You would be hard-pressed to find anyone who views this year’s Presidential election situation as “normal.” In the one corner, we have a celebrity with no political experience; in the other, we have a former president’s wife. Both candidates are incredibly controversial, which has led many to proclaim they will “simply” choose the lesser of two evils.
Except for a large group of Americans, Christian and otherwise, their choice isn’t evil. While Trump may have seemed like a joke at first, we are now seeing people who legitimately want him as president and view him as the best choice for making America “great again.” They applaud his ability to speak his mind and perceive him as being the next logical step to correct our Obama-stained nation. And for those who are in Hillary’s camp, the desire to be #neverTrump has convinced many to look at this woman (a woman running for President! Let that sink in for a moment) as someone who may actually have a chance to continue Obama’s legacy of civil rights and protection. Surely her appeals to minority demographics and attempts to ensure individual freedoms are something to vote for, right?
The point is this: we like who we like, and even when we try to couch our words in niceties and vagueness, we really don’t believe our choices are evil. When we accuse others of wasting their vote when they choose a third party to satisfy their consciences, we ignore the fact we are voting according to our conscience, as well. If we truly believed the candidate we were voting for were evil, even if they were a lesser evil, wouldn’t that be enough to stop us? Aren’t we, as Christians, so appalled by the existence of evil, something that necessitated the incarnation and resurrection, that we would want to abstain from it as much as possible? Our actions and policies, whether against/towards same-sex marriage, abortion, and alcohol, seem to indicate this is the case. If we are against evil in other fronts, would it not make sense that we truly do not believe our votes are actually “evil,” despite what we may tell ourselves and others?1This ultimately ties into another point which requires a gravitas I am not qualified to speak on. We are living in a day and age when we will protect a political candidate’s reputation with the claim, “You don’t know them, so you have no room to speak,” but if a black man or woman is killed by law enforcement, we will scramble to their county’s court records to find every police report possible so we can justify what happened. At this point, our depravity is evident, to say the least, but this topic deserves an entire article of its own.
All of this is said to bring up an incredibly important point: we are not handling this election season well. Time and time again, instead of finding ways to actually engage with one another in regards to the future of our nation, we resort to blind and hateful rhetoric. We assume if someone is pro-Trump, they must be racist and homophobic; how could anyone in their right mind ever support such a man? Or if someone is voting for Hillary, they clearly have some kind of backsliding going on in their life and don’t care about the lives of unborn babies, considering all Democrats are abortion fetishists in their free time. Instead of listening to others, we immediately assume what kind of people they are by their political choices and relegate them to the “other” before we even know what is happening.
Even more than not listening to others, we try to pull the Jesus card when someone is attacking our candidate. I will confess: I know more pro-Trump Christians than the alternative, so I can only speak to my experience here. However, if we take a position of, “Who are you to judge this man? You don’t know him! God could use him for a mighty work!”, while simultaneously using slurs such as “Hitlery,” we are admitting: 1) we are blind to our own biases and 2) we really don’t know what Jesus is about.
First, our biases. Why is it that Trump can be used by God, but Clinton cannot? It is rare that I have heard a conservative Christian say, “I may not like Obama, but I know God is using him for furthering the kingdom.” Instead, the rhetoric is typically all about Obama being the anti-Christ or some other apocalyptic fear-mongering pitch that ends up slandering the man. The same can be said about Hillary Clinton, as well. Yet numerous pastors and publications have had no problem writing article after article about how, despite Trump’s “rough edges,” God is going to raise him up to do a “mighty work” in our day and age.
Next, Jesus’ message. Although it would be unfair to discuss either candidate’s salvational “status,” so to speak, Jesus does give us plenty of room to judge a tree by its fruit. While we all are in need of grace and forgiveness, there is something telling when a tree only produces fruit that benefits a certain kind of person and inspires them to hate and discriminate against others; fruit that grows in the soil of death and subjugation of innocent human beings. No matter what we tell ourselves, we rarely have a problem with judging. Instead, we get defensive when someone judges the person we support. The respect we demand for our choice is rarely reciprocated to the other, if at all.
None of this is to diminish the flaws our two major candidates have. Both Trump and Clinton are no strangers to controversy and unethical behaviors, and I am truly dismayed at our choices, outside of a third party candidate (ones that, if I can be frank, I am not enthralled over, either). The office of President, all pomp and frills aside, is a huge deal, and one day, I hope we will see someone in the Oval Office who truly loves peace and desires to bring healing to this country and our neighbors, as well. I would love to see a Commander in Chief willing to dismantle our drones, or at least be willing to repurpose them for some kind of peacemaking activity (supply drops? Rescue missions?). It would also be refreshing to see a candidate who is truly pro-life, not just pro-birth, to the extent of abolishing capital punishment and structurally reforming the criminal justice system, which some have called the New Jim Crow.2Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New York: The New Press, 2012), 11.
Alas, our reality is this: we are faced with Trump, Clinton, and a handful of third party candidates. There is no point of lamenting over what could have been; we have to play with the hand we’ve been dealt. However, what this means is we can actually take steps to handle ourselves ethically, responsibly, and charitably. If we call ourselves Christians and claim to take Jesus’ life and example seriously, whether during his ministry or on the cross, then it should be telling if we use the Gospels to justify our anger, insults, or accusations rather than acts of forgiveness, love, and grace (“But Jesus called the Pharisees a Brood of Vipers! But Jesus drove out the money changers! But Jesus… But Jesus…”).
The author of John wrote that “[n]o one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (15:13). Maybe we are not at a place where we are being called to follow Jesus here literally, but it would serve us well to take Jesus’ words seriously all the same when it comes to how we treat and interact with others. Do we really want the world to see us being obsessed with bickering and infighting? Or would we not demonstrate the kingdom more through peacemaking and reconciliation?
What does it mean to truly follow Jesus during times like these?
References
| 1. | ↑ | This ultimately ties into another point which requires a gravitas I am not qualified to speak on. We are living in a day and age when we will protect a political candidate’s reputation with the claim, “You don’t know them, so you have no room to speak,” but if a black man or woman is killed by law enforcement, we will scramble to their county’s court records to find every police report possible so we can justify what happened. At this point, our depravity is evident, to say the least, but this topic deserves an entire article of its own. |
| 2. | ↑ | Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New York: The New Press, 2012), 11. |