Posts tagged ‘Nation’
Election Day 2020
Election Day is one day away. And what an election season it’s been. In what has become a quadrennial ritual, campaigns have been waged, accusations have been leveled, statements that have very loose associations with the truth have been uttered, and our nation has become even more divided over politics than it already was.
It can be difficult for Christians to navigate through what feels like an exponentially increasing number of political landmines all around us. So, as we head into another Election Day fraught with fights and frights, let me remind you of two things.
First, Christians live as dual citizens. In his famous fifth-century work The City of God, the church father Augustine spoke of how Christians belong both to the City of Man and the City of God. Sadly, the City of Man is deeply disordered because of sin. Those who care only for the City of Man often gladly and unrepentantly operate in ways that involve much deception and transgression. Thus, though we may be among the City of Man, we cannot be in league with the City of Man. Our first, highest, and final allegiance must be to the City of God. This does not mean that we run away from the world, but it does mean that, in many ways, we refuse to operate like the world.
Second, the City of Man matters. For all its brokenness, God can still use what happens in the City of Man for His glory and the world’s good. This understanding of the City of Man was key to the success of the apostle Paul’s ministry. Paul, for instance, was not afraid to appeal to his Roman citizenship in the City of Man to protect himself from being mobbed (Acts 22:22-29). He also seems to have preferred his Roman name Paul to his Jewish name Saul. This is why, in the many letters he wrote to churches in the ancient world, he introduced himself as Paul rather than Saul, though he retained both names throughout his life (cf. Acts 13:9).
Why would this apostle prefer introducing himself using a pagan-sounding Roman name instead of his more traditional Jewish name? Because he fashioned himself as an apostle to people who were pagans in the City of Man – people who did not yet believe in the God of Israel and the Messiah He sent in Jesus. “I am an apostle to the Gentiles,” who were pagans, he wrote, and “I take pride in my ministry” (Romans 11:13). His Roman name – and his status as a Roman citizen – helped him reach pagan Roman citizens he may have not otherwise been able to reach with the gospel.
Some Christians can too often be tempted to leverage the resources of the City of Man primarily to win against others – political enemies, cultural contraries, and socioeconomic opposites. Paul, however, leveraged his citizenship – a gift bestowed on him by the City of Man – and his Roman name to win over people. He used what he gained from the City of Man to point people to the City of God.
In a recent article in National Review, Kevin Williamson wisely cautioned his readers: “There’s more to citizenship than voting, and partisanship is not patriotism.” Sometimes, I think we can be tempted to fall into the trap of believing the sum of our citizenship in the City of Man is winning an election through partisanship and voting. But being a good citizen in the City of Man goes so much further than that. Like Paul, may we use our citizenship in the City of Man not only to protect and further our interests, but to love and reach others.
That’s something we can all choose to do on Election Day – no matter who we vote for.
Thanksgiving Lessons From Lincoln
Credit: Luminary PhotoProject / Flickr
I have made it a tradition of sorts to read one of Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving proclamations each year during this time. His proclamations are not only extraordinarily well-crafted pieces of oratory statecraft, they are also genuinely theologically rich. In his Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1863, Mr. Lincoln recounts the blessings God has bestowed on this nation and then declares:
No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.
President Lincoln beseeches the nation to give thanks on its knees, humbly recognizing that anything it has is not due to some inherent civic merit or to some twisted theology of a manifest destiny (a concept Mr. Lincoln resolutely opposed), but to the unmerited mercy of God. In other words, the president recognized that rather than judging this nation as its sins deserved in wrath, God instead blessed this nation apart from its sins out of grace. And for this, Mr. Lincoln was thankful.
What struck me the most about President Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation as I read it this year was how the president believed divine mercy should lead to concrete action. Mr. Lincoln concludes his proclamation thusly:
I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to God for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.
In view of God’s mercy, the president invites the American people to three things: repentance, remembrance, and restoration. He invites the American people to repent of their sins, both in the North and in the South, understanding that any snooty swagger of self-righteousness can never receive mercy from God because it does not understand the need for the grace of God. He also invites the American people to a remembrance of those who are suffering – those who have become widows, orphans, and mourners in the strife of the Civil War. He finally calls the American people to restoration – to be healed from a wound of division that runs so deep that it has led Americans to take up arms against Americans.
As I reflect on the wisdom in President Lincoln’s proclamation, the words of the teacher in Ecclesiastes come to mind: “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Today, as in Mr. Lincoln’s day, examples of delusional self-righteousness abound – both among the secular and the spiritual – which close us off to appreciating and receiving God’s mercy. Today, as in Mr. Lincoln’s day, widows, orphans, and mourners still live among us, often unnoticed and sometimes even ill-regarded, suffering silently and in desperate need of our help. Today, as in Mr. Lincoln’s day, America still suffers from a wound of division, which some, almost masochistically, delight in ripping open farther and cutting into deeper for their own cynical political purposes. The problems that plagued our nation in 1863 still plague our nation today in 2017. Our problems persist. But so too does the mercy of God.
