Let Go, My Soul

Every now and then I touch on a topic on my social media that stirs up drama on my newsfeed.  My friends have dubbed it my “annual injustice rant,” haha.  But it usually just ends with me up giving up social media for a month to recover from the nastiness in the comment section.  Trust me, 99 times out of 100, the wise thing to do is to keep my mouth shut (at least publicly) on controversial things.  But then there are those times when I know silence is no longer the right thing.  Times like now.

I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel here or say the exact same thing one billion Christian bloggers have already said.  I’m definitely not the only evangelical Christian who is troubled by Donald Trump, that’s for sure.  But some of you still feel like you “have” to vote for him and there is one reason that keeps coming up, even among Christians that I highly respect and deeply love.  I spoke with a really good friend who falls into that category over the weekend about her struggle to reconcile her feelings about Trump with her strong conservative political beliefs.  I’m grateful I got to talk about this with her and it gave me a lot to think and pray about.

I’m referring to the fear most conservatives have around Supreme Court nominees. We all know there is a vacant seat today and that there will likely be several others in the next 4-8 years (side note: if I was one of those older judges, I’d be a little ticked that people were talking so flippantly about my imminent death.) My friend made the point that a liberal Supreme Court would likely make decisions that would, among other things (that I won’t address here for the sake of time, but I’m not ignorant to), push the church even further to the outskirts (i.e. losing our 501(c)(3) status), or possibly even allow for persecution (a term I use loosely considering what our brothers and sisters around the world experience). It’s a valid point, to be sure, but it doesn’t hold much weight with me for a few reasons:

1.  I don’t believe Donald Trump is a man of integrity and I don’t believe, no matter how many times James Dobson says it (shout out to my mom for putting me onto “Preparing for Adolescence” when I was like 10), that he is a new believer in Christ.  I get that we are all broken and in need of grace.  Boy, do I get that.  On any given day you might find my heart to be painfully unrepentant.  But because I am in Christ it doesn’t stay there.  The fruit of a true believer in Christ is repentance.  That’s Gospel 101.  And Donald Trump has said, and continues to say, that there is nothing he needs to ask forgiveness for.  He doesn’t know the Jesus I know or his “apologies” would not consist of excuses around “locker room talk” and “I’m sorry you were offended” lines. His track record shows that he looks out for himself, he shows little loyalty, and he is a firm believer that “money talks.”  So when it comes to Supreme Court nominees, I have every reason to believe he would appoint whomever serves his own interests and his own pockets, and at best might nominate a few moderates.   Plus, even if I believed he would nominate the most conservative judges in the nation, it’s not enough to trade my soul for.  Which brings me to my next point…

2. I think the American church could stand to experience some actual persecution.  Not the kind where people reply “Happy Holidays” to our “Merry Christmas” or take away our beloved Starbucks cup.  I’m pretty sick of the “it’s okay to be anything but a Christian these days” line I hear way too often from people in the church.  Who cares?  Come at us.  If people disagreeing with you or calling you intolerant feels like persecution, you should really read up on what’s going on in the church around the world.  The bible is so clear that suffering and persecution are not only to be expected, but they are good things, as they help us identify even further with our Christ, who experienced suffering and persecution beyond anything we ever will.  We are so tied to our preferences and our comfort.  Maybe if we were forced to give some of them up, we would look more like the church as described in Acts 2:

42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts,47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful for my churches 501(c)(3) status and the fact that we are able to pay our pastor a salary so that he can devote himself to the church and community.  But you know what would happen if we couldn’t do that?  He would go get a job and he would still lead us faithfully.  Or we would figure out a way to support him even without any tax perks for ourselves.  Maybe we’d even have the joy of selling our possessions to do so.

How did we get here? How did we become so concerned with protecting ourselves?  There is absolutely nothing in the scripture that lends itself to this mindset.  It’s so contrary to what Jesus said and did, and yet it is such a common attitude in the church.  Our own preferences, even our own safety, is soooooo far down on the list of things we should be concerning ourselves with as believers in Christ.

