What's Tony Thinking

Being Christian in These Times

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A lot of what I want to share with you here today is gleaned from people wiser than I.

One of those people is David French who in his Sunday column in the New York Times today zeroed in on what is most dangerous about Donald Trump, the MAGA movement, and America’s current political culture. French, as you may know is an evangelical Christian, who as an attorney (Harvard Law) spent many years working on religious liberty issues, defending churches and other religious bodies. He is a courageous and thoughtful person who, to my mind, diagnoses the core problem with Trumpism, and where it runs afoul of both Christianity and of America’s best hope.

The heart of it is this: Trump, though not he alone, nor MAGA alone, divides the world into those who are “with us” and those who are “against us.” It is a division of the world into “friend and enemy.” If you are our loyal friend and part of our group, we will protect, defend and support you, perhaps very generously and lovingly. If not, if you are our enemy (or we think you are), we will demean you, attack you and assault you — and believe that we are absolutely right and justified in doing so.

As I say, this isn’t Trump alone. You can find it on the left as well and many accuse the Biden administration of similar behavior. Still, Trump is very explicit that this is his modus operandi and his ethic. In a way, it is also his appeal, especially to some Americans who have felt forgotten. To them he says, “I see you; I’m on your side.” But as a President, this ethic creates a permission structure that is purposefully divisive, inherently threatening and always potentially violent.

That said, there is nothing new about this ethic, about dividing the world, with a very heavy line, between “friend” and “enemy,” between “us” and “them.” In some ways, it is the most natural instinct and morality in the world. But it also the basis upon which horrible evil has been done while often being given spurious moral, and religious, sanction.

Rising above the “friend/ enemy” ethic to treat with decency and respect those who are different than ourselves or with whom we disagree is the task and mark of true humanity and of a faithful Christianity. Jesus says, “You have heard it said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.'” (Matthew 5: 43 – 44). Yes, this is a tough ask. But that is the point; it is not the easy way. As Jesus says, loving those who love you is no great shakes. Anyone can do that. The test is how we treat those who don’t love us, those who have done or may do us harm.

That is the Christian part of this. There’s also an American part. It is the latter that is French’s focus today. The American experiment is one of finding ways to live peaceably together with those with whom we differ in faith, politics, race and class. A word for that is “pluralism.” A pluralistic democracy is what America has been — albeit imperfectly — from the beginning. To be a pluralistic democracy is to be a country where not everyone agrees on everything, but we live together more or less peaceably, according to rules we call “the Constitution.” Here’s French:

“[If you] Dive too deeply into the friend-enemy distinction . . . it can become immoral to treat your enemies with kindness if kindness weakens the community in its struggle against a mortal foe. In the world of the friend-enemy distinction, your ultimate virtue is found in your willingness to fight. Your ultimate vice is betraying your side by refusing the call to political war.

“You see this principle at work in Trump’s decision to pardon or commute the sentences of the Jan. 6 rioters and to revoke secret service protection from one of his former national security advisers, John Bolton, and from one of his former secretarys of state, Mike Pompeo. Friends can get away with violent crimes. Bolton and Pompeo publicly criticized Trump, and now they’re enemies who have to pay the price.”

This is, I believe, the essential moral issue facing our society today. How do we treat those who we perceive to be not “on our side” or not on “the correct side,” those not of our tribe or group, those who we may judge to be our “enemies.” (Note: Jesus does not say to us, “Have no enemies.” He says, “Love your enemies.” Neither does he say, “Like your enemies and pretend to be nice to them.” He said, “Love your enemies.” You can be fair and decent, i.e. loving to someone, without necessarily liking them.) This a challenge to all of us, left, right, center, or none of the above.

Throughout our society today we are sorely tempted to live by the “with us or against us,” “friends or enemies,” an essentially tribal ethic. I am tempted by that. But I want to give Trump a chance, and to give his supporters a hearing. I don’t want to assume that anything and everything he does is automatically evil. But I also want to name wrong when I see it as I am attempting to do here. In this vein, you know that I have been critical of group-think on the left, in for example, the DEI hegemony.

Another faithful person whose thought I would call to your attention related to this topic is Brian Zhand, the pastor of Word of Life Church in St. Joe, Missouri. Prior to our most recent election Zhand offered his own ten point, “Christian Guide to Politics.” Here are Zhand’s points. While hitting the friend/ enemy polarity above, Zhand also reminds Christians that politics is not, for us, what is ultimately important nor ultimately our hope.

1. The political process, while necessary, has little to do with how God is saving the world.

2. The fate of the kingdom of God does not depend upon political contests.

3. Don’t be naïve, political parties are more interested in Christian votes than they are in Christian values.

4. The bottom line for political parties is power. The bottom line for a Christian is love. And therein lies the rub.

5. While in pursuit of the Ring of Power, you are not permitted to abandon the Sermon on the Mount.

6. If your political passion makes it hard for you to love your neighbor as yourself, you need to turn it down a notch.

7. Your task is to bring the salt of Christian civility to an ugly and acrimonious political process.

8. To dismember the body of Christ over politics is a grievous sin.

9. Exercise your liberty to vote your conscience and conviction, while accepting that other Christians will do the same and vote differently than you.

10. It’s more important that your soul be filled with love than it is for your political team to win the game.

Finally, I want to mention the current sermon series at Bethany Presbyterian Church in the Queen Anne neighborhood of Seattle by senior pastor, Doug Kelly. It is titled, “Beyond Christian Nationalism.” The sermons are based on and in dialogue with the 1934 Barmen Declaration, the declaration of the Confessing Church taking its stand against Hitler. Barmen was the basis of a  webinar we did last year. You can pick up sermons on-line at this link to the church.

His text for the first sermon was John 14: 1 – 12, in which Jesus famously says, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but by me.” Doug pointed out that this has been used to attack other faiths and those outside the church. But this is a misuse of the text.

Jesus said these words, to his disciples as he was about to die. In other words, it was a time of extreme uncertainty and high anxiety for his followers. His words are not an attack on other religions, but an assurance to frightened insiders, to the church. And that heart of Jesus’ words to them then, is heart of his message to us today. “You can absolutely trust me.”

In the midst of all kinds of terrible threats and great anxieties, in life and in death, in life beyond death, Jesus says to you and to me, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” You can trust this. You can trust me. It is a powerful pastoral word in this, our needed time.

 

 

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