ve got a 30-something man, by all accounts a committed member of his congregation, someone who grew up with a pastor father and likely in church multiple times a week.  It seems he’s taken seriously the teachings of his faith about the dangers of sex, but found himself frequenting massage parlors that doubled as brothels or one kind or another.  In a fit of shame, grief, remorse, and self-hatred, he attempted to eliminate what he perceived to be the source of his problem: the evil women who led him into sin.

That’s the evangelical story of the purity culture generation.  Thankfully it hasn’t always ended in gun violence, but it certainly produced lots of abuse and mistreatment, ruined relationships and marriages, and made a lot of people really unhealthy when it comes to sex.

Pure by Linda Kay Klein is a great book that examines purity culture from both professional and female perspectives.  I’m not sure I’ve read a book like this from a male perspective, but I assume they’re out there too.

The bottom line is: we spent several generations teaching evangelical kids to be afraid of sex, that it was some powerful boogeyman seeking to devour their lives.  What we didn’t teach was how to understand our very real, human, and natural sexuality, and to make good, healthy choices that elevate the humanity of every involved.

This failure left a lot of us flailing in the wind, struggling to figure out a key element of life without any real help from our community.  It’s a difficult topic that’s still almost taboo in many evangelical and conservative Christian circles.

The message, intentional or not (hopefully not, but I’m not always sure), is still largely that women, girls, bear the responsibility for sexual decisions.  Males are hormone-driven, bestial monsters with an uncontrollable compulsion to copulate.  They can only be tamed by clear-headed and disciplined females, who take responsibility for the sexual health of themselves and the males around them.

It sounds silly when you write it out like that, but I’m confident it will also look familiar to a lot of people who grew up like me.  I’m not saying anyone in their early 20s is a bastion of healthy choices, but I’d bet you anything you’ll find far more sexual dysfunction on a Christian college campus than at your local State university.

When both boys and girls are taught the woman is at fault for any sexual choice either party later regrets, you add additional shame and guilt to a culture that already leans into misogyny.  If serial murder doesn’t get us more formally addressing this problem, then surely the generations of abuse, self-hatred, suicide, and depression are going to continue.

There’s not an easy answer – if there were, the problem wouldn’t exist in the first place – but we can’t let a moment of national reckoning and attention like this go to waste.  These internal evangelical conversations shouldn’t take away from the larger movement and conversation on Asian hate in the US, but we also can’t let that conversation provide excuse to ignore the one that exists right in front of us.

Photo by Kristina Flour on Unsplash

On Someone Yelling the N-Word in Public

Originally published at Misfits Theology

So, this week we’ve seen another “scandal,” where a white person yelled the N-word in a fit of heightened emotion, then later apologized for the mistake. I know there are some people who think this is a regrettably acceptable occurrence, but we’ve got to stop making those excuses.

I get that some people have grown up around overt and intentional racism, where white people saying the N-word is common. If a person comes from such a background, I get that, perhaps, that word is part of a seldom-used vocabulary that comes out when they’re especially angry. I suppose apologizing is about all one can do in that instance, but I suspect there’s more that can be done to prevent it.

I can’t recall any white person ever saying the N-word in my presence (ie: not on TV or in the movies). Ever. I’m not saying I haven’t heard a lot of offensive or derogatory, racist ideas from white people – and I’ve absolutely heard a lot of other, equally unacceptable slurs against cultural and ethnic groups in casual conversation, I’ve just grown up in an environment where the N-word is a known taboo.

That’s not to say the white people I’ve been around haven’t thought it or been capable of using it; I just haven’t heard it. That reality makes it nearly impossible to imagine how anyone could even accidentally say it.

I’m suspect I’m in the minority, as it pertains to white folks, but I’m not trying to say, “we’re not all bad.” Just because that particular word wasn’t uttered, doesn’t mean I haven’t been thoroughly steeped in and guilty of racism.

