This summer and fall, I am knocking on doors for a political candidate for the first time in my life. A friend whom I deeply respect is running to serve as a city councillor in one of the wards in Hamilton, ON, and he is hoping to unseat an incumbent. Jack’s* door-knocking instructions were simple: “Encourage people to vote.” In the most recent Hamilton election, only 35% of voters went to the polls. Jack knows that the fewer the number of voters, the easier it is for an incumbent to retain his seat. Jack lives in (and is running in) a ward on the far western edge of Hamilton, quite a long way from the downtown core and the poorer eastern end. 

As a rookie door-knocker, I had no idea what to expect. Hamilton (pop. 600,000) has many challenges: homelessness, high municipal taxes, rising youth crime and violence, industries affected by tariffs, major projects with huge cost overruns, and more. Jack is a man of faith who has served a variety of civic institutions well throughout his life. He believes that those who have authority should be subject to transparent accountability, manage finances well, do their homework, go the extra mile, lead with compassion, and get the job done. He’s a good listener who has a heart for justice and for fairness. I am glad to support his campaign.

What am I learning as I go door-to-door?

So far, every person I have spoken with received me with kindness and respect, with several thanking me for taking the time to make a personal call on behalf of a candidate. Politics is relational, and folks value the personal touch (which the vast majority have never experienced). Quite a few were working from home and only had a few seconds for a quick hello, but they were still friendly. I was prepared for some rudeness and anger, but was not subjected to any abuse.

Everyone who did engage was concerned about issues that affected them personally. Their issues were taxation, police protection, financial accountability, municipal projects oversight, and politicians’ awareness (or lack thereof) of what lives in their neighbourhoods. The old proverb, “All politics is local,” is proving to be true. 

Not one single person mentioned homelessness, environmental care, protection of vulnerable minorities from hate crimes, or other issues that were not part of their daily lives. Though the ward is a significant distance from the areas of Hamilton where these issues affect everyone very tangibly, I had assumed that a certain number of people would be invested in broader issues of justice. It was not my place to engage in “doorstep justice education”; my calling was to listen, encourage people to vote, and tell them why I believed Jack would serve them well. 

Even so, I was disappointed in this lack of deeper engagement. I’ve been involved in teaching for fifty years, so I struggled with knowing that I was not called to function as a teacher on the doorstep. Instead, I used two other dynamics to guide my disappointment: first, I provided Jack with a very brief summary (e.g. a few phrases) of every single conversation, so that he was fully aware of what lived in people’s civic consciousnesses. Second, I had conversations with Jack about those justice issues which people were not raising, and I was satisfied that he would pursue them with a biblically-informed sense of justice even though these did not seem important to his constituents. 

As I walked door to door, I also wondered how my own faith commitments were shaping this new activity in my life. When I was in high school, there were folks in our (very Kuyperian) community who encouraged me to seek a career in politics, just as Abraham Kuyper did in the Netherlands. And there were others who said, “politics always involves compromise, and Christ-followers cannot engage in compromise with integrity.” I found it fascinating to listen to these two opposing voices as I walked, and I realized that my faith led me to be “all in” for Jack. Every single calling in my life (husband, father, teacher/professor,  church volunteer, Do Justice blog writer, and much, much more) has required compromise. For a Christ-follower to engage in compromise is simply to declare, “I am not God, I don’t have access to ‘pure truth’”, and then to pursue justice and wisdom to the best of my ability in each and every situation. 

When I volunteered to campaign for Jack, he said (among other things), “You need to know it’s been forty years since an incumbent city councillor was unseated in a municipal election.” So, Jack’s odds are not good, but I admire his hutzpah, and it’s a privilege to tiptoe into politics by going door to door. Maybe I’m finally listening to those who encouraged me in high school in a very small way. 

*Name changed