Voting Isn't About Winning

Early voting has already begun, turning my local library into a sea of campaign signs. For months, my mailbox has overflowed with political fliers, and every tv commercial describes the atrocities of an official running for election (of course, paid for by their opponent’s campaign). It’s always a zero-sum game: one must win and one must lose. And not just in the general sense; no, one must be totally awful and the other totally correct.

And we are already tired of it, even though we still have two weeks until the“official” election day! And it's not that we don't care about the issues. It's not that we aren't deeply concerned with our communities and education and healthcare and the like. I think it's that, deep down, we understand that winning can't really be the goal of elections.

One of the best places to see a good example of this is Acts chapter 15. The church finds itself at a crossroads where it needs to make a decision. Until this point, most believers have been Jewish. Now that the Holy Spirit has been released to Gentiles, the established body of believers has to decide how to welcome them. Must Gentiles become Jews to follow Christ? Or can they remain Gentiles and be part of the church?

So Acts chapter 15 gives us a snapshot of this decision-making process. Preliminary discussions revealed the need for formal decision in the first place: “there was no small debate among them” (15:2).* People arrived with strong convictions, feelings, interpretations of Scripture, and personal experiences, eager to share them with their fellow believers. That same passion and intensity carried into the gathering where the issue would be decided.

When everyone assembled in Jerusalem, there was much debate. Interestingly, the Greek word most translations render as “debate”is ζήτησις (zētēsis), which can mean “a seeking, a search, or an inquiry.” I find this emphasis helpful. Debate can pit opposing sides against each other, but the believers were seeking an answer together. Was there disagreement? Yes! But was the goal to defeat the other side? No. Their shared goal was to discern the best way forward for their community.

We can see this as the conversation unfolded. The text says that “the whole assembly kept silence and listened” as various people shared their experiences (15:12). They took each other’s positions and thoughts seriously. Notice how James actively listens and then paraphrases what Peter said: “Simeon has related how God first looked favorably on the Gentiles”(15:14). And the council’s decision is made so that everyone—Jew and Gentile—feels welcome in the assembly (15:19-20). Just because the result was “in favor of” the Gentiles didn’t mean it needed to have a negative consequence for the Jewish believers. It did not, in fact, have to be a zero-sum game.

This might change how we think about deliberations, elections, and other collective decisions. When we seek to understand one another, solve problems, and imagine new possibilities, we are more likely to face in the same direction. Rather than becoming an exhausting exercise in opposition (pun intended!), this season could foster greater community engagement, interaction, and neighborliness.

It might also change how we speak and act toward others during election season. If our goal is understanding rather than victory, listening can take the place of mudslinging. And if we recognize that people with different perspectives from our own are necessary to the process—as the believers in Jerusalem did—our words and actions can reflect greater respect, love, and patience.

Finally, it might change how we understand the outcome. If the goal was never simply to win, then even when our preferred viewpoint isn’t chosen, we can continue working for our communities and loving our neighbors. Remember, Jesus didn’t tell us to win elections; he told us to love our neighbors as ourselves.

*Litotes: a figure ofspeech that uses understatement to make a point by denying the opposite.