Most of my conditioning wasn’t race-related at the time. It’s only as I grew up that I realized code words like “urban” were rooted in racism, which make those ideas – like locking the car do when driving through a city – so difficult to excise. My guess is that white people who “accidentally” use the N-word may have similar problems. I do believe there are still kids growing up who hear that word used a lot, for long periods of time, before they ever learn its offensive.

Dealing with our ingrained racism isn’t just a problem for the most obvious offenders, though – its a responsibility for every white person – and, to date, we’ve largely dealt with it by ignoring it or pretending it doesn’t exist. This is why these incidents are so terrible and so terribly handled; it’s as if someone’s worst secret is being publicly exposed.

It doesn’t have to be that way. We’re very used to celebrities using their platforms and money to address things like climate change or injustices in the court system or food insecurity or animal rights. They draw extra attention to issues where none of us is perfect, and while they may be annoying or extreme, we’re rarely offended or defensive about it.

As much as we hate to have those things thrown in our faces, those conversations do move the needle. They remind us of our own abilities to change and push us collectively towards improvement. Their fervent, sometimes comical views shape the conversations we’re able to have amongst our friends and neighbors and they do make a difference in how we live.

What we don’t often see, what we need more of, are honest conversations about our own biases, especially when it comes to race. Try as we like, we really can’t control what comes to mind in a given situation. We can certainly work to change in the future, but I can’t change a thought I’ve already had.

There are times I think more about my personal safety when I see a black man walking towards me than I would if he were white. It’s terrible and wrong and I hate that it happens, but, from time to time, it does. Of course there’s a huge difference between that thought and actually crossing the street because of it. I deserve no praise or pat on the back for simply continuing to walk down the sidewalk in those instances. At the same time, every time I do it – consciously reject the racist thoughts that pop into my head – the less likely those thoughts are to arise again. This is how change happens. It is, in fact, pretty pathetic to say “I’m less afraid of black people than I used to be,” but it is the truth. Again, that’s not something to be proud of; its quite literally the least that I can do.

Of course, we should be doing more than the least that we can do. It’s not enough just to do that work individually. This is the difference between being not-racist and what’s come to be termed anti-racism. We have to stop being silent. Those conversations that happen in our heads need to happen out loud – and in settings that are all white.*

We’re much more comfortable talking about our own racial failings in mixed settings, because we perceive some nobility in looking progressive in front of black friends. We’re much more reluctant to bring it up in all white settings, because we’re terrified of someone getting defensive. That’s a self-perpetuating problem.

We don’t speak publicly about the racial biases we’re trying to address and thus it becomes unacceptable to do so, making it more difficult to address them and us more likely to do whatever our personal version of screaming the N-word in public might be.

Part of that is the shame we direct towards people who are more racist than us. I can’t imagine using the N-word, even in a fit of rage, so it’s easy to scorn those people who do – but I’ll find myself on the side of unending grace when its my own racism that’s on display.

Again, this is not some plea for acceptance; its a call to conversation. It’s a call to white people, because the Black, Brown, LGBT, and Jewish among us shouldn’t have to bear the burden of being the racial police; they’re already putting up with enough.

They also shouldn’t be put in a position to absolve us. “Don’t worry, I know you’re trying.” Maybe our fragile egos need to hear that from time to time, but if we seek it out, we should seek it from white people – and white people who know us well enough to temper it with accountability.

I’m not saying people should get a pass and please don’t give me one. I’m certainly embarrassed when I say something ignorant or racist, but I need to know I said it if I’m ever going to change. I do believe, though, that if all we do is cancel someone or shame them, nothing will get better. Shame breeds secrecy and secrecy feeds dysfunction.

In the same way someone can stand up in church and say, “I’m a sinner” and receive lots of grace, someone can falsely be called a hero for admitting “I’m a racist.” When we start listing those sins, however, everyone becomes uncomfortable. We don’t know how to handle it. Starting those conversations puts us in the position of deciding whether to keep our own sins secret or expose them as well.

