Over 30 years ago, when I first arrived in the U.S., I met an elderly lady in our church who had escaped from communist Cuba. Now, a few decades later, my memories of her have faded away, except those concerning her enthusiasm about voting.

On several occasions, she asked me when I would become a U.S. citizen so that I could exercise my right to vote. Her urgent plea confused and annoyed me at the time. I had voted once in China; what was the big deal? With a green card in hand, I didn’t see the immediate need to become a U.S. citizen.

I waited more than a decade to apply for U.S. citizenship because it took that long for me to understand how incredible the American political system is and the gravity of voting in America.

The Chinese Way

While growing up in Communist China, I’d never heard about the concepts of freedom and rights, let alone understood their meanings. The totalitarian regime implemented a top-down political structure. From very early on, I knew my parents, who sat at the bottom of the power structure, must obey their superiors — who in turn had to kowtow to the ones above them.

Within this structure, one learned very quickly that truth was relative, or even irrelevant. Survival was the primary concern. For instance, if your superior mispronounced a word, making him look uneducated and stupid – there are countless such words in the Chinese language — you should never point that out. In fact, if you were smart, you would intentionally also mispronounce that word, just to prove to your superior that you absolutely agreed with the way he pronounced it. Life there forces one to lie constantly just to get through an unexpected crisis. In the eyes of the powerful, you are just an insignificant and vulnerable worm, and can be easily crushed by a big foot. You know that, and will do anything to avoid the unthinkable consequences of being insubordinate.

Voting had never entered my thoughts. In the totalitarian environment, the notion that I was allowed to decide who would be my leader or what kind of policy the government should implement sounded alien, unrelatable. Such a view would run counter to the Chinese saying, “Don’t poke a tiger unless you want to die.” To assert your opinion was the equivalent of provoking a tiger to attack you.

A Good Show

After the Cultural Revolution, the government, began enforcing a voting process. But it was only putting on a show to make the rest of the world believe it was not abusing human rights. I had one experience with voting before immigrating to the U.S.: Someone asked me to circle such-and-such names on a ballot. At best, the whole operation was merely democratic theater.

Before coming here, I had studied a lot about America. But nothing had prepared me for the shock I felt upon arrival. I couldn’t believe the free and relaxed way Americans carried themselves. I couldn’t believe they could openly speak their minds without worrying about getting punished. I couldn’t believe such a life actually was possible. I cried. My new American friends thought I missed my home in China–which was true, but that was not the main reason. Freedom felt uncomfortable when my life had been characterized by fear and insecurity up to that point. It did not make me forget my tragic past, but enhanced the tragedy of it.

I hope that by hearing about this from an immigrant, you can understand how exceptional America’s freedom is. And I hope it motivates you to do something to keep it.

A Unique System

Sadly, many American Christians, in addition to taking our exceptionalism for granted, fail to grasp the unique characteristics of American Christianity that stem from it. They do not recognize that, unlike other nations, God has granted us in America with distinctive privileges along with weighty responsibilities.

Throughout history, many nations have been influenced by the Judeo-Christian tradition. What sets America apart is her unique inception. Here, God raised a brand-new nation with a clean start and a culture guided by Judeo-Christian principles.

Furthermore, besides entrusting us with this culture at our founding, God also provided a way to keep that culture by bestowing on us an unparalleled political system: a constitutional republic. In it, checks and balances prevent a centralized power from forming, ensuring that the governing power resides in the hands of the citizens. Through electing representatives who will advocate for our beliefs, we can exert significant influence on society.

Within this system, every Christian is able to exercise his or her rights to ensure that our governmental policies reflect our beliefs. This system also lets us safeguard our freedom, which in turn guarantees our opportunities to promote Christian virtues in the society.

This is mind-blowing for Christians in other parts of the world. Take Chinese Christians, for example. If the Chinese government endorses ungodly materials in schools, Chinese Christians can do nothing except pray, while here in America we are given the right to run for school boards or participate in school board meetings to wield our influence. Facing immoral practices, Chinese Christians have no options to remedy the situation except pray. When forced to participate in ungodly practices, they can either comply or suffer cruel punishment. By contrast, in America, we can exert pressure on our elected representatives to draft bills to address the issues that concern us.

Hardly surprisingly, it took me more than a decade to fully understand the exceptionality of our political system.

A Post-Christian Culture

However, today our society is no longer dominated by Christian influence, even though there are churches on every corner. What has gone terribly wrong?

For a long time, most American believers have shied away from politics, deeming it irrelevant for Christian life. Within certain circles, politics is viewed as incongruent with the Gospel. Presumably, if we preach the Gospel, we cannot talk about politics from the pulpit. Perhaps the unspoken rationale is that one represents Heaven while the other represents Earth. When we can only choose one, the choice is obvious.

Tragically, this approach ignores the clear teaching of Scripture on morality, justice, and doing good works. We are commanded to love our neighbors; this alone demands that we exercise our right be politically active for the good of our neighbors. Through our involvement in the political process, we can better benefit our neighbors with lower taxes, fewer regulations, higher employment, and a better economy.

But more than that, we can also preserve our culture with Christian influence through the God-sent system, maintaining a sense of morality in our society.

A God-Given Imperative

Some might argue that politics cannot possibly be a major influence on the culture, and there are many other factors contributing to the moral decline in our society. I strongly disagree. That assertion would hold water in other countries, but not in America, where God has given us unprecedented prerogatives and expects us to fulfill our responsibilities.

The tangible results of the progressives’ vigorous involvement in politics testifies to the incredible power our political system has in changing culture. Recent history shows that there is a correlation between progressive Marxists’ systematic and aggressive involvement in politics – on the local, state, and national levels — and the moral deterioration in our society, which, not unexpectedly, also corresponds with Christians’ withdrawal from politics. We left a vacuum, and the enemy of our souls rushed in to fill it with a false ideology.

Had Christians applied the same vigorous efforts as the Left for the last five decades, we would have put our culture on a trajectory of redemptive good to the same degree that progressives have sent it into a downward spiral. After all, every citizen, progressive or not, has the same rights.

Indeed, when complaining about the rampant evil in our society, we have nobody to blame for it but ourselves.

Sadly, some even refuse to do the minimum to preserve our way of life: voting. According to the Pew Research Center, about 25 million Christians who regularly attend church do not vote in presidential elections. The overall margin of victory in 2020 was seven million votes. One can imagine the impact Christians could have made had every Christian voted according to their biblical convictions that year.

Pew also indicates that 65 million Christians do not participate in local elections. About 15 million Christians are not registered to vote at all. These numbers are not just shocking; they are distressing and should pierce our heart with remorse. They plainly reveal how unfaithful we have been with the responsibility God has entrusted to us.

Jesus said, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded” (Luke 12:48). Unless we repent and do our duty, like the servant “who knows his master’s will and does not do what his master wants,” we will be beaten with many blows (Luke 12:47), and face the possibility of losing what have been entrusted to us (Matthew 25:14-30).

The elderly Cuban lady at my church 30 years ago understood the gravity of voting. It is not just a civic duty, but one of the privileges and responsibilities God has laid on American Christians’ shoulders. This spiritual weight can no longer be ignored.

We must vote, lest judgment fall upon us!

Chenyuan Snider was raised in Communist China and majored in Chinese language and literature in college. After immigrating to the U.S. and studying at Assemblies of God Theological Seminary and Duke Divinity School, she became a professor at Christian colleges and seminary. She and her husband live in northern California and have two grown children.