My phone started blowing up with messages last Saturday evening. A madman had taken actual shots at a presidential candidate. Two people were dead, one of which was a hard-working innocent bystander who was shielding his family, and the other was the shooter, a troubled young man that we we still know alarmingly little about. Former president Trump has been grazed by a bullet. The scene was bedlam. America was in shock. The world watched on in horror.
I was appalled, but I wasn’t at all surprised.
The political temperature has been unsustainably high for some time, and rather than attempting to cool it, politicians on both sides of the political spectrum were fueling, poking, provoking, and sustaining the rising flames. The outcome was always going to be violence, and may be more unless we the people take control of the thermostat.
I haven’t written anything about it until now for a few reasons. Firstly, there was no shortage of opinion pieces and suggested next action steps on the internet. Adding to that clamor felt unnecessary and unproductive. Secondly, I typically take a while to form cogent and coherent thoughts. I am coming to terms with the fact that I will seldom be first to speak on anything, and I have a history of folly when I have attempted to be quick in my comment. Lastly, I am painfully aware of my position as a recent immigrant to this fine land. I know full well that there are many things in this wonderfully crazy country that I “just don’t get,” and the political system, and people’s passionate participation in it - to a level of sensed identity and worth - is certainly one of those things. I love living here, and I want to contribute meaningfully to this society, which I still believe is one of the shining lights in humanities’ largely dark history of trying to create flourishing communities that are good for all who are in them. I still believe in the wild dream that is America, but I know that I view her as someone who is late to the party, and painfully ill-informed on many of the steps she has taken to get here, and so that causes me pause.
That being said, last Sunday, I was asked by three different friends for some thoughts on how followers of Jesus might respond in this season. Their question has been ringing in my head all week. The first to ask me was a friend at church. He is an older gentleman, and he and I have disagreed strongly on his fervent commitment to Donald Trump, not just as a policy setter but as some sort of bastion of Christian virtue. This gentleman was angry on Sunday and he asked me, “is this not the time for a radical church?” I answered that I thought that is was definitely the time, but that his idea and my idea of what radical Christ-following might look like in this season would almost certainly be very different. It was a privilege to pray with him in his shock and anger. The second to ask me was another friend at church. He is a committed public servant, a compassionate and thoughtful cultural conservative, a dedicated constitutionalist, and a humble leader of his family. His eyes moistened when he asked, “where do we go from here?” The third was a friend and neighbor who isn’t a Christian. He is a dedicated and thoughtful progressive and self-described centrist Democrat. He and I disagree a great deal on many public policies, but I have always learned a lot from my conversations with him. He asked, “how is the faith community responding?” and “who can we look to for example of morality, leadership, and statesmanship?”
I have no qualification or desire to attempt to answer on behalf of American Christianity or evangelicalism (I am not sure that there is a cohesive group of people who fall neatly under either of those - increasingly pejorative - descriptors, but I will leave that to another post one day.) What follows then is rather a collection of commitments that I am seeking to make myself in the weeks and months ahead. These will all seem individual and micro and don’t begin to address the complexity of necessary civic engagement that people of faith must participate in, but these are rather postures of the heart that I am taking and that I hope and pray others might take with me.
Here then are my commitments.
Resist Rhetoric with Truth-Telling
In the aftermath of the attempted assassination I was actually really hopeful that maybe the political moment would step away from empty, unkind, untruthful and inflammatory rhetoric, but I don’t think that they know how. There were a couple of days of “calls for unity” and then it was back to much of the same garbage. The system needs it, and thrives, and grows on it.
Humble, thoughtful and nuanced truth-telling will never get you elected in our current environment.
But … Christians are supposed to be people who value truth.
Paul presumed that the church in Ephesus would refuse to speak in the ways that others in their culture spoke. He commanded, “Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.” To follow the one who said that He embodied truth was to be a people who had to put away falsehood.
I can’t count the number of times that I have found myself stunned and breathless in conversations with Christians who readily repeat the rhetoric of campaign speeches and the cartoonish actors who have delivered them as if they are true.
Let’s be the ultimate fact checkers.
Let’s leave room for nuance and thoughtfulness, even - and especially - when it might be politically inconvenient.
And then, let’s stand firm on the truth as we know it - revealed in sacred Scripture.
Tell the truth, and don’t sit by idly when others fail to do so, especially when it is someone representing your own tribe!
Keep Politicians (and Politics) In Their Rightful Place
One of the biggest obstacles that our family has faced in integrating into US society is how big a role politics plays in the life of the average person. And I don’t just mean staying informed and engaged in meaningful civic engagement. I mean that politics is front and center in people’s identities, social cohesion, and even faith.
Now I know. It is important. Policies impact out lives. But, I do believe that it has gotten out of hand, to the extent that the most meaningful political work, which is always going to have to be bipartisan, is all but impossible in the current environment.
