David Platt has written a new book Before you Vote: Seven Questions Every Christian Should Ask. Platt serves as the lead pastor of McLean Bible Church in Northern Virginia.
As a pastor, he feels that it is his responsibility to ensure that the people he shepherds are discipled by God's Word on the important issues facing the world today, especially amid a presidential election, rather than allow today's divisive political climate to destroy unity in the church body. He wrote this book to help Christians see how the Bible addresses some of today's most critical issues.
Part of the challenges faced by Christian voters is that many of the issues are very complicated without a clear cut answer, such as abortion, genocide, and slavery. However, Platt states that Christians must keep the focus on Jesus and love for one another. Plat teaches that as Christians, it is necessary to build a community that listens humbly to one another, is slow to become angry or aggressive, and that holds on to the Word of God.
As Platt stated in an interview with Collin Hanses on the podcast Gospelbound, "People are either going to be discipled by the world or discipled by the word of God on the critical issues going on around us in the world. And I just don't think I have the option of sitting back and staying quiet and letting them be discipled by the world on these things. And so, I don't want this toxic political climate that we're in, and even the effects that it has on the church, to be what is discipling the people God's entrusted to my care."
Platt also makes it clear that he is not trying to put his opinion on anyone in his congregation, but more so shepard them in the teachings of the Bible and allow them to make more educated and faith backed political decisions. Platt acknowledges the political toxicity that the current election climate has brought on the world, and that people voting for both sides will claim it to be ungodly to vote one way or the other.
Platt hopes that he can help his congregation to "keep focus on the centrality of Jesus in the middle of it, love for one another in the middle of it, and making sure we only use language, like you can't be a Christian if, when God has used that kind of language in his Word."
