Your vote reveals your values and loyalties

By Afrika Mhlophe — Pastor, author, Gateway News columnist

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As we stand in the eve of one of the most important elections in South Africa I consider the issue of loyalty to be very important for Christians right now. Who or what is the object of our loyalty is something we all need to answer. I know that many people have already nailed their colours and have determined where their allegiances are and therefore my ranting on this article may not influence too many folks.

Please do indulge me and hear my views regarding these upcoming elections. First these elections are not about personalities but about principles. They are not about WHO but about WHAT you vote for. The faces of the people in that ballot paper do not only represent party manifestos but also a worldview and guiding values. The people who seek to govern us are also governed by something and whatever governs them will ultimately govern us.

There are 29 political parties contesting the national elections and most of them are built on the idea that human rights are sacrosanct and should be protected even at the expense of offending the God who created human beings. Many are in favour of abortion on demand and are liable for the fact that over 1 million unborn babies have been killed in SA since 1996. Are these babies collateral damage in the game of politics or is their death part of a coordinated demonic strategy?

For those whose support for certain parties is based on the mantra of choosing the lesser of two evils I want to share the following quote from Jerry Garcia:

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“Constantly choosing the lesser of two evil is still choosing evil.”

The second thing to consider about voting is that the choice of political party says a lot about you and your values. Your vote endorses people and their behaviour and therefore you cannot divorce yourself from their actions while they are in power. If your values do not guide the choices you make then those values are not worth much. We should live our values and not only talk about them and the fact that this country has been passing many abominable pieces of legislation should worry us.

The political candidates and parties we back in the upcoming elections say a lot about our character and a former president of the United States of America, Theodore Roosevelt once said:

“A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.”

Thirdly, politics is about the governance of the country and not about your personal needs. Voting therefore is primary about creating an environment that is conducive for you to exercise your God-given talents and abilities and not about social assistance. Governments are not created to feed people but to maintain law and order and people are supposed to find ways to feed themselves. As Christians we should think about the sustainability of the country and not about satisfying our needs.

We should be patriotic rather than partisan and in any case it is God who satisfies our needs and not a man-made political system. The political system has been manipulated to serve a few because the majority of South Africans have traded with the future to satisfy the needs of today. In the Lord’s Prayer model your personal needs rank lower than the governance and will of God and this means that the state of the nation is more of a priority to God than anything else.

If you were to look at this nation through the eyes of righteousness you would see that it is not in a good state and the question now is what shall happen to it in the next 20 years if we continue in our current trajectory? I would like to suggest that most of us who voted in the last 20 years did not only vote for a political party but voted for the killing of over 1 million babies, same-sex marriage, abolition of prayer in schools, etc.   

When you vote next week you will be voting for the continuing of this agenda and the possibility that prostitution, witchcraft and dagga could be decriminalised and parents who discipline their children could be criminalised. You will be doing this while claiming to be loyal to God and you will also comfort yourself in the idea that there exists a dichotomy between your Christian values and the political choices you make.

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You will claim that you are not responsible for the fact that SA has lost R650 billion to corruption in the last 18 years. Indeed the 7^th of May will say more about your values and loyalties than anything else.