Voting rights has been the central focus of the Democratic Party for the last month. Evangelical groups like the Family Research Council and the Faith and Freedom Coalition provide cover for Republican voter suppression efforts by arguing there is no biblical basis for supporting voter rights. That makes sense. The New Testament was written two thousand years ago, long before the mechanics of Democratic government had been thought about. It is also true that the Bible, although frequently used in that way, is not a good guide for the conduct of politics in the twenty-first century. The problem is that you can find a passage in the Bible to support any political position you want to take.

            God is a good guide, however. Four or five years ago I spoke at length with a woman who worked for the Stacey Abrams’ foundation in Atlanta to increase voter registration in Georgia. Here is one example of what I learned that night. My friend told me about a retired school teacher who had voted for thirty years at her old school which was no more than a ten-minute walk from her house. The wait time for voting was less than fifteen minutes. Because of changes made in the law by the Republican legislature, her old precinct was closed. She now has to vote at a high school on the other side of Atlanta which requires a forty-five minute bus ride and a three or four hour wait.

            Close your eyes for a minute and think about this retired African American school teacher. If the thought floats through your awareness that this is unfair and a reform of the law needs to be made, that thought, according to process theology, comes from God. I am a big fan of the theology developed by Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne, and John Cobb because it so accurately explains my experience.

            According to process theological thinking, humans are decision makers. We make decisions based on several factors—past experiences, our needs and demands of the moment, and a sense of love and goodness that floats through our awareness. That vision of love and goodness comes from God. God lures us to decide for the best interest of others, but she never coerces. Humans remain free to choose how they will respond to a particular event or demand in their life.

            Think about a second grader, a little girl who smiles at you with two missing front teeth. You meet her in a classroom with thirty-five other students and a substitute teacher. There are armed guards at the entrance to the school, and the plaster in the hall leading to her classroom is falling from the ceiling. What thoughts are going through your mind?

            Now put yourself in my classroom, forty years ago, and the course is American Foreign Policy. The topic for the day is NATO policy for containing the Soviet Union. I tell you, and you are writing this down furiously, that tactical nuclear weapons are in the hands of American field commanders to be used to counter a Soviet invasion of Germany. These weapons have been deployed to save money. Countering the Soviet threat with an equivalent conventional force has been deemed to be too expensive. I also tell you that the collateral damage to civilians from our using tactical nuclear weapons, bombs three to five times as powerful as the ones that fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War 11, would be horrific.

            Assuming you have not fallen asleep, what thoughts are floating through your awareness? If you are thinking there must be a better way, that thought most likely comes from God. God is gently urging you to become involved in politics. You say to yourself, well I better not participate in a protest on this issue because I’m not well informed on national security issues. Think again. This is God speaking. If you decide to act politically, you will be working with God to make the world a better place. I can think of no higher calling.