What Would Jesus Vote?
I find Jesus’ teachings illuminating and liberating, but also at times somewhat frustrating. Instead of providing clear-cut, easy answers, they most often create infinitely more questions. Which is why, I’m guessing, if he were living in South Africa today and we asked him who we should vote for in the upcoming elections, his answer would not be a straightforward political party, but a winding story that would pierce to our hearts and convict us of things that we had previously thought had nothing to do with the elections.
I think it is important to remember though, that while Jesus did not generally give clear cut prescriptive answers, he was by no means neutral. He was born into a specific political context – ‘the days of Herod, king of Judea’ (Luke 1:3) with all that this came with – and his life consistently represented a challenge to the powers that were, ending of course with his crucifixion.
As The Warehouse community, we have been reading the book of Luke together through the lenses of how our political involvement should be informed by our following of Jesus, particularly in the light of the upcoming elections. This newsletter has emerged out of some of this journey, and we hope that it will be an invitation for you to join us in the wrestling. We don’t believe that there are easy, clear-cut answers, but that perhaps through following the questions where they lead, we can get closer to authentically representing Jesus in our worlds, physically, spiritually, socially and politically, whatever that may look like.
Blessings on the journey,
Thandi Gamedze
