Let Us Not Be Divided
Donald Trump may just leave this country better than he found it.
These are words I never thought I would put on paper. In the wee hours of the morning of November 9, 2016, I wept. I could not sleep. I felt like I had awakened to a hazy fog. How could this have happened? How could my country have made this choice? How could the church have made this choice? I cried for myself as a woman. I cried for my brothers and sisters of different races, sexual orientations, creeds, and nationalities. I cried especially for my one-year-old son. What kind of world was he going to grow up in? Was this the best we could do for our children? At the time, I couldn’t see any good coming from this man being in office. What would become of us?
But here we stand a year and a half later, and I have hope. Maybe, just maybe, we will emerge from this presidency better and stronger. Maybe, just maybe, this is what it took to shake us, particularly the church, out of our complacency and force us to make a change.
Today I am seeing more and more brilliant and brave people than ever before stepping up to change the world. Today people—Christians—who may never have chosen to run for office have realized that the stakes are too high for them to sit on the sidelines any longer. Today there is a reckoning. Today the oppressed are breaking free. As it has been said many times, transformation only happens when the pain of changing becomes less than the pain of staying the same. Perhaps this is what Trump is doing and will continue to do for our country. Perhaps his crudeness and casual cruelty have brought about the amount of discomfort we need to, like an oyster, cover this irritant with layer after layer of beauty until we emerge with a pearl. Maybe under the more comfortable presence of a different leader, we would not have been shaken out of our complacency into real change.
This presidency is causing young people, the best and brightest and bravest among us, to speak out and step into positions of leadership for the very first time. This is what gives me hope: that this president will be a force for change, and not in the way he thinks he will be. He will make people angry and uncomfortable enough for there to be an actual transformation in this nation, and, hopefully, in the church.
For that I thank you, Mr. Trump. Thank you for making us so righteously angry that we will refuse to be still and silent any longer. Thank you, Mr. Trump, for pushing us over the edge and giving our country a reason to shake things up from the top down. I believe that in two and a half more years, if you last that long, we will see a very different America, and I truly believe it will be beautiful.
If you, like me, looked around at the people in the pews surrounding you in stunned disbelief after learning the results of the election, you are not alone. If you, like me, suddenly felt ostracized by a large portion of your faith community when you made your political opinions known, you are not alone. Let me encourage you to be as gentle as you are bold with other believers with whom you disagree. Many evangelicals truly believed they were doing the right thing when they voted for Donald Trump—and they still do. They still love Jesus just as much as you do. We are all still one family at the foot of the cross, brought into unity by the love of Christ Jesus.
Matthew 10:16 (NLT) says, “Look, I am sending you out as sheep among wolves. So be as shrewd as snakes and harmless as doves.” Be wise when you speak about politics. Be sure you are known by your love, particularly when you wildly disagree with the person you’re speaking to. Surround yourself with people who have a different worldview than you do, and then watch your perspective shift and grow.
Church, let us not allow this time of profound political division to divide us. Whether we agree or disagree with our brothers and sisters in Christ, let us show the world that all points of view and ways of life can come to the feet of Jesus and we can all love and accept one another.
*Note from the writer: this post solely reflects my own opinions and convictions, and not those of every writer at The Glorious Table. This post was also written several months before the separation of children from families at the border began.
Photograph © Ian Froome, used with permission
