Be Sober-Minded This Election Season

Do politics raise your blood pressure?

Studies have shown a direct correlation between hypertension and elections. The closer we get to Election Day, the worse vital numbers tend to be. Researchers have even studied individuals with implanted heart devices and found that arrhythmias increased by 77% following an election.

Some may conclude this points to the toxicity of politics, that it’s bad for both our health and our country. Engage at your own peril – but you’d be better off checking out and ignoring the circus altogether.

But Christians, especially, don’t have that luxury. One of the main reasons we engage culturally is because policies impact people. Whether you’re aware of what’s going on in your state legislature or inside the Capitol in Washington, D.C., decisions made there shape your life. Neither ignorance nor apathy inoculate you from reality and the consequences of either good or bad policies.

Believers can still thrive amid this electoral chaos – and even avoid preventable trips to the doctor or emergency room.

How so?

The apostle Peter provides a wise and practical perspective:

“Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

Sober mindedness is often misconstrued by many to mean a dour, sour, solemn, morose, even subdued attitude. But that’s not the type of behavior Peter is describing at all.

Instead, he’s advising and encouraging prudence and thoughtfulness – the development of an even keel temperament that is neither too high nor too low. To be sober-minded is to see the big picture without getting lost in the proverbial trees.

Watchfulness takes away the option of simply ignoring it all. We all know individuals, exasperated by the news, who have chosen to give up and tune out. They embrace a “blissfully ignorant” mindset – a foolish impossibility. Ignorance is a form of recklessness and irresponsibility. There is nothing blissful about it. Pure happiness only comes from truth. Plus, if you don’t know what problems are facing our country, you’re not going to be able to help do anything about them. The sideline Christian is dropping the ball.

Our cultural moment can largely be attributed to apathy. By some estimates, there are more than 200 million Christians in the United States. While not all may be unified when it comes to the hot button issues of the day, election results would be significantly impacted if convictional followers of Jesus turned out to the polls.

At the same, tanking up on sensational news and headlines, not to mention the misinformation disguised as opinion or prognostication, is likely to keep you anything but sober-minded. We must be well read and wise about what we read.

To be sober-minded is to not worry about the opinions of the world. It’s a disinterest in achieving the approval of the elites or being part of the “inner ring” that C.S. Lewis warned about.

A cultural sobriety doesn’t understate the dangers or dismiss the culture as some unmanageable force. It recognizes our limitations but then gets to work – praying, persuading, confronting, shaping, and modeling the life Jesus calls us all to live.

As Peter warned, the sober-minded man is aware the stakes are high. He doesn’t laugh cavalierly at the risks, and doesn’t get too close to the source of evil and wickedness. After all, only a fool tries to cozy up to a lion believing he can stop him from roaring.

The next few months promise to be historically consequential and culturally uneven. We can and should be thankful for the Lord’s sovereignty over it all – but it’s also critical that we continue cultivating and developing a Christ-centered perspective as we navigate these perilous times.

Image from Getty.