How would Jesus vote?
As the 2020 US election is around two weeks away, a Catholic archbishop advised Filipino American voters to vote as Jesus would, reported CBCP News.
“When you decide on whom to vote, please say I will vote as Jesus would vote,” Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan, Philippines said. “That is what you do in the ballot, that is how you decide”.
Voting as Jesus, the former president of the Philippine bishops’ conference said, means that you care about the things God cares about.
“If you vote as God, you will vote selflessly. You are not going to vote according to the benefits that you will get but according to God’s plan for America,” he said.
The archbishop was speaking at the “Empowered Philippines”, a US-based online talk show on October 10.
As baptized Christians, according to him, they embody the presence of Christ. “So be who you are. And who am i? ‘I am Jesus’ so vote like Jesus,” Villegas said.
He warned that when “you go against Jesus, you are going against who you really are” and therefore, “you have no right to complain later on”.
“You have put that judgement, condemnation on yourself because you went beyond yourself, you violated yourself. So be who you are,” he added.
“That’s why there’s a saying ‘you have to pray’ because Jesus will not be able to speak to you about for whom he will vote unless you are attuned to his heart,” he also said.
A record number of people are expected to cast their votes before November 3 by opting for mail-in ballots.
As of Oct. 16, more than 22 million voters have already voted in the US presidential election as early voting rolled out across the nation.
As of 2017, there were more than four million Filipinos in the US, making up the third largest Asian-Americans behind Chinese and Indians.