I was listening to a podcast on the history of the presidential office the other day (you see? I am trying!) and I was struck by the fact that it is a fairly recent phenomenon in US history that the people pay a lot of attention to who the president even is. In fact, part of the genius of the system of our representative republic is that the people are supposed to be protected from the president.
We didn’t want a king! Remember?
But … we treat the current ones as kings and give them way too much control of our everyday lives.
I do know that it matters who occupies the Oval Office. I know it does. But it shouldn’t matter to the extent where you give them control over your own flourishing, wellbeing, joy, and worship!
So turn off the constant news.
Read actual policy papers and proposals.
Commit to keeping your own guy accountable to his own promises, and the necessary character qualifications of the office.
Remember, they are public servants. Let’s treat them that way.
I am always struck by how little ink is spilled in the New Testament in terms of how Christians were to engage Rome and Roman leadership.
They are told to “honor the emperor” and the dignity of his office. The rest of their lives seem to have very little to do with him. What freedom.
Contextualize the Moment
Sometimes it is helpful to zoom out a little bit to see where you actually are. We have a deep desire to see the moments and places that we are connected to as the most significant in the history and geography of the world.
Zoom out in space and you will see that America continues to do better than most, and that those who live here continue to experience greater freedom and opportunity than most others in the world. While the politics here seems really wild, it could be a lot worse and that is a grace that we shouldn’t take lightly. But your zooming out will also show you a big world full of amazing places and people, all doing their best in the environments in which they are in. Most of them haven’t thought of the US presidential race today.
So … Be grateful, and humble, and a good steward of your citizenship.
Zoom out in time and you will see that this is not new or unique. American history is riddled with political violence and moments that seemed existential at the time. Go further back and you will see that the people of God have survived and thrived in situations far worse. Not everything that happens in our generation is the most important thing. They are big things, but also just things that will get chewed up in the gears of history.
Take a deep breath. We are not the most important people in the world. This is probably not the most important moment in the history of the world. It matters, but just not as much as we fear in our most anxious moments.
Refuse to Demonize or Deify People
That’s it. That’s the whole thing.
Your guy isn’t as good as you pretend he is. Don’t hide that.
The other guy isn’t as bad as your guy makes him out to be. Don’t forget that.
We are dealing with fallen people here, and yes … there are varying degrees of that fallenness playing out in varying ways in different people.
A president can’t save us. A president can’t damn us.
A president is a person. An image bearer of the Divine, tainted by their own sin.
They need what we all need.
Grace, accountability, prayer, and a fervent refusal from the people that they are commissioned to serve to worship them. Humans aren’t designed to be worshipped, or vilified.
Obey Jesus and Be the Church
At some point we made the trade that said that this moment and this movement is so important that we no longer need to resemble and obey our Lord as we take hold of it. We must repent of that.
Now is actually the time for a radical church in America, but not like the one we would be tempted to build, but one that would be radically like Christ.
Poor in spirit.
Meek.
Merciful.
Pure in heart.
Gladly persecuted peacemakers.
Salt.
Light.
Enemy forgivers.
Extra mile goers.
Cheek turners.
Narrow road walkers.
Christians.
As soon as we find ourselves in a place where our politics asks us to relinquish any of those things, then we know that we have traded our Lord for a king of this world, and that trade never works for the church.
Embrace Your Place as a Blessed Nuisance
I have been heavily influenced in my view of Christian political engagement by the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The arch and I would disagree on many things, but without him and his church I don’t know that South Africa would have survived the transition from apartheid to democracy. I had the privilege of sitting with him briefly at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service (that is a crazy story worthy of a full telling on another day) and I asked him for advice on how to play a part as a faith leader in a difficult democracy. He told me … “Go be a blessed nuisance.”
I have never forgotten the wisdom in that exhortation. The people of God are called to live as a blessed nuisance to the state.
They are a nuisance because they have their own King with His own morality and ethic from His Kingdom, and they won’t be forced to budge on it by any agencies of the state, and they are so good at serving people that the state really ends up needing them.
They are blessed though because they love God and enjoy the freedom of being so loved by Him that they are the free-est of all people to love others. You can’t stop them loving their neighbors, and their enemies! They are a blessed people sharing that blessing with all around them.
Oh friends, I am sorry if I am annoying you with simpleton reductionistic ideas. I know this is a scary and complex time, but I honestly believe that it is a time of massive opportunity for the people of God to identify themselves as those who live for another Kingdom. Yes, we honor the emperor, but we don’t kiss the ring. Yes, we participate meaningfully, but we don’t sacrifice our calls to virtue to do so.
We can get through the next few months.
We can be the people of God.
Let’s go be a blessed nuisance.
What a great word from Tutu!
Thank you for your work! This piece sums up so much of my current position and struggle. Subscribed! ✅