Posted November 03, 2026
More than fifty million Americans cast ballots in early voting prior to today’s midterm elections. Among them was Pope Leo XIV, who submitted a mail-in ballot for the midterms, becoming the first pope to vote in a US election and likely the first to vote in a secular democratic election. More than a hundred million people are expected to join him by voting today.
But why do we vote on a Tuesday? The US is one of only twenty-eight democratic countries that typically hold national elections on non-holiday weekdays. By contrast, sixty democracies typically hold elections on Saturdays or Sundays, and sixteen others hold elections on weekdays but declare them public holidays.
Our reasoning goes back to the nineteenth century, when the nation was primarily rural and all voting was in person. Wednesday was farmers’ market day, so it was out. And Sunday wasn’t an option because so many people were in church.
Therein lies my point today, though I’ll make it by taking us on a bit of a circuitous route.
According to Axios, nearly one in three weddings now span at least three days, stretching from a bridal brunch a day or two before the wedding to a farewell brunch the day after. Welcome parties and tightly planned after-parties occur in between. Receptions are getting more elaborate as well: “Think performers in silver bodysuits and disco-ball helmets on the dance floor, or servers wearing hoop skirts lined with champagne flutes for guests to grab.”
It wasn’t always this way.
Forty years ago, 72 percent of weddings were held at a religious location with a religious leader presiding; this is true of only 30 percent of weddings today. When I became a pastor more than forty years ago, nearly every wedding I performed was held in our church. Toward the end of my pastoral ministry, “destination” weddings held at picturesque venues were more common than ever.
This trend reverses history. Editor and former Oxford researcher Samuel Hughes reports that at the advent of Christianity,
It was entirely permitted for free Roman men to have sex with male and female slaves and prostitutes, including children. No norm of male fidelity existed: male extramarital sex was not merely tolerated in practice but was generally considered completely acceptable as a matter of principle, even if wives found it hurtful.
However, he notes, “Christianity overthrew nearly all these norms” with “the invention of male fidelity.” Christians promoted the idea that “each man should be faithful to one woman, just as each woman should be faithful to one man.” And so it was until the “sexual revolution” beginning in the 1960s and the carnage it has created for men, women, and families.
Here’s my point: with weddings and marriage, Christians made sacred that which had been secular. Let’s do the same with our elections today.
There was a time when relating the sacred to the secular was unnecessary because the two were one. In The Problem of Pain, C. S. Lewis wrote,
Paradisal man always chose to follow God’s will. In following it he also gratified his own desire, both because all the actions demanded of him were, in fact, agreeable to his blameless inclination, and also because the service of God was itself his keenest pleasure . . . Pleasure was then an acceptable offering to God because offering was a pleasure.
Then came the Fall and the rending of creation from Creator. Consequently, “the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth” (Romans 8:22) and even a spiritual giant like Paul had to admit, “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing” (Romans 7:19).
Now we find ourselves in a bifurcated world like amphibious creatures who can live in water or on land. We can compartmentalize our lives so as to have a Sunday world and a Monday world, but this keeps us from experiencing God’s best on Monday.
The better approach is to treat every dimension of our secular lives as though they were spiritual, because they are (cf. Romans 12:1–2).
Now let’s relate this assertion to today’s midterms. Not only should our faith guide our decisions as voters, a process I described in a recent Daily Article, but it should infuse all we do in connection with today’s elections.
I am especially concerned about a recent Gallup poll in which Americans’ trust in each other has plummeted from nearly 90 percent in the late 1970s to 51 percent today. US News and World Report responds: “A country that rolls its eyes at its politicians can survive. But can democracy survive if the inhabitants of that country doubt the collective sanity of majority rule?”
In this context, it is noteworthy that God loves every person we will meet today as fully as he loves us (John 17:23, 26). Accordingly, we are to love them as we are loved (Matthew 22:39). We are even to “love your enemies” and “do good to those who hate you” (Luke 6:27; cf. Romans 12:20). God’s word is adamant: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them” (Romans 12:14).
We are therefore prohibited from slandering or speaking evil of others (Psalm 101:5; James 4:11; 1 Peter 2:1). When we are in conflict with someone, we must speak to them, not about them (Matthew 18:15). This applies to our leaders and to all who vote for and against them.
How would obedience to these principles change our political discourse? Our national future?
Of course, the key to “speaking the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15) is experiencing that love ourselves. Jesus taught us, “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45).
If our hearts are surrendered to our Lord, our words will manifest his love and draw others to him.
What “treasure” will your heart produce today?
“If one be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows you are a citizen of the world.” —Francis Bacon
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