One of those choices is much easier, but if we make it, nothing changes. I’m not going to list here all the racist battles I’m waging in my own life and mind – it feels like too easy a way to gain points for honesty – speaking in a public forum, outside of real conversation. We do all need, though, to be willing to speak of those things among the people with whom we do life. Friends, family, coworkers, teammates, and fellow congregants – the people who have access to our lives and are in a position to keep us honest and hold us accountable.

We can’t be satisfied with being less racist than someone else and we can’t be motivated by getting “woke credit” for whatever work we’ve already done. Yes, we should all work to be less racist tomorrow than we are today, and while that is progress, it’s not something to be proud of, its just the bare minimum expected of a member of the human race.

So when someone uses the N-word, an apology really can’t be “enough,” but something does have to be “enough,” if we’re really working for the redemption and reconciliation of all people. I suspect, though, the “enough” is not something you can ever do after the fact; it’s work that needs to be done before.

*They also have to involve more than just our racist thoughts and words, but how those thoughts and words, over time, have contributed to inherently racist social systems and the ways we can participate in their reform or reimagination.

Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash

Reflection on Peace and Division

Originally published at Misfits Theology Club 

All I’ve been able to think about during this time are Jesus words in Matthew 10:

“Do not suppose I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law – a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.”

The gospel of Jesus Christ does not make sense to everyone. It seems downright foolish – stupid and dangerous to many. The Kingdom of God is not well received by the majority of the world around us, maybe not by those who sit next to you in worship, maybe not by those who sit next to you at dinner.

Divisions are not really the issue. Jesus tells us the gospel is, by definition, divisive.

The issue is how we respond to that division. For some, they see Jesus’ talk of swords as allusions to violence. We plant our flag in the ground and defend it to the death, pushing away those who disagree and increasing the chasm that’s grown between us.

For others, the next few verses ring true:

“Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.”

The other response, opposite, but equally problematic to violent self-defense, is denial. We pretend the divisions between us don’t exist. We avoid talking about them or looking at them. We carry on as if everything is fine, hoping it will be.

Neither of these responses reflect the gospel. We can’t pretend our divisions don’t exist. We must, indeed, plant our flag in the ground and hold firm to our beliefs. What we must not do, though, is allow those divisions to break the bonds of love that tie us together as people.

Yes, there is a chasm between you and me. It is a distance too far to cross and neither of us will give in. Our only recourse is to deal with it. Speak the ugly, difficult truth. Talk to one another. Listen!

It is only when we maintain these tricky lines of communication, these essential bonds of love, that we can begin to pull our two drifting sides back together. We can close the chasm that’s formed, not by violence, or belligerence, or denial, but through the hard work of love.

If we are committed to one another, to serving one another, to seeing and hearing each other as human beings – beloved children of God – then we can truly be about the business of making peace. Not a stalemate or a truce, but genuine community that’s won through the hard work of naming and facing our divisions.

Photo by Ian Cylkowski on Unsplash

The Temptation of Democracy

This post originally appeared at Misfits Theology Club.

Democracy muddles the Christian ethics of power. In a world where most people have no say in or control over the selection of governmental leaders, it’s relatively easy to determine how God’s people should respond: give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s. Follow the laws so long as they don’t violate the gospel and be willing to suffer the consequences gracefully when you must disobey.

Democracy changes the equation, though. It gives each voter a position of power. Christian ethics move from a discussion of our relationship to power to a discussion of how we use the power we’ve been given. Whether we hold elective office or not, by voting, we become part of the power structure.

There’s an argument that this is a positive development. By receiving a place within the power structure, God’s people have some ability to shape it, perhaps in ways that reflect the Kingdom of God. The question I’ve been pondering, though, is whether or not the Kingdom of God can ever be served by the use of coercive power.

The power of God, as demonstrated in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is entirely non-coercive. God loves us and forgives us and bears with us in radical patience as we continually refuse to be shaped by that love. God is relentless in love, returning over and over again with a divine faith in the power of love to outlast all opposition.

