By Kathy Vestal

Dear Neighbor,

I used to think taking God’s name in vain meant saying words like “damn” or “hell” or “God” as an expletive, but the third commandment is far deeper than any mere utterance. It is about manipulation, about using God’s name to manipulate others for our own gain.

When I was in seminary, there was an oft-repeated joke that the few women on campus were there to get our MRS degrees. During my 2½ years there, three different male students told me that God told them they would marry me. By the third time, I had my ready response: “When God tells me the same thing, we’ll do it.” If I was to believe all their assertions, God wanted me to have three husbands?

Once when I was serving on a pastor search committee (I’ve served on three), a candidate told us that God told him we were the church for him. One trusting committee member was ready to hire him on the spot because God said so. I repeated my same response: “When God tells us the same thing, we’ll do it.”

We are currently all living through an election season that promises to be a wild ride, filled with drama, AI-generated deception, foreign bot interference and every imaginable type of manipulation like we have never seen before. The manipulators aim for our gullibility, hitting us where we are most likely to succumb. For many of us, they know that is our religious faith.

Be wary of the Facebook memes, church leaders or candidates themselves comparing candidates to Jesus or manipulating Scripture for political purposes. Be wary of anyone’s interpretation of the bullet. While we can be glad and thankful that the bullet missed, to make political assertions about God’s interference or intentions goes beyond the human scope and opens questions of why God did not care to protect the fireman, or the Holocaust victims, or lynching victims, or victims of school and church massacres.

Before reposting a meme or internalizing or repeating something you heard, ask yourself: “Is God’s name being used in vain to manipulate my vote?” We are in for a wild several weeks, but we can do this if we stay alert.

“Dear Neighbor” authors are united in a belief that civility and passion can coexist. We believe curiosity and conversation make us a better community.