There will be no shortage of reaction to the US election over the coming days and weeks. I spent a good chunk of Tuesday night holding a week-and-a-half old baby and anxiously refreshing my news feed as the results trickled in. Sleep deprivation and paternal emotions didn’t exactly help, but as the night wore on and the outlook got bleaker, I found myself, like many others no doubt, moving through a whole cocktail of anger, despair and fear.
While the consequences of a second Trump presidency will be unavoidably global, not being American, I don’t exactly have skin in the game. The voices of those who will be far more directly impacted ought to be listened to far more attentively than mine, writing from the comfort of distance. But writing is the best means I know of processing, so here are some raw reflections on how I want to respond. Grief, perspective and resilience.
Grief
I’m recognising already a desire in me to move to activity and solutions. But I don’t want to move too fast through the grief of this moment.
I don’t think that Harris was a perfect candidate and there’s plenty about the Democratic party that I don’t love. Like everyone else, I’m bringing all my own biases and preferences into this election, but this isn’t grief because my team didn’t win. I spend my time cultivating young leaders of character, faithfulness and integrity, and Trump is the antithesis of just about everything that we teach. And worst of all, he does it with the blessing of the vast majority of white evangelicals.
So, grief is, I think, an entirely appropriate response and one which I don’t want to move through too fast. It is right, in this moment, to give voice to the suffering of those now living in heightened fear. It is right to grieve the cultural captivity of white evangelicalism and the many factors that created a discipleship culture willing to compromise biblical and moral integrity for a taste of power.[1] It is right to grieve the social dislocation that has left so many feeling left behind and aggrieved. And it is right to grieve the inability of urban, globalist ‘anywhere’ progressives to empathize with the predominantly rural ‘somewheres’ who are drawn to Trump.[2] Like so many left-leaning political parties at the moment, the Democrats seem to be guilty of treating their opponents with dehumanising and condescending derision, all the while failing to tell a better story than the populist, nostalgia-ridden nativism of MAGA.
Perspective
One thing we don’t need right now is another straight, white, male, middle-class Christian leader telling us that it will be ok. That’s why we mustn’t deny or avoid the grief. But just as the psalms of lament are directed at God, perspective in the midst of grief is important.
I need to remember that my loyalty is not ultimately to a party, or a nation state, or even to liberal democracy. I prefer certain parties to others, I’m grateful to live in the UK, and I certainly would choose liberal democracy out of all the options available. But my life is centred on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and that means that my allegiance is to him and my hope is in his Kingdom. That faith propels me to join in with his mission to push back chaos and darkness and work for peace, justice and fruitfulness in the world. But it also protects me from buying into the secular mythology of progress – the idea that history is moving up and to the right. My faith teaches me that we are living in the overlap of the old world of death and decay and God’s new world of justice and wholeness – what theologians call the ‘now and not yet’. With this perspective, I shouldn’t be surprised when power ends up in the hands of those who ought not to be trusted with it. Of course, we fight to elect leaders who will serve the common good. We grieve, we intercede, we hold to account, and (where no other options remain) we non-violently resist when that is not the case. But we also acknowledge that for as long as Sin, chaos and evil are on the loose, any political progress this side of new creation will be compromised and provisional at best. We work and hope for the flourishing of our neighbours, but we’re also realistic in our expectations. We can’t build the kingdom without the King.
Resilience
Resilience isn’t about grit, or optimism, or stubborn idealism. It’s a gift we receive. It’s about a sure and steadfast hope that charges the struggle with resurrection purpose and allows us to adapt, to grow and keep going even when things are dark and hard and costly.
We mustn’t move too fast into activity. We need to allow the space to grieve. But what if we choose to see this moment as a summons?
If crisis precedes renewal, then could this moment of cultural captivity, theo-political idolatry and evangelical hypocrisy be a barren dessert poised for springs of newness and rebirth? I want to be careful – there are no easy answers or silver linings here.
For those of us convicted that Jesus is Lord (and not any president, nation state or ideology), for those of us that see love of God expressed not in the in puritanical policing of boundaries but in how we treat the most vulnerable in our societies, and for those of us who trust that the kingdom comes not through might and power but through suffering love, there is work to do.
The antidote to the bad is the practice of the good. If there is much within white American evangelicalism that has contributed to the ethical incongruence of electing Trump a second time, then it’s on us not simply to call out all that is wrong, but to tell and live out a better story.
That’s not a call to frantic, restless activity. That will get us nowhere. It’s a call to devote our lives to the slow, patient work of becoming the sorts of disciples capable of seeking justice faithfully, sustainably and holistically. That means rooting ourselves in the full, redemptive story of the bible. That means living out a politics which cares for the most vulnerable, which refuses to allow ends to justify means and which cannot be co-opted by any party or ideology. That means the unglamorous daily decisions to choose the way of suffering love over comfort, convenience and self-promotion.
[1] Soong-Chan Rah, Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times (Downers Grove: IVP, 2015)
[2] David Goodheart, The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics (London: Penguin, 2017)
Notes From the Potting Shed 