By that I don’t mean God’s love will eventually wear us down in the end – that would be coercive – simply that our power to reject God’s love and refuse the transformation it offers can never outlast God’s ability to keep loving. Christians believe in a world that never ends, because God’s non-coercive love can never be exhausted.

What does that have to do with democracy and power? Well, even the most benevolent governments are coercive. The very nature of worldly power is its ability to force reluctant participation. There will always be some part of us (both individually and collectively) that spurns coercion, even for the common good.

The most good for the most people is still coercion, because it doesn’t allow real freedom for the minority who are negatively affected. It might be the best any human authority can muster, but it falls short of the gospel ideal and of the Kingdom of God.

So, when we vote, aren’t we just contributing to the coercive authority of whoever happens to be in charge of government? Yes, one could argue one candidate is better than the other for the majority of people, but that’s still a short sighted goal achieved through coercion. The Kingdom of God promises a world in which all people live together in peace and love; there is no human system that can promise or produce this eventuality by way of coercion.

I wonder if the opportunity to vote is not the same temptation faced by Jesus when he was shown all the kingdoms of the world and offered authority to rule them all. Certainly the reign of Christ would be preferential to whatever human leaders would emerge in those kingdoms. There would be less suffering and more freedom is Jesus were on the literal throne.

Jesus refused that option, because to take it would be to endorse coercion, even perfect, holy, divine coercion. This was, evidently, unacceptable to the mission of Jesus Christ.

When we vote in elections, we’re expressing a preference. We believe the government of one candidate or party would be better than the government of another. That is almost certainly true (even if we make the “wrong” selection). But neither government could ever advance the Kingdom of God, because coercion is anathema to God’s eternal future.

What if one government would alleviate the suffering of one or more oppressed groups? Shouldn’t we be able to choose the best available human government for the thriving of the most people AND also work for the coming of God’s eternal now and future Kingdom?

You’d think so. I’d hope so. And yet we’re left with the decision Jesus made on that mountain. He forsook the immediate help he could offer to the suffering and oppressed in all the kingdoms of the world to embrace a non-coercive mission of love that led to his own torture and execution.

Couldn’t Jesus have chosen to rule the kingdoms of the world and usher in the Kingdom of God? One would think so and yet he didn’t. The fact that Jesus did not choose both immediate and eternal good leads me to the conclusion that perhaps both are not possible – at least on the level of governmental authority.

I can surely feed the hungry and clothe the naked and work for the freedom of the oppressed in my own individual ability, but to employ the means of coercion to that end on a grander scale just isn’t morally responsible given Jesus’ example.

I don’t like it, but that’s the only conclusion at which I’ve been able to arrive. Voting is an endorsement of coercion and even if that coercion is in line with the principles of God’s Kingdom, it violates the principle of non-coercion and thus can’t be the means through which the Kingdom is fulfilled.

I wonder if, like with issues of violence, there are moments where voting for (or against) a particular candidate or party might be preferable to abstaining. I don’t think, though, in those moments, we can justify our actions as “right” or “moral” or “correct.”

It just seems impossible to believe voting is a particularly Christian or moral duty when Christ himself had the ability to be elected King and refused. He rejected coercion and I think, no matter how reluctantly, we should reject it, too.

**Edited for clarification: 1) This applies largely to Presidential elections (and to a lesser extent, Governors and Mayors) – the notion of singular executive authority is one that pretends (even unintentionally) to compete with God.  Politics, in general, is just how we get along with each other.  At the neighborhood level, we talk to each other and work things out.  As we get into larger societies, we have to elect representatives – there’s a different power dynamic there, although I see elective office as more important, the lower the level.

2)This shouldn’t be seen as abdicating the importance of political action.  Christians should continue to march, protest, advocate, and evangelize on behalf of food for the hungry, equity for the foreigner, and release for the prisoner.  We should do so, though, not with an aim at changing laws, but with an aim at inviting people into the Kingdom of God.  As our collective heart is changed, our laws will follow; they just shouldn’t be driving the ship.