3. The whole “but Hillary!,” “but abortion!”, “but <insert hot conservative topic here>!” argument does not make a ton of sense to me.  First, because speaking out about Trump does not mean my vote is going to Hillary and I also don’t believe a “vote against X is a vote for Y.”  I’m looking into many of the third party candidates and if there is one that I can vote for and still sleep at night, I will.

Second, I care deeply about many conservative issues, particularly the life of the unborn.  DEEPLY.  I could write entire books about my feelings on the sanctity of life at every stage, so please don’t mishear me.  But I cannot trade an overall disregard for life (see Trump’s comments about immigrants, Muslims, women, anyone he doesn’t like…) for his alleged stance on pro-life issues (which have basically already been settled at the highest level of the courts, and even Bush’s Republican House & Congress were not able to overturn, lest we forget).  I would much rather spend my time, and the church’s time, showing that we care about life from more than just a legislative standpoint, which if we’re all being honest, is something at which we have epically failed.

* One more thing to note here.  I always hesitate to use statistics because it’s so easy to skew them or not consider all the factors when presenting them, so hopefully you’ll take these with a grain of salt and pay more attention to my other points.  But it felt important enough to note that statistics do show that overall abortion rates actually decrease significantly under pro-choice presidents (~13% during Obama’s presidency, for instance), possibly because they tend to focus more on factors that cause women to choose abortion in the first place (think homelessness, unemployment, health care, insurance, child care) and less on legislating the actual act of abortion.   I don’t mention this to champion a pro-choice stance, but more so to help you understand that choosing a pro-choice candidate is not necessarily taking a “pro-abortion” stance.  If we truly want to see less abortions, it may be wise to ask ourselves if we care more about our president’s beliefs on abortion or their results on abortion.

4. I don’t have my own children yet (though as you can see above, I have the sweetest and cutest nephews and niece in the world), but if I did, I could not imagine looking at them and telling them that I voted for a man that thinks it acceptable to grab a women’s pussy (if you’re offended by that word, me too.  Remember that’s a direct quote.) without her consent because he felt like it and knew he could get away with it, all because I was scared of an unjust Supreme Court appointment.  Or that I ignored the absolutely devastating plight of millions of immigrants and refugees because I was worried one of those millions might rob me or blow up my shopping mall.  Can you imagine teaching your young child about her identity as a beloved daughter of the most high God and then sitting down with her and watching even some of Trump’s tamer and less profane comments about women?  I can’t.  And I won’t. My future children will likely hear about all this one day and if they do, I look forward to telling them why I stood against this man.

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So there you have it.  I know many of you don’t share my Christian faith or my political beliefs, and many of you who do have already made up your minds on the election.  This blog may not be for you or even make much sense to you, though I’d welcome your thoughts or questions about anything I’ve said.  Please know that my heart is not to attack those of you who are considering voting for Trump, but rather to share with you where I’ve landed on it in hopes that it could help you as you are deciding what to do.  Please don’t take my word for it though.  Everything I’ve written here has come from a lot of prayer and searching the scripture and begging God for wisdom.  Please do the same.  Our opinions are pretty worthless if they don’t come from a heart that is seeking him.

The last thing I will say is this – as Christians, we are called to be fearless.  The bible literally calls out fear (outside of the holy fear of the Lord) and worry as sinful and a sign of a lack of faith.   There is no place for fear in our lives, and we ultimately have nothing to fear, with this election or with anything that is to come.  Please don’t cast your vote out of fear.  Maybe it will help you to read through the Old Testament and take comfort in the fact that Trump and Hillary got nothing on Ahab, or Herod, or Nebuchadnezzar, or Amon, or a ton of other rulers you can read up on.  I’m not scared of who becomes president, or who gets nominated to the Supreme Court.  We’re all going to be just fine, maybe even better than we were before this election put our faith and our priorities to the test.