Patriotic voting starts at home

Do you love your country? If you do, then don’t neglect the importance of your local elections.

Love for country starts at home. I mean, literally at home. A Christian understanding of patriotism takes shape around the right and proper ordering of loves. God is our first love—He created us and the world in which we live. He saved us by sending His Son to become sin for us that we may become His righteousness. He conquered death and the grave so that our union with Christ would be made complete for all eternity. God is the reference point for our understanding of reality, of truth, and of how to live. We love Him because He first loved us.

Love for others comes after our love for God. Those who are closest to us have the first claim of our love and loyalty. The people I see every morning in the kitchen after I wake up and make my coffee—my wife and children—are the ones who are next in my rightly ordered hierarchy of loves. I love my wife more than I love your wife. I love my children more than I love your children. My devotion and duty to them come before that of any other human being that inhabits this planet.

That doesn’t mean I don’t love other people. While I love my wife and children more than I love yours, I still genuinely love your wives, husbands, and children in appropriate ways. At the seminary where I teach, I work with people from all over the world, and I express my love and devotion to them by doing my duty on their behalf in my capacity as a teacher and a scholar. At my church, where I serve as an elder, I express my love for my fellow church members as I teach, pastor, and faithfully serve them in a variety of other ways. The people with whom I worship and work are next on my hierarchy of loves.

Outside of those circles, I encounter people with whom I am not well acquainted. Those who live in my neighborhood, my ZIP code, and my county are less well-known to me. Nevertheless, it is true that if my community thrives, the chances of my family thriving increase. So, I have a direct stake in my community’s flourishing.

My state and nation come after these loyalties, but I am loyal to my state and nation as I am loyal to my own people. Many, if not most, people consider the 2024 election to be important because of the national races involving the headliners: elections that decide which party will control the House, Senate, and the White House. It is all too easy for us to forget the local questions we decide in the voting booth. The local referenda, the school board, the county commission—these and other local concerns are much closer to individual families’ interests, but these are usually the most overlooked.

In this election, I will cast votes for the Metro Council of my city. I will also vote on two proposed state constitutional amendments, a judge for family court, my school board district representative, the soil and water conservation district supervisors, my county commissioner, a circuit court clerk, my state representative, my U.S. representative, and my president. The last two votes I will cast are very important, but the first 10 all have to do with my local community and my state. As a Christian, I have a more immediate interest and duty to the challenges of my local societies.

National elections should not be treated as a popularity contest played out on a massive scale. National issues pertinent to the economy, trade policy, border security, national defense, and abortion are of capital significance, to be sure. But how can we as citizens think clearly about these complex issues on the national scale if we have not trained our civic minds to think clearly about the issues that matter most to our neighborhoods, churches, towns, counties, and cities?

We learn citizenship first in our families. Children learn their place as they grow and take on more and more responsibility for the life of the family and enjoy the privileges that come with those duties. Husbands and wives learn how to sacrifice their own interests for the interests of the other and those of their children. Households budget resources and time to maximize opportunities that make life memorable and worthwhile. What we learn as citizens of our families translates to our citizenship in our communities. When there is dysfunction in our local communities, it is likely because there is dysfunction in the families of those communities. And dysfunctional families and communities add up to dysfunctional states and nations.

If we love our country, we must order our loves appropriately. Christians love God first. Emanating out from our love for God, we love our people in our families, our churches, our workplaces, and our communities. From there, we love our states and our nation. But citizenship starts at home, as soon as we wake up and interact with the people who know us best. This election season, don’t forget the responsibilities close to you.