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When a person enters the voting booth and drops his or her ballot in the ballot box, selections have been made based on what that individual person believes. Those beliefs may include about healthcare, the economy, the environment and religion.

“Christianity clearly has a role in politics. What one believes affects what their values are and values in turn are what they base decisions on. There is a direct link between what one believes and political judgements. How Christians think about politics falls under discipleship,” said Nancy Thomas, associate director of the Center for Faculty Development and former adjunct professor in American government.

Thomas earned a master’s in American politics at Ohio University and was a policy aid to the Ohio governor for four and a half years. She has also worked in family policy consulting and she continues to work with the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship Faculty Ministry.

A Christian voter must be informed and aware. Thomas stresses the need for individuals to reflect on information that is thrown their way and not to react immediately. “We need to have an understanding of justice and truth to have a grid through which we put all the media’s information so we are not just reacting. We need to take time to reflect. We live in such an intense information time, but we have to think. We need to respond to the political arena, not react,” she said.

Almost every day politicians are asked for immediate responses to various situations, and the American public expects precision and value judgements to be made instantaneously. “We will have inappropriate deference at the beginning, then we are disloyal once they fall or prove themselves human,” she observed.

Thomas knows that the framers of the constitution had a core understanding of the human condition. “James Madison and the others had the sense that we were a fallen people and if given a little we would want a lot.” A Christian entering politics needs to have a strong sense of justice and know what he or she wants to offer and not negotiate in ways to compromise integrity. “For the opportunity to make the system work by being cognizant of our own vision, we must have a strategy,” Thomas emphasized.

“A politician or political candidate is ten times less likely to be sidetracked if they know what they believe. It is crucial for a candidate to have self-awareness, because if not, he or she is easily threatened,” Thomas said.