Abstaining

 

Across the UK today, 06.05.21, people are voting in a variety of elections. The Church is non-partisan, but encourages people to use their democratic right and responsibility wisely, and church buildings are commonly offered to the wider community as polling stations in order to facilitate that. Once again, both churches I currently serve are hosting polling stations today.

How might we go about voting, and relating to one another well in a society where people hold diverse opinions, on a wide variety of issues? At our service of Holy Communion today, we heard again Acts 15:7-21, an account of a time when the church was wrestling with issues of diversity within the community and determining the level of conformity that is needed for that community to be community at all. Key principles in this process included much debate—no quick or uninformed decisions—and respectful, attentive listening to people’s experience, including their experience of having been with people from very different backgrounds and worldviews. Only then is a way forward offered: that what was needed for a diverse church to flourish was to abstain from the contamination of idolatry, and from the commodification of sex, and from treatment of animals that did not revere their life.

Clearly this list is contextual, and relates to the church rather than wider society. Might it, nonetheless, have anything to say to us in relation to how we vote, and how we relate to those who vote differently? Perhaps.

An idol is something—usually, something good in and of itself—that has been elevated above all else, taking the place of God in our affections. Political parties can become idols. If, for example, we believe that the party of our preference is the only party capable of addressing the issues we face as a society, then it has become an idol to us, a good thing contaminated. Or to give another example, the NHS has become an idol to many. For some, this justifies selling it off. For others, this proposed course of action is an example of the idolatry of Money at play. How we view, and review, the NHS is a complex matter to which we must attend, but in doing so, we might want to reflect on what happens to us when we elevate anything—socioeconomics, even healthcare itself—above all else.

The commodification of sex objectifies both us, ourself, and others—as opposed to a mutual self-giving in which each person is both the object and the subject of desire, desirable and desiring. This extends beyond sexual activity to the recognition—or not—of sexuality. But this misuse of bodies, our bodies, is a principle we might extend to any objectification of others: for being poor, or rich; native, or foreign…In how we chose to vote, and in how we relate to those who vote differently, in addition to asking “What do we care about too much?” (above) we might want to ask, “Who do we care about too little?”

Finally, from Acts 15, our voting might do well to be informed by care for the environment, the wider creation. Again, this is not a simplistic matter—there is more than one approach to environmental sustainability—but it is a simple matter: if a candidate has no informed opinion, or denies that the environment matters, they are not going to be a good steward of something that is of a fundamental importance to the flourishing of community.

These, then, are matters for much debate, and attentive listening to one another, not only as we come to cast our vote but as we then work out what it means to live together with the outcome.