On Election, pt. 1

I am going to spend the month of October talking about election. No, not “the election.” I have plenty of opinions about that, but this is not the place for me to share most of them. I really don’t talk about partisan politics a lot, but I do address matters of truth and justice that have often been politicized. There’s a significant difference. 

 

Still, that’s not what I am talking about this month. I’ll be discussing the doctrine of divine election that has been part of Reformed theology from its inception and part of many theologies prior to that. This topic has been in play much longer than democracy and electoral votes. And it aims to address something quite different than our electoral process. In the electoral process, we exercise our voice and we choose leadership, policies, and directions. The doctrine of election rests not on our choosing, but on our having been chosen; not our initiative, but God’s initiative; not our will, but God’s will. And, frankly, because it does not rest on our choosing, our initiative, and our will, many people reject or simply do not like the doctrine of election. 

 

If you are someone to whom ‘election’ and its sister-term ‘predestination’ give the heebie-jeebies, I hope to persuade you to reconsider it over this month. Here I go. 

 

I invite you to begin by thinking of some of the most significant things about your life, some of which seem essential and some accidental. You are human, not a rabbit. You are male, female, transgender, non-binary, or your gender is fluid or unique. You may be attracted to males, females, both, all of the above, or none of the above. You were born into a family (for good or for ill), into a particular national identity, with a particular ethnicity. You are tall, short, or of medium height relative to others. You are left-handed, right-handed, or ambidextrous. You can roll your tongue or not and cilantro may taste like an herb or like soap to you. Except for rolling a tongue and eating cilantro, most of these distinctions have enormous consequences for who you are, how you live, what you do in life, who you love, and how you roll. And, you did not choose a single one of them. They were given to you, either via your DNA or by the happenstances of your birth. Perhaps you have made many choices related to these given qualities of your life. But, long before you made any of those choices, your identity was shaped by all of these “givens.” 

 

If nothing else, the doctrine of election invites us to pay attention to the “givens” – dare I say, “the given-ness of the givens.” That’s what the Apostle Paul was encouraging those feuding Corinthians to do when he asked, “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?” 

 

So, if nothing else, let’s start this conversation where it belongs: Not with the question, “What about my freedom?” but the question, “What do I have that I did not receive? And if I received it, why do I boast as if it were not a gift?” 

 

Then we’re on our way to talking about divine election. 

 

 Mark of St. Mark