Ensuring Voting Rights-Our Duty and Calling

By Kisten Thompson​
Do you remember the first time that you voted? I was a senior in college and voted in the 1972 presidential election. I remember being nervous, a little uncertain and the times themselves were so tumultuous. The Vietnam War…desegregation of schools and busing…women’s rights…the terrorist attacks in the Munich Olympics…and Watergate was just emerging into the public conversation. How to decide which candidate could best lead the country in the midst of so many challenges? And while I wasn’t sure if I knew “enough,” I also knew the great gift and responsibility it was to be able to vote in this country. And so, I did…and so I have ever since.

I imagine your own stories of voting and civil engagement over the years have been much the same. We know as citizens of this country that voting is a right that has been given but we also know that it has been a hard fight to attain those rights for many of us. There have been battles, barriers, and even bodily threats to many who have tried to exercise their right to vote. Even when voting rights were granted, other laws were quickly enacted to restrict, suppress and deny those same rights. Gerrymandering, closing voting sites, threatening voting judges has become far too common in these times.
Many people have become apathetic about the candidates who might be running for office. Some have become cynical, “My vote doesn’t count anyway.” Some say big money has the real power in this country. In our own Minnesota primaries just this week, only 14% of all registered voters eligible to vote actually went out to vote in their respective party primaries. Secretary of State Steve Simon reports that about 300,000 less votes were cast this year as compared to the 2020 primaries (source: Minneapolis Star Tribune).

These are troubling times and much is at stake in 2024.

In Sunday’s SALT Forum, the Racial Justice Team will be leading a conversation about voting rights, civic engagement and our duty and calling as Christians to respond. You might think that churches shouldn’t “be involved with politics” but voting rights are not “politics” - voting rights belong to all people. Our calling as followers of Jesus encompasses all aspects of life: loving our neighbors as we love God, working for justice for all people and speaking truth when distortions and lies are being spread. This is all a part of our civic engagement and working as a public church for the good of all.

Does this conversation make you nervous or uncomfortable? I imagine that it does but we can speak safely and honestly as friends and siblings in Christ, knowing that we are bound together in Christ’s love and freedom. On behalf of the Racial Justice Team (RJT), I hope you’ll attend for a lively, engaging, informative and I hope inspiring conversation - how can we act for good for the sake of each other, our community of faith and the communities in which we live?

In peace and justice,
Kisten Thompson, on behalf of the RJT