154 years later, we are still extravagantly blessed with bounty. 154 years later, our republic has not dissolved, even as it has frayed. 154 years later, God still is not treating us as our sins deserve. Our sinful rebellion, it seems, cannot thwart the tenacious grace of God. And for that, on this Thanksgiving, I am thankful.
Who’s Afraid of Election Day?
Credit: Darren McCollester / Getty Images
Tomorrow is the big day. Tomorrow, we the people turn out to vote for the next President of the United States. Though literally thousands of other politicians will be on the ballots that are cast tomorrow, the presidential election is the one that looms largest in the minds and hearts of most people. Indeed, I’ve heard it repeated over and over again throughout the course of this political season that “this is the most important presidential election of our lifetimes.” I honestly do not know whether or not it is. I do know that Walter Mondale told a crowd in 1984, “This is the most important election of our lives.” I would argue that history has probably proven him wrong. And history, eventually, may prove today’s claim about the importance of this election wrong – or, perhaps, right. We’ll just have to wait and see.
But whether or not voters and pundits prove to be historically correct in their estimation of the weightiness of this election, I do know that the immediate perceived importance of this election is enormous and is engendering deep fear in the minds and hearts of many. I have had conversation after conversation with people who are scared of what has happened and what will happen to our political system and to our nation.
This past weekend, I listened to a sermon on the topic of this year’s election. The pastor who preached this sermon argued forcefully, powerfully, and, at times, eloquently for what he believed about this election and even for whom he believed we, as Christians, should vote in this election. But what struck me most about this pastor’s sermon was its closing. He ended by talking about two fears that he has for the future of this nation. First, he explained his fear that there may be too many of “them” and too few of “us.” He sees postmodern secularism winning over the masses and driving Christianity to the fringes and he is worried that there is nothing we can do politically to beat it back. Second, he expressed his worry that we may simply be too late to make any difference. He thinks too many Christians have been too silent for too long, and now a day of reckoning has come.
Politically, this pastor seemed very knowledgeable. Theologically, however, if I can be so bold to say this, as I listened to his sermon, I became more and more convinced that he missed something very important. Here’s why I say that.
First, if anyone thinks that there are too many of “them” and too few of “us,” I would encourage that person to read the story of Gideon. When God takes the army Gideon has mustered to fight the Midianites and reduces it in force from 32,000 men to 300 men – a reduction of over 99 percent – it looks like there is no way Gideon and his tiny army can defeat the massive army of a whole tribe of people. But God specializes in doing great things when there are too many of “them” and too few of “us.” God made a whole nation out of one man Abraham. God redeemed a whole people from slavery through one man Moses. God changed the whole course of human history through twelve men He deemed “apostles.” And God brought salvation to our whole world in one man He calls His Son. God can do a lot with a little.
Second, if anyone thinks it is simply too late, I would point that person to the story of Jesus’ friend Lazarus. When Jesus learns that His friend has fallen ill, rather than rushing to see him, He waits for him to die. Why? Because, as Jesus says to Martha, He is “the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). Even death is not too late for Jesus because He can snatch life from the jaws of death. When the hour on our clock strikes eleven and we begin to struggle and scramble, Jesus can bring forth a new dawn that we never saw coming.
What struck me most about this pastor’s sermon is that although he issued a clear call to his congregation to get out and vote, he never explicitly reminded his congregation to have faith – to trust in the One who holds everything from your house to the White House in His hands.
Politics has a bias toward action. Legislation gets passed when deals get made. Public officials are elected when votes are cast. Social change can be engineered when Supreme Court verdicts are rendered. Action is important to politics. But as Christians, we must remember that the centerpiece of who we are is not in what we do, but in whom we believe. “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31). Faith is the centerpiece of our life in Christ.
I think it’s this that gets to the root of our fear. Because if we get so stuck on the action of our vote and the action of our legislators and the action of some guy or gal who sits in an office that is shaped like an oval that we forget that our hope is nothing that we have done, are doing, will do, or can do, then we’ve missed what’s most important. Because we’ve missed Jesus. And you don’t get Jesus by action. You only get Jesus through faith. There’s a reason the Psalmist says, “When I am afraid, I put my trust in You” (Psalm 56:3).
So, if you are afraid of the outcome of this election and the future of this country, go ahead and vote, but don’t expect your vote to calm your fears. Because your fears cannot be calmed by electoral majority. Your fears can only be calmed by a Savior who died for you and me.
Trust in Him.
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