Dear Christian Brothers and Sisters,
We need to talk.
For those of us who seek to live out our Christian values in the public arena, we must admit that our present binary politics — and our present president — have taken those values to a new low.
We can do better than this.
It’s time we had a come-to-Jesus conversation. It’s actually way past time.
So here we are moving toward the exit of the twentieth century with a religious community largely adjusted to the status quo, standing as a taillight behind other community agencies rather than a headlight leading men to higher levels of justice.
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham City Jail
That said, I do understand if you cast your ballot for President Trump believing that it would somehow defend your Christian values by any means necessary.
I do. I understand.
I understand if you struggle to know how to defend Christian values in the public sphere. Even Jesus’s own disciples struggled to understand the interplay of grace and the law. And I understand if you have decided to draw the line of your Christian values along such issues as abortion, marriage equality, or even immigration.
I even understand if, whatever your feelings about Hilary, you just couldn’t allow yourself to invite back to the White House a formerly impeached president who disgraced the office with his missteps and lies.
And if you the reader can’t understand how any thinking person would have voted for President Trump, you need to start making some new friends. Or just start listening to the family and friends you used to have before you decided to sever ties with them to defend your principles.
It’s time we left our own echo chambers by broadening the definition of “friend” beyond “people who share my values.” What about including people with whom you share some history; or a future. If you’re still only talking to people who agree with you — and hoping for a different political reality than the one we’re watching unfold — you’re helping perpetuate the conditions that got us here in the first place.
But the presidency of Donald Trump is not the answer. This is not who we are.
Too many believers have allowed the dangerous mix of publicly proclaimed Christian values and privately concealed human fears to lead to an utter lack of creative compassion for “the undeserving other.”
It’s time we reconnect with the progressive compassion and creativity of our identity as Christians — as freely loved, freely forgiven children of God — becoming more like Christ in all His bravery and love.
Grace is free. People are precious. God is just.
It’s time we started acting like it.
It’s time for a conversation about who we are becoming as a people; not as a nation, but as a people. Nations are human constructs. People are not. People are divinely created beings. So let’s talk about them as such. We cannot advocate for our Christian values and at the same time treat people as if their lives don’t matter. Yes, all lives matter, not just black lives. But it’s time we wake up to the shameful reality that black Americans still have many reasons to believe that “all” does not yet include them.
It’s time we defend the rights of the other in the same way we defend those who we would call our own. It’s time we stop acting as if the plight of the other couldn’t have just as easily befallen us. We all get handouts, Christians especially. There are no deserving recipients of grace. That’s why it’s called grace. So what about the immigrant, the poor, the imprisoned, the illegal? What about second chances?
And whatever your stance on abortion, gay marriage, or anything else, we have to separate Christian values from one-dimensional interpretations of hot-button issues as if there is no room in our beliefs for a new, progressive, compassionate politics.
It’s way past time for something different.
If I understand anything about the gospel, it’s a story about God’s commitment to real-life people exactly as they are, and Christ’s ability to awaken those people to who they are becoming. Jesus personifies God’s commitment to people as they are in a way that forever changes who they are becoming.
The gospel is a story of grace. And anyone who calls themselves a Christian does so by the same provision of grace. You may not have accepted it yet, but everything of value in your life is a gift. Jesus did the work to welcome you in. And He does so freely, in love. Love for you. Love for me. Love for others.
So what are we — the recipients of God’s grace — what are we doing with that gift as we claim to protect the values of our nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all? Have we no model for what justice and grace look like together? Do we not know how to overflow with the love that we ourselves have received? Or have we not allowed ourselves to receive that love, let alone give it? Do we not know how to see others as divine creations on a path of being renewed while also upholding laws that are just and fair?
And what is justice?
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8
If the current political climate is the best we can muster as a response to the needs of our country — of our people — then it may also be time for a third, socially progressive party that gives answer to the question of how to live our Christian values of grace and justice in the public sphere.
Because we can do better than this.
