In Search of a Pastor-In-Chief

A better way for Christians to vote

As every election cycle gets underway I think about a flashback scene on an episode of one of the best shows to ever air on television: The West Wing. In part one of a the two part nail biter called “In the Shadow of Two Gunmen,” Leo McGarry and Jed Bartlett are scene walking out to their cars during a season in the Democratic primary where Bartlett was polling considerably behind his competitors.

If memory serves, Leo had just fired the entire campaign staff with the exception of Toby Ziegler. This started a bit of an argument between Bartlett and McGarry, when McGarry poses a question to Bartlett, one that has been seared into my brain ever since:

Because I'm tired of it: year after year after year after year having to choose between the lesser of who cares. Of trying to get myself excited about a candidate who can speak in complete sentences. Of setting the bar so low, I can hardly bear to look at it. They say a good man can't get elected President. I don't believe that. Do you?

Now I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that it’s disappointing that Leo (or rather Aaron Sorkin’s writing staff) didn’t envision a future where a good woman could be elected President as well, but I digress.

Every election season this quote comes to mind. And most Americans, I would assume, feel this especially acutely in this current cycle. The presidential debates, town halls, and addresses that have aired thus far certainly don’t quell the frustrating feeling that there must be better leaders out there. I myself know more than a few excellent leaders with good moral character that could probably do the job if called upon. And in both major parties the two apparent paths to a nomination by a major party appear to be entrenchment in the political establishment or billionaire with more illusions of grandiosity than aptitude for leadership.

Every election in recent memory is billed as the same: “the most important election in our lifetime.” We’re told if we don’t vote for one guy the other guy is going to ruin everything. So we end up making “ends justify the means” in order to prevent the end of Western civilization. We’re a very pragmatic culture to begin with, but our pragmatism reaches new heights.

For Christians in particular, this requires a dissonance where we ignore issues of serious moral ineptitude in a candidate for the hope that what that candidate promises will come to pass. This requires therefore that a potential “leader of the free world” be no leader at all—he or she need only make the right combination of promises and dunk on the other guy(s) effectively enough, so as to convince you that not only will he or she deliver on those promises but that they are also the most likely to win to be able to do it.

Consequently, you’ve probably heard it said in conversations with other Christians, that come whatever election choice we have to make (whether presidential or otherwise), “we’re not looking for a ‘pastor-in-chief’…we’re looking for someone who will get the job done.” But there’s a problem with that.

What’s the problem with getting the job done?

The problem with the pragmatism behind this “we’re not looking for a pastor-in-chief” approach to decision making is that it promotes an ends-justify-the-means ideology. But Jesus himself reminds us that the endgame is not all that matters. In Mark 8:36 Jesus notes that it is possible to “gain the whole world” and yet “forfeit [our] soul.” Not only does he suggest that it’s possible, he poses it as a question… “What does it profit…” In other words, “what good is it?” Pertaining to our topic, let me pose the question another way:

What does it profit the Church to win all the culture wars, yet forfeit our gospel witness?

What does it profit Christians to safeguard religious liberty, yet lose our love of neighbor?

What does it profit a man or woman to win the ballot issue at hand, yet lose his or her moral character?

What we do matters. But who we become as we do what we do matters more. Our pragmatism makes it as such that character and virtue are traits no longer central to what it means to be a quality human, let along inspiring leader—they can be dispensed with in favor of #winning. And while it may bring about an uptick in the economy or a downtick at the gas pump, it’s eroding the fabric of our sense of civics and our capacity to live in harmony with one another.

So what’s the solution?

Ironically, Holy Scripture itself provides a solution—a new framework for how to vote that replaces the old single-issue, ends-justify-the-means sort of criteria we’ve been applying. No, there is not a verse to which one can point that says, “Thou shalt vote for ___” because our system of government obviously didn’t exist in the time and place Scripture was written.

But the cultures which first wrote, received, and transmitted the Bible actually do give us a picture of how to vote. In the ancient Near East, people did not choose their leaders but they did have favorable and unfavorable opinions of those leaders. They may not have cast their support at a ballot box, but they had subtle ways of casting their support around particular visions of leaders at their tables, in writing, in art, and more.

In the ancient Near East, the ideal leader was portrayed in the image of a shepherd. A shepherd served as an image of an ideal king because a shepherd held together the tension of strength and benevolence. He protected his sheep but also provided for them. He corrected them when necessary but also saw to their ongoing health and flourishing. Fundamentally, a shepherd was charged with making sure the sheep had a long, healthy life to ensure that they served the purposes for which they lived. This image of a benevolent, mighty ruler is what David had in mind in Psalm 23.

¹ The Lord is my shepherd.
    I lack nothing.
² He lets me rest in grassy meadows;
    he leads me to restful waters;
³         he keeps me alive.
He guides me in proper paths
    for the sake of his good name.

⁴ Even when I walk through the darkest valley,
    I fear no danger because you are with me.
Your rod and your staff—
    they protect me.

⁵ You set a table for me
    right in front of my enemies.
You bathe my head in oil;
    my cup is so full it spills over!
⁶ Yes, goodness and faithful love
    will pursue me all the days of my life,
    and I will live in the Lord’s house
    as long as I live.

This is the image of an ideal ruler of course, which God himself epitomizes. By comparison everyone falls short of the perfect picture of a ruler that God displays—but some fall at greater lengths than others.

My insistence is that voting biblically means more than pointing to a few proof texts to emphasize the importance of a particular issue—even when those issues are deeply important! It means looking at a deeper, more holistic picture of God’s intended design for the sort of rulers that are put in place—whether through old monarchal systems or through modern democracies.

The task for us in a modern democracy (republic, technically) is to make our endorsement of a candidate (which is what a vote is, by the way) based on which of the choices laid out before us best models the sort of image God displays perfectly of a shepherd. If the image was good enough to describe God’s leadership over the cosmos, it should be good enough for us to view as a standard for who leads from the Oval.

Surely you can’t be serious

I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley. (Sorry. Had to do it.)

We see Jesus model this image in greater detail in his earthly ministry, giving us the perfect image of both God and humankind. In Jesus, the Good Shepherd, we see the ideal ruler—One under whose authority every earthly power will one day be made subject. We see his kingdom ethics outlined in his famous Sermon on the Mount, stretching between Matthew 5-7. Specifically his preamble, commonly called the “Beattitudes,” are an ideal picture of the ethics of the kingdom, and therefore the primary ethical code Christians should look to as they engage the public sphere.

So while yours or my preferred party or candidate may tout a new policy that guarantees lower taxes—but is bombastic and arrogant—we are forced to reconcile with the fact that, “the meek shall inherit the earth” (Matt. 5:5). Those aren’t passive promises that we’ll inherit in the Sweet By and By. They’re ethical frameworks we’re called to live into—and vote into—as we live as citizens of heaven awaiting the return of the King.

Conclusion

All of this can be summed up in the simple reality that Scripture does actually and indeed call us to elect a “pastor-in-chief” (since, of course, pastor means shepherd). That’s precisely the vision for leadership Christians should consider. Will any candidate reach that standard? Hardly. But we should strive faithfully to choose those we believe come closest, not only in their policies and promises, but in the internal composition that makes them allegedly qualified to administer over the lives of millions. Jesus himself gives us the ideal picture of a benevolent ruler.

So if you want to know how to vote—look for the candidate that embodies benevolence and gentle strength (strength and arrogance are, of course not the same). Look for the candidate who most embodies the Sermon on the Mount and whose promises craft a vision to that end.

Look for the candidate who looks most like Jesus, the Good Shepherd.