Tag Archives: faith

Responding to Trump

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)

Cynicism and parenting

‘I’d rather be gullible than cynical’

Sometimes you hear a phrase that feels a bit like a punch to the gut – striking unexpectedly and leaving you reeling. I had that sensation a bit over a year ago, listening to Pete Greig reflect on a podcast about the Asbury outpouring. It has stuck with me since.

The slow dismantling of a weary cynicism was a major arena where I experience God’s gentle grace during my sabbatical last summer. It was a fight I then carried into the months that followed as I returned to ministry with all of the frustrations, stresses and tensions inherent to all meaningful work this side of new creation.

I long to be more buoyant and less reserved. I long for more delight, laughter and play. And I long to worry and brood a whole lot less.

I want to live with the unspeakable, effervescent joy of someone who believes in the resurrection. But all too often, I live deflated, turned inwards, pre-occupied by my little concerns and hurts, frustrated at things that don’t go exactly how I want them to, or just a bit scared and worn out by so much in our world that is not right.

I grow cynical.

I grow old.

Now, there is a type of growing old that I long for – a maturation, a softening of hard-edges, an uninhibited intimacy with God and others, an eroding of ego, a confidence in who I am and a disinterest in trying to be anyone else, a depth of peace and poise – the kind that comes not from comfort and ease, but from the long obedience of showing up and giving yourself away. Some people call this sort of holy aging a ‘second naivete.’  

But holy aging is rare. It does not seem to be a given. More often, growing old seems to come with unresolved baggage, festering wounds, a narrowing of horizon and a raising of drawbridges. A turning in on oneself rather than out to others. Cynicism.

Right now, parenting feels like it presents me with a daily choice. Which sort of aging do I want? The way of cynicism, or the way of the second naivete?

It could wear me down, I could despise the monotony and seek refuge in escapism, I could lick the wounds of my exhaustion, cultivate self-pity, fantasise all the ‘what-ifs’ of different life decisions, and see these years as a struggle for survival. Honestly, this feels like the pull of the tide.

Or… or I could see these precious days before the routine of school as opportunities to nurture attachment, to attune with and delight in this awesome gift of a boy who God has entrusted to our care. And I could see the monotony itself as a deep invitation.

A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may that he has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father in younger than we.

GK Chesterton

Another punch to the gut.

But a good one. A welcome one. One that I need to hear over and over.

I don’t know if it will get easier over time. Perhaps. But right now making this choice to become the father and the man that I want to be, not the one that my apathy and lethargy drag me towards, is hard. I’m very much not nailing it.

But if being clear on the destination is a big part of the journey, then I am at least progressing. As always, it’s a long obedience in the same direction.