Why voting rights are sacred

The Bible says all humans are made in God's image. Do we believe that?

One of my mentors was Vincent Harding, a member of the Rev. Dr. Martin King Jr’ s inner circle and prolific Black historian. He asked a question that I have been pondering for many years: “Is America Possible?” 

To a great extent, we all must answer that question for ourselves, with our very lives.

Our political atmosphere is filled with partisan conflict, and incapable of providing a complete answer to that question. So instead, let’s listen to this from Genesis 1:26-27: 

“Then God said, Let us make humankind in our own image. according to our likeness; and let them have dominion (a better word is “stewardship”) over all the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. So God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them.

I believe the idea that we are all equally created in God’s image is the foundation of democracy, and of every movement for the rights, equality, and freedom of every human person. The question is: Do we believe it?

That is a question which must be answered not just theoretically, but in concrete situations where members of society are being discriminated against and oppressed. It is also the subject of a deep and important conversation I had with Dr. Eddie Glaude Jr at the Center on Faith and Justice at Georgetown University. You can watch the conversation here: 

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The Genesis text is the basis for the theology of democracy. Why must we go to theology here? Because politics won’t be enough, and partisan interests will overwhelm the discussion. We have to go deeper — theologically — to see the dignity and worth of each and every individual, spiritually protected by the image of God, as the basis of political democracy. There must be a spirituality of democracy to defend and sustain it. 

In the election of 2020, America had the largest turnout in U.S. history, including the largest turnout of Black and brown voters. The high turnout was due in part to the extension of voting access because of the pandemic, with more days of early voting, more permission for absentee voting, more assistance with disability voting, more conveniently located polling places and drop boxes. 

Why wouldn’t that record turnout be something we could all embrace? Especially since, as have seen after exhaustive audits, lawsuits and investigations, there has been absolutely no evidence of widespread voter fraud in 2020?

Instead, in the year following the greatest turnout, lawmakers in 49 states across the country introduced 425 bills that would restrict voting access and make it harder to vote. Many of those attempts succeeded. These new laws cut the number of voting days, make it harder to remain on absentee voter lists, limit ballot drop boxes, impose strict signature requirements, expand voter purges, reduce the hours and locations of polling places and even ban the act of providing water and snacks to people lining up to vote. So don’t feed the hungry or give water to the thirsty for  Georgia voters waiting in line on election day – or you will be arrested for obeying Matthew 25! 

Most dangerous and alarming is how some of these laws give state legislatures and judges the right to overturn the results of local elections. Of course, these are majority white state legislatures, often skewed to over-represent rural voters, who often don’t like the voting results in urban Black and Brown counties. That is an unprecedented partisan power grab, the likes of which our country has never seen before. It is voter subversion or, as Dr. King called it in his 1963 I Have A Dream speech, “voter nullification.” 

These multifaceted attempts to make it harder for Black people to vote and attempt to under-count their votes (or not count them at all) is consistent with the pattern of American racial history. And for those who just say this is partisan and not racial must answer the question: Why do Republicans think that the majority of Black and brown voters will not be voting for them?

If we believe that we are all made in imago dei, the image of God, then denying someone the right to vote is silencing their God given voice. To suppress a vote on the basis of skin color is an assault on imago dei -- a throwing away of the image of God. Any strategy that would negate people’s votes because of the color of their skin is not just a partisan tactic, but rather a denial of their imago dei, a theological, biblical, and spiritual offense to God. In other words, a sacrilege.

The late congressman John Lewis said that the right to vote was sacred – and he was right. It’s up to all of us to keep it so.