Happy Veterans Day to the 18 million Americans who have served in the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, and Coast Guard. We pray as well for the 1.3 million on active duty. They all served and serve to defend the greatest democracy in the world as it struggles toward perfection.
Notwithstanding their courage and strength, it feels fragile today. A democracy has never lasted as long as ours in as diverse a setting. Nothing in scripture or history gives us permission to assume the American experiment will succeed. Making sure it does will be the work of every individual and institution, including the church.
Which means, let’s face it, we’re all going to keep hearing about politics in sermons, coffee hour discussions, and Bible study. A church has a sanctuary but isn’t one. It’s a base camp for Christians’ work in the world, glorifying God and caring for God’s people. If you’re worried about the IRS, here are the basics. Church leaders can’t use the pulpit or official church publications to endorse candidates in partisan contests. But we can speak our minds almost whenever we want.
Our challenge (and I have failed in this so often) is to do so in a way that everyone, no matter what they believe, feels seen, respected, and fed. If I feel I have to say something because I’m upset or sad, just to get it off my chest, if I think some of the people in the pews or parish hall are part of the problem, stand-ins for whatever I’m angry at, my witness might not be ready for prime time. Hence the typical, soberer “on the one hand, on the other hand” sermon. Nevertheless, on this day of national thanksgiving, I offer a word to both hands.
To my progressive siblings, first, please don’t blame or condemn all Trump or Republican voters. In a two-party system, candidates hold their polar places in the never-ending left-right push-pull. If I want government working harder to solve problems, I vote for Democrats. If I want lower taxes and regulation, I vote for Republicans. It’s getting more complicated these days, because Democrats are getting less liberal and Republicans a lot less classically conservative. Still, even when a party chooses a lousy nominee, tens of millions of voters will still conclude they have nowhere else to go, because they don’t want the other side’s policies.
If you’re unsure about this, and you know Republican voters, ask yourself how many are racists, misogynists, or transphobic. To my knowledge, none I know is principally animated by prejudice. Knowing someone makes it hard to lump them into a faceless mass enabling all I fear. If we don’t know many voters on the other side, that’s a factor causing our malaise and deepening our paralyzing dread.
Besides, if half of us are bigots, it means the United States has gotten so bad that democracy is finished. I don’t think that’s how humanity works. We have twists and turns, but over time, bit by bit, it tends to get better. Besides, this is exactly what some on the right said when they lost. Republicans hadn’t won a popular vote for president since 2004, causing some to insist that pluralism and democracy were incompatible. They totally forget that argument last Tuesday, when they also fell back in love with free and fair elections. Progressives should resist the impulse to go down the same road, if only because pessimism saps the power to work for change.
Second, elections are almost always about economics. Don’t overlook worsening income disparity as a principal factor in Trump’s win, influencing white voters, voters of African descent, Hispanic/Latinx voters, and AAPI voters — in other words, all voters. Most people don’t have time to follow politics as much as you and I. But everyone is an expert about the life they’re living. Millions switch back and forth based on how they feel things are going. Trump and Bernie Sanders both get this. In a globalizing, digitalizing service economy, when so many good jobs have gone overseas, those with less education are having more trouble keeping their heads above water, and inflation made it worse. It was also easy to convince them that immigration hurts them.
Because political elites still by and large work for global capitalism, folks who feel left behind are less invested in political niceties and constitutional norms. As we know from the news, amid post-COVID inflation and immigration anxiety, incumbents have lost power all over the democratic world. President Biden was so unpopular that his reelection would have been almost impossible. As part of his administration, Vice President Harris’s chances were never good. A benefit to this way of thinking is that it breeds optimism on the losing side. The midterm elections, almost always a report card on incumbents, are less than two years away.
And now a word to my conservatives siblings. First, they may well feel under attack because of overly broad accusations of prejudice. The church especially should not make people feel that way. But it’s important to remember that not all grievances are created equal. Because of the nature of Trump’s rhetoric, millions feel attacked because of their very personhood. Having one’s taxes raised, or losing ground because of income disparity, feels different that being singled out and attacked, or having loved ones singled out and attacked, because of their race, nationality, orientation, or identification. Feeling that you are in a worse economic position because of immigration is different than how you feel when soldiers knock down your front door and take away your father and mother. Hating abortion, as almost everyone does, is different than having your rights torn away and health endangered.
Second, if you’re a churchgoer, be prepared for prophetic preaching, especially about immigration and abuses of power. Trump vowed to round up and deport 12 million of our neighbors, and he said it would be bloody. Let’s pray he doesn’t. It would be both savage and stupid, since 45% of our agricultural workers are undocumented, and he has promised to bring down prices, not drive them up. He has also vowed to use government to hurt journalists and his political enemies. A free people must find such behavior intolerable, as they did when my former boss Richard Nixon abused his power. Because of Trump’s attempted coup in 2020-21, we know that he is contemptuous of constitutional constrains and capable of fomenting violence. Again, we may pray he will govern more wisely. And I do. But he lost access to the benefit of the doubt when he did nothing for 187 minutes as his mob sacked the Capitol.
If Trump does as he has promised and starts hurting innocent people, the church must speak up. His first bloody roundup or persecution of a prosecutor or an FBI agent who investigated him will be a trip wire. Reading this, you may be thinking that it would be better for the church to avoid these subjects all together. By and large, it hasn’t. And it mustn’t now. Jesus Christ embraced and amplified the witness of John the Baptist, who called on the privileged to share what they had and on those in authority not to abuse their power. This remains the witness of the church, now and forever.
But Jesus also commanded us to love our neighbor and adversary. We can’t love people without knowing them. The word love has no meaning separate from relationship. Saying we love faceless masses of people is not much more helpful than deciding we hate them. So Jesus was actually commanding us to know one another better. That means listening to and learning from those who disagree.
Let us followers of the Risen One, at least, decide that in our families, friend circles, churches, workplaces, sports leagues, and classrooms, we’ll resist the impulse of emotional cutoff. Let’s have an encouraging Word for everyone when we preach and teach. Let’s give the church the latitude it needs to do what is right. And if you haven’t hugged a Trump or Harris voter lately, please do it soon — and if you don’t know one, please find one. They still may be where you least expect, hiding in plain sight.
[Photo: David Kennerly]