On Amendment 3: Lead Without Demanding Agreement

“Pastor, just tell me how to vote.”

It is a question many faith leaders encounter, particularly as Election Day approaches. Behind it may be trust, uncertainty, exhaustion, or a sincere desire to make a decision consistent with one’s faith.

For those of us called to shepherd people, the question presents a profound conundrum.

We are entrusted with moral leadership while caring for people whose political convictions, life experiences, and understanding of the issues differ. We have a responsibility to teach, challenge, and influence. Yet we must also honor the conscience and judgment of those we lead.

Our influence is real. It should be. People look to us for clarity and conviction, especially in consequential moments. The question is not whether we should exercise that influence, but how.

We cannot confuse honoring individual conscience with abandoning our responsibility to lead. Nor can we confuse leadership with demanding agreement.

Missouri’s Amendment 3 brings this tension into sharp focus. Voters are being asked to reconsider constitutional protections for reproductive freedom approved just two years ago. The proposal also includes restrictions on gender transition procedures for minors, although Missouri law has already restricted those procedures since 2023. The proposed amendment would place those restrictions in the Constitution, while repealing the reproductive freedom protections voters approved in 2024.

This distinction matters. Political messaging can emphasize a provision without explaining what is already law or what would actually change. Critics have challenged the use of gender-related provisions in the campaign for precisely this reason. Whatever one’s convictions, voters deserve to understand the full consequences of their decisions, not simply the claims designed to capture their attention and often manipulate their emotions.

And the people we shepherd do not all approach these questions from the same place.

Some have studied the issues and arrived at deeply held convictions. Others are ill-informed, holding firmly to claims that may be incomplete, misleading, or simply untrue. Still others are uninformed or underinformed, lacking the time, access, or trusted spaces to understand what is actually before them.

These distinctions matter because they require different responses from leaders.

The ill-informed need opportunities to examine assumptions, test claims against credible evidence, and consider what they may have gotten wrong. The underinformed need accessible information, patient teaching, and room to ask questions without judgment.

Neither needs our contempt. And neither should be confused with someone who is informed and simply disagrees with us.

But there is another group we must not overlook: the exhausted.

People are navigating work, caregiving, financial pressures, and the demands of daily life while being asked to make sense of complicated ballot language and competing political messages. For those who have repeatedly experienced exclusion, invisibility, or disappointment, disengagement can feel like the only reasonable response.

We call it apathy too quickly.

We must ask whether the systems we expect people to participate in have made them feel that their voices matter, that they belong, or that their participation can produce meaningful change.

And we must ask whether our leadership has helped restore that sense of agency.

The courage to reconsider

There is another challenge before us, particularly in a political culture that rewards people for doubling down on what they already believe.

What if this moment calls us to reconsider?

The lived experiences of people affected by Amendment 3 are complex, as every family’s experiences can be. They are deeply personal and often far more nuanced than the arguments presented in political campaigns. We cannot presume that every person’s circumstances fit neatly into our preferred narrative.

That does not mean surrendering moral conviction. It means having the humility to recognize that our understanding may be incomplete.

Reconsidering a position is not necessarily a compromise of faith or integrity. It may be evidence of growth, grace, wisdom, evolution, and maturity.

Sometimes deeper examination strengthens what we already believe. Sometimes it changes us.

As people of faith, we should recognize this. Romans 12:2 calls us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. How can we embrace transformation as a spiritual imperative while treating reconsideration as a civic weakness?

Are we holding fast to what is true, or simply holding tightly to what is familiar?

Moral clarity does not require intellectual rigidity. Nor does humility require us to become morally ambiguous.

We can stand firmly in our convictions while remaining teachable, willing to listen, and open to the humanity and experiences of others.

From telling people what to think to supporting critical thinking

We know the old wisdom about giving someone a fish versus teaching them to fish.

When someone asks us how to vote, we could give them our answer. We may even secure their agreement. But have we strengthened their ability to discern, decide, and act the next time?

The better work of leadership is formation.

As pastors, our responsibility is not to develop people who merely repeat what we preach or obey us because of our position. We are called to nurture people who know Christ for themselves, study the Word, exercise spiritual discernment, and mature through the transforming work of the Holy Spirit.

We should want people whose faith is rooted in their own relationship with Christ, not permanently dependent on our authority.

Why should our approach to civic life be different?

The alternative to coercion is not silence. It is formation.

Faith leaders are called to teach with moral clarity about justice, human dignity, truth, compassion, and our responsibility to one another. We should name what we believe, explain why, and invite people to wrestle seriously with the implications.

But we must also equip people to read beyond the political slogans, understand what a ballot measure actually does, ask whose lives will be affected, examine competing claims, and make decisions with informed conviction.

And teaching people to fish means little if they have no access to the water.

Our responsibility includes confronting the barriers that make civic participation difficult, intimidating, or inaccessible. We must create spaces where people feel welcomed, informed, capable, and necessary to the democratic process.

This is not passive leadership. It requires more courage and investment than simply telling people what to do.

Election Day is not the finish line.

November 3 matters deeply. But the next two years matter equally.

Our communities will continue to face decisions about public resources, health, education, housing, justice, and the conditions shaping their lives. Those decisions will be made whether our people participate or not.

We cannot afford to awaken civic engagement every election season and allow it to fall dormant afterward.

Faith leaders, and those who shepherd people through other institutions, must build the conditions for sustained participation. We must help people understand how decisions are made, where power resides, how to hold public officials accountable, and how to organize with others to shape the futures they desire, and when the moment presents itself, and it is coming, be ready to govern and to lead.

We should be developing people who are not only prepared to cast a ballot, but equipped to exercise their power between elections.

That is our moral imperative.

The measure of our leadership is not how many people follow our instructions. It is how many become more discerning, more courageous, more informed, and more capable of acting on their convictions.

People are looking to us for clarity. Let us not retreat into the safety of ambiguity. Let us teach what we believe, tell the truth, confront misinformation, make room for complexity, and model the humility we ask of others.

And let us never mistake our authority for the conscience of those we lead.

The highest expression of our influence is not producing people who think like us. It is cultivating people who have the conviction, capacity, and courage to think deeply, choose wisely, and act responsibly for themselves.

That is the shepherd’s responsibility. And in this moment, we must rise to meet it.

by Rev. Bethany Johnson-Javois, President & CEO
Deaconess Foundation
A shorter version of this article was published in The St. Louis American.

---

Rev. Bethany A. Johnson-Javois, MSW is President and CEO of Deaconess Foundation and pastor of Monument of Faith Church. A health and racial justice advocate, she brings together faith, community leadership, and a commitment to improving well-being across the St. Louis region. Her experience includes serving as managing director of the Ferguson Commission and CEO of the St. Louis Integrated Health Network.