Twenty years ago, John D. Roth thought members of his Anabaptist tradition should stop voting — if only for a season.
In an essay he distributed among clergy of the Anabaptist movement, which includes pacifist traditions such as the Mennonites, Amish and Hutterites, Roth called for a five-year break from voting to pray and reflect, rather than campaign for one candidate or the other. He argued that the differences between political aspirants were illusory and that in national elections Christians might better fulfill their role by questioning, challenging and discomfiting those holding power, rather than tacitly or explicitly supporting any particular party or person.
Roth believes his summons to a voting “sabbatical” is just as relevant today. “I wrote that essay 20 years ago, when the deep cultural divisions were just beginning to show up in our churches,” Roth told New Lines. “The idea was that we were in need of a deeper spiritual grounding in the face of the highly polarized political climate. Not surprisingly, that idea went nowhere.”
In a supercharged political landscape with MAGA evangelicals, “Hindus for Harris” and rising numbers of Muslims rallying behind Donald Trump, Jill Stein and Cornel West, it may come as a surprise that some people of faith in the U.S. abstain from voting entirely — or at least don’t take sides.
But understanding their reservations and motivations, experts say, might speak more to the current state of U.S. politics than any partisan zealotry coming from voters of faith this election cycle.
While MAGA evangelicals — and those who oppose them — get a lot of play in the headlines, there is a steady tradition of Christians abstaining from partisan politics completely, explained Michael Budde, a professor at DePaul University, a private Catholic university in Chicago, who teaches on religion and politics.
“Not all Christians have made their peace with secular powers,” Budde said. Whether it’s the early centuries of the Christian era and monastic dissenters in the desert, those who refused to take up the sword within the church after the Roman Emperor Constantine, or the Catholic Worker Movement and people like Daniel Berrigan, a Catholic Jesuit priest who vigorously opposed the Vietnam War, multiple Christian communities have resisted allowing empires and states to borrow their legitimacy from the church. In addition to these pacifist traditions, there are fundamentalist Christian groups that teach that Christians are not of this world and are not to become involved in its politics.
And this election cycle, a larger number of U.S. Christians seem set to sidestep the ballot box in accordance with their interpretation of the Bible and their evaluation of current politics. According to research from the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, 104 million “people of faith” might abstain from voting this year — including up to 32 million churchgoing Christians. As political scientist Robert Postic wrote for the evangelical magazine Christianity Today, “given short-term political dynamics or the candidates available, declining to vote can be the best way to reflect our values and acknowledge the importance of an election.”
“Sometimes, the right choice,” Postic wrote, “may be not voting.”
Budde himself is a committed pacifist who sees no resonance between Jesus’ teachings and the American political machine. “I don’t think you can aspire to follow Jesus and still believe in killing people,” he said. “I’ve tried over the last several decades to find a compelling argument or theological attempts to carve out space for any kind of just war and I can’t square that circle.”
All states require people in large numbers to die, kill and pay for them, Budde said. “I don’t believe followers of Jesus can truly give what the state requires of them.” He added: “Voting has an undeniable bent. It’s almost a liturgical act these days, but citizenship is not a sacred virtue.”
Among those dissenting from political involvement have been members of Anabaptist traditions like the Mennonites, Amish and Hutterites, who faced persecution and disenfranchisement by state churches in Europe — both Protestant and Roman Catholic — during the Reformation and its aftermath and thus have often elected not to vote. These were the groups Roth targeted with his essay two decades ago.
Even so, Roth admitted, most Mennonites vote these days, as do Hutterites (the majority of whom are in Canada), searching out candidates who come close to sharing their beliefs. But the Amish continue to be wary of participating in elections.
Yet this year, Roth said, it appears that even an increasing number of Amish are getting caught up in presidential campaign rhetoric. As reported by multiple outlets, the untapped pool of Amish voters in key swing states like Pennsylvania — where the Amish population is around 92,000 strong — is being targeted by Republicans looking for any edge.
Roth remains skeptical of their potential influence on electoral outcomes, however. He does not believe that the numbers that could turn out this time around are significant enough to sway the election. “It’s mostly the shock of seeing an Amish man at a Trump rally — a ‘man bites dog’ story,” he said.
There are numerous religious groups that, for reasons of pacifism, separatism or past persecution, take a distinctive approach to U.S. politics.
Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example, remain politically neutral for religious reasons, based on their belief that Jehovah’s (God’s) kingdom is the only legitimate government. Therefore, Witnesses do not lobby for particular positions or vote for political parties or candidates. They also do not run for office themselves or participate in any action to change governments.
Elijah Muhammad, the late leader of the Nation of Islam, urged followers not to participate in the government of a predominantly white society. But following his death in 1975, the Nation of Islam underwent a series of changes, including with regard to its perspective on politics. Today, followers are encouraged to vote.
Rastafarians, in Jamaica but also in the United States, generally eschew any involvement in politics, viewing it as a form of oppressive trickery — what some call “politricks.” Yet, more recently, younger activists within the tradition have urged other Rastas to create a united front to advocate and agitate for causes important to them, such as Black rights or the legalization of marijuana — or “ganja” — considered sacred by the community.
And members of the Baha’i faith — with around 178,000 adherents in the U.S. — do vote but are strictly nonpartisan, neither joining political parties nor campaigning on behalf of anyone running for office (nor running for office themselves at any level — local, state or national). They are, however, encouraged to vote and elect members to local, national and international councils to help run the affairs of their own communities.
Mitchell Jacobson, a retired chemical engineer and Baha’i living in Loudoun County, Virginia, said that while no individual Baha’i speaks for the whole, he finds the faith’s nonpartisanship particularly refreshing in such a poisonous political environment.
