What Would Jesus Vote?

Both US and NZ elections are happening very soon. I am very cynical about believers believing that you have to be a Republican to be a true believer (US) or vote National (NZ) because "Labour has brought in anti-christian legislation in the last 3 years." None of the parties in NZ have convinced me yet to vote for them.

The following 2 posts make interesting reading and resonate with me:

Ethics times four by Paul Windsor and
Tapu Misa: Dangers of playing the God card in today's NZ herald which says "...most Americans who responded to a Zogby International poll, saw poverty and greed as the most urgent moral crises in American culture - more than twice as many as chose abortion and same-sex marriage."
Somewhere along the line we have forgotten that Jesus had more to say about money than sex. Perhaps economics is a moral issue after all.

I found the debate last week between Helen Clark & John Key very interesting. Apart from issues of ecological sustainability (that really weren't explained very well and we were left wondering what it all means and where the 2 parties differ), most of the other questions were all about ME ie. who will tax me less, make my life more comfortable and safer. Sure, we are in a global recession, but we are still far better off than most of the world, eg. 18% struggle to live on less than US$1 a day.

I have yet to see a party come out and say how we will be "world leaders" in helping with this imbalance. I would like to know what party will do something about our commitment to the UN millenium development goals. In particular overseas aid. Micah Challenge says: "NZ has promised to give at least 0.7% of our gross national income to fight poverty worldwide. At the moment we’re barely giving half of that and are one of the meanest countries in the OECD."

To me that is more important than which parties have more MPs who voted for the anti-smacking or civil unions legislation.

I have no idea what Jesus would vote and I think it would be arrogance to think that I could work that out, but I do know that issues of justice are important to God. How are you deciding who to vote for?