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Two brilliant, priceless tools are now live, and they are free. VoteLife.com.au ranks every pro-life candidate in your electorate. NumberEveryBox.com.au lets you plan your ballot so you vote for righteousness with certainty that your vote cannot be wasted.

Church And State has developed these so that every Christian can vote for righteousness with confidence at the coming elections. Victoria votes this month, New South Wales early next year, but both tools will cover every state, territory and federal election.

The Promise of Certainty

For years, many people have told me that voting for the most pro-life candidate is a wasted vote if that candidate is from a micro-party or an independent, because that person ‘cannot’ win. This is a tragic misunderstanding of how preferential voting works. It has become a self-fulfilling prophecy, and it makes righteous candidates standing for election almost futile.

Two Websites, One Purpose

VoteLife.com.au is the first website every Christian in every church should use before every election. VoteLife is a new website by Church And State that impartially and brutally honestly ranks pro-life candidates in every electorate, according to the percentage of abortions they would vote to stop. We are speaking only of elective abortions, the deliberate killing of innocent preborn Australians.

NumberEveryBox.com.au closes the gap in civic competence. It resources and equips Christians to plan their ballot with the smallest amount of preparation. By numbering every box, you empower your vote and guarantee it cannot exhaust before the counting is finished and a winner is declared. You shouldn’t try to, and don’t need to predict who has a chance of winning!

Plan your ballot with this free tool, then print it, email it or download the plan to take with you when you vote. Share it with family, friends or church members who want your opinion on how to rank the local candidates by righteousness.

Together, these two websites are a breakthrough in resources for pastors who want to equip the saints with the political wisdom of Solomon, and for the Christian constituency to promote righteousness in government as never before.

Why This Urgently Matters

Church And State’s election analysis this year suggests that more than 94% of church-going Christians voted for candidates who tolerate some level of abortion, often mistaking them for pro-life candidates.

That is a shocking indictment. It is not as much an indictment of Christian theology or of the courage of our pulpits as an indictment of the civic competence of Australians in general (well-formed Christians included).

The problem may not be a lack of care after all, but a lack of education in Australia’s preferential voting system. Some say the system is “rigged” to favour the major parties. I am persuaded it is not the system but the lack of education about the system that achieves the rigging.

The cost of this misunderstanding is immense. Up to a quarter of all children conceived in Australia this decade will be deliberately killed by their parents before birth, with taxpayer funding, legislative permission and voter support.

The Church in Australia has blood on its hands. This is a moral and national emergency, and yet the solution may be as simple as education.

The Pulpit Gap

The people best placed to provide that education are those with the gifts Scripture says are given to equip the saints. The pulpit is rightly comfortable equipping believers with biblical wisdom for marriage, parenting and money, because Scripture speaks about them at length. So why are pastors not equipped to teach the political wisdom Solomon prayed for? God commended him for that request and rewarded it (1 Kings 3:7-11), and all of Scripture confirms God’s readiness to grant prayers for wisdom.

The answer is that seminaries and Bible colleges do not train pastors in how relevant political wisdom is for adult Christian citizens in a democracy. I am yet to hear of any pastor anywhere teaching their people that a pure vote ranked by righteousness cannot be wasted in our preferential system, if voters always number every box.

Seek First

The command of Jesus is the paradigm for ranking candidates. In the Sermon on the Mount, He tells us not to worry about our daily needs but to trust God for them. Many Christians believe government is the supplier of their needs, and although they would never say so, that is how they vote. Jesus commands otherwise: seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33). We worship Jehovah Jireh, the God Who provides. Government is not our Jireh. At election time, “in God we trust” should be more than a slogan.

If the kingdom of God and His righteousness are how we rank candidates, then voting cannot be an exercise in leaning on our own understanding. Israel’s attack on Ai (Joshua 7) failed with sin in the camp, and no one asked God’s instructions as they had for Jericho. The book of Judges describes the same attitude: everyone did what seemed right in their own eyes. Solomon began his reign by acknowledging his inexperience and inadequacy, and by asking for the wisdom to discern right from wrong. That delighted Almighty God.

Heaven forbid the Church should complete six decades now of tolerating the shedding of innocent blood while putting its atomised, worldly political strategies ahead of righteousness. Yet that is what has happened since 1969, with Christians failing to make child sacrifice an election issue.

The Josiah generation

Let us repent of nearly six decades of failing to confront the obscene injustice of the shedding of innocent blood, which has cost millions of Australians their lives. Let us be the Josiah generation. Scripture says that no king before or since turned to the LORD as Josiah did, or did more to return the nation to righteousness (2 Kings 23). This is the duty of every Christian voter, as it was of every king in Scripture.

Rank candidates by righteousness. Always number every box. Never vote for a baby-killer. Visit VoteLife.com.au and NumberEveryBox.com.au, and please send this article to your pastor and every Christian voter you know.

Lives are literally at stake.

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Image courtesy of Adobe.