“Everything has become partisan and political these days,” said Jacobson. “Diversity and inclusion are problematic, hurricanes are politicized, vaccines are partisan. It’s a tough environment. Not everyone can always follow the guidance,” he told New Lines. “But if I stray and touch the fire of partisanship, I immediately feel the pain it creates.”
As challenging as it is to remove yourself from it all, Jacobson said it’s helped people see the value in the Baha’i focus on unity and the need to work for common ground in such an environment. “I don’t think anyone believes the system is functioning properly, and the Baha’i perspective can be a particular blessing in such an atmosphere.”
But, Jacobson emphasized, Baha’is do vote according to their conscience and their faith. Like others, Baha’is see local candidates and ballot measures through the lens of their beliefs. “We consider it a spiritual obligation to vote and to serve,” he said, “to promote unity instead of division, to eliminate all forms of inequality, to narrow extremes between wealth and poverty,” Jacobson said. “So, when I look at candidates, it’s easier than you may think to be angling toward one or the other.”
For Abdel Bayoumi, who lives and works in North Carolina’s Raleigh-Durham area, “legislation belongs to none but Allah.” The 37-year-old tech worker quoted from the Quran (Surat Yusuf 12:40) to explain why he thinks voting is “haram” — or forbidden. Bayoumi, a self-described “apolitical Salafi,” said, “Democracy is man-made and contrary to Islam, because Allah is the Almighty, the Most High, the only ruler we need.”
Though Salafism is a wide and diverse current within Islamic thought, adherents emphasize purity and adherence to what they see as its oldest and most authentic practices, marked by a strict emulation of the Prophet Muhammad’s companions and followers and the subsequent two generations — known as “the pious predecessors” (“al-salaf al-salih”). Many Salafists, like Bayoumi, eschew politics in favor of proselytization as part of their pursuit of purity. Others can be quite political or work actively against what they see as corrupt governments that harm Islam and Muslims.
Bayoumi admits, however, that he did not vote even before becoming a Salafist — and probably would not vote this year no matter his adherence to one school of thought or another. “I don’t know man, as a Muslim it’s hard to imagine voting for anybody,” he said. “Voting for Harris or voting for Trump is all the same. They’re equally evil and have the same attitude toward Muslims. In their eyes, we’re the enemy, plain and simple. Democrat, Republican, it don’t matter,” Bayoumi said.
Bayoumi’s sentiment is shared by an increasing number of Muslims across the U.S., regardless of their fealty to one school or another, who feel frustrated over the lack of progress on issues of importance to them in the major political parties. In particular, as reported by multiple media outlets, the ongoing war in Gaza has galvanized an estimated 3.5 million Muslims in the U.S. to consider supporting third-party candidates such as Cornel West or Jill Stein — or to not vote at all.
Traditionally Democratic, America’s Muslim voters feel torn about their vote this year, unhappy with both Republicans and Democrats and frustrated with the entire system. A September poll from the Council on American Islamic Relations focused on the presidential race, including a broader range of candidates in their survey. That survey showed that just 29.4% of U.S. Muslims planned to vote for Harris, who was effectively tied with Jill Stein of the Green Party, who garnered 29.1% support. Trump trailed in third with 11.2%, followed by Cornel West of the People’s Party with 4.2% and the Libertarians’ Chase Oliver with less than 1% support. Significantly, 16.5% of respondents were undecided.
In battleground states, Stein led Harris in Arizona (35%), Michigan (40%) and Wisconsin (44%), while Harris led in Georgia (43%) and Pennsylvania (37%). Trump’s highest support was in Nevada (27%), which just topped Harris at 26%. But he also had more support among Muslims in Michigan (18%) than did Harris (12%).
Asked what he made of the “Muslim vote” in 2024, Bayoumi said it comes down to intentions. “Whether or not you think a non-Islamic political system is permissible or not, whether you vote for West or someone else, it comes down to preventing harm and promoting good,” he said. “In the end, Allah knows best.”
Slim percentages, some say, may decide the presidency come November, with votes in the thousands directing the Electoral College count in one way or the other.
But Budde, who both abstains from voting and has long researched American voting behaviors, said that he does not think those who do not vote for religious reasons will decide the outcome on Nov. 5. “That’s to give too much credit to conscientious nonvoters,” he said, “and I don’t want them to be considered a scapegoat for whoever’s candidate doesn’t win.”
Even so, Budde would not be surprised if voter turnout suffers and people who abstain from voting for religious reasons are joined by a wider coalition of dissenters who decide not to cast a ballot. “When I used to teach voting behaviors, we were concerned with why people don’t vote. Liberals believe there are too many barriers to participation (registration, mail-in voting); conservatives believe it’s because people are satisfied with the status quo,” he said.
A third possibility, Budde said, is that maybe people think the game is rigged.
“It doesn’t matter who wins because you’ve got two different means to pursue the same ends of capitalism and empire,” he said. In other words, you vote for the system, you endorse its outcomes.
“Well, bullshit! Then, I don’t want to participate,” Budde said. “I don’t want to support all the violence and wars that go into keeping this particular form of capitalist empire in place,” he said. “And maybe, more people of faith are coming to similar conclusions.”
The motivations among those who abstain from voting for religious reasons are varied. An Anabaptist refraining for a season and Muslims sitting this election out are not one and the same. But as the election looms ever closer and the rhetoric around it remains supercharged, systematically excluded communities and other religious actors with objections to American policies form a distinctive, if diverse, coalition.
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