Voting as a Christian

I was pretty much told this weekend that if I'm a Christian I have to vote Conservative. The person saying it wasn't quite that blunt about it, but he went on about how our leaders have to be the moral guides of the country and if we don't have Christians in government our society will all fall to pieces.

I'm quite sure that morally, I agree with Conservative policy more than others, simply because it does reflect what I understand to be Biblical principles. But, I also think it is not the job of the government to dictate the moral fibre of a country. Morality is a personal choice that each person has to struggle with. When governments step in the way, it just serves to make things even more complicated than they already are.

Yet, it is the custom for governments these days to try to legislate their ideas of what a moral society looks like. In contrast, even the apostle Paul said that everything is permissable, but not all things are beneficial. In my opinion, it's not the government's job to make immorality illegal. If they want to support those who are, by their definition, moral, that's up to them, but legality is somewhat beyond their realm.

What is their job? Making it possible for people to take care of themselves and each other. Provide an environment in which people have the means to acquire food, clothing, shelter, etc... and quite honestly, all three of our major parties plan on doing that. They plan on doing it in different ways and I'm basing my vote on which plan seems the most likely to work, but I won't be devistated if one of the other parties wins because in the long run, I've got a really big Benevolent Dictator looking after me.