Elections and eternity

In 1968, Richard Nixon commenced one of the greatest political comebacks in history when he mounted a ­second campaign for the presidency after narrowly losing in 1960 to John F. Kennedy and then losing another campaign for the governor’s office of California in 1962. As part of that Vietnam-era second run at the White House, Nixon employed the dramatic slogan “Vote like your whole world depended on it.” While it mattered that Nixon won that race, there are not many who would argue that his presidential term from 1969 to 1973 proved to be decisive or really saved the world of Americans.

It seems that every four years, we experience a rising crescendo of rhetoric claiming that everything rides on the next election. As a nearly lifetime student of politics, I have tended to be one of those most committed to the idea that each contest is one for the fate of mankind. But the older I get, the more it seems to me that such claims are untrue.

First, Americans have a great deal of protection thanks to the Constitution wisely framed by our founders. They conceived of a government that acts to frustrate sudden waves of passion and cataclysmic changes in policy. Indeed, the separated powers of our federal government and the division into federal and state systems work against the accretion of ultimate power. In addition, our elections never expose the entirety of the federal apparatus at the same time. There is never more than one-third of the U.S. Senate at stake. Federal judges, of course, serve for life. It is sometimes said the founders “built better than they knew,” but they simply understood the power of factions and passions and worked to build fences so as to give wisdom a chance to assert itself.

But second, and more important, is the longer view that Christians should take in the light of God’s sovereignty. If God is going to judge us by giving us the kind of ruler we may deserve, then that will come to pass. If He is going to bless us with a great leader, then that will also happen. None of us will prevail by conceiving some plan that will surprise the Lord.

That doesn’t mean we don’t have responsibilities and that we aren’t accountable. Americans possess great blessings of liberty. Our government is required to respect our freedom of action to some degree, but greater still is the fact that we have the right to govern ourselves and to attempt to influence the course of public policy. We have the right to speak, to organize, to be involved in journalism, and to vote. Most people through the many centuries before us had to live as subjects who simply accepted what their governments did. We are citizens. We have the chance to act, rather than be acted upon. That means we should exercise stewardship over our rights. We should inform ourselves and participate in the great work of American democracy. There are important issues at stake that demand our attention. We should use our political rights just as we use our health, strength, and money in the rest of our lives.

While we must address ourselves to the political society and the processes that prevail in our nation, we must also take comfort that, win or lose, God is still on His throne. The United States is important but has no eternal destiny. We may be dismayed by the things that happen in the daily political drama that is unavoidable in a totally connected media and smartphone age, yet we must trust God whose designs may be obscure to finite creatures like ourselves.

As I mentioned before, I’ve spent my life on politics. I’ve been a professional advocate, testified before a state legislature, written hundreds of thousands and probably more than a million words, published books and articles, taught young people and spoken to audiences, and, like many of you, lived and died with the results of elections. The longer I live, the clearer it becomes to me that while all of that activity has value and while it matters what happens in our electoral process, it all pales in significance before the greater reality that should be constantly uppermost in our minds and hearts. Jesus Christ is the King. That is the most significant political statement we can make. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. When that happens, it will not be because we created and executed the perfect plan or found a way to persuade the millions. It will happen because the truth of it will become undeniable to every person who has ever lived and to all creation. Jesus Christ is Lord.

—Hunter Baker is the provost and dean of faculty at North Greenville University in South Carolina