Saturday, November 12, 2016

What's a person to do?

Just saw this by Ed Stetzer. Very good. Here's a snippet:
Half of Americans, and the vast majority of white Evangelicals, have elected soon-to-be President Trump. Most Evangelicals I know did so because they felt he was the best, flawed, choice they had. But, the results (and the hurt) is still here—and real.

Like many, it is my hope that Donald Trump’s presidency will be better than his campaign—that Trump will be a better President than he has been a person. But regardless, the Church must be the Church.

White Evangelicals owe it to their minority brothers and sisters in Christ, and ultimately all, to care, but also to help bring change in the Church and beyond.

<idle musing>
Indeed! I long-ago shed the label "evangelical" because of the political baggage it carries. If pressed, I would probably say I am an 18th-century evangelical in the mold of a John Wesley, who was a social progressive, establishing schools for the miners' children, appointing women to positions of authority in the Methodist movement, and standing against slavery. Somewhere along the line, probably around 1980, the Evangelical movement in the U.S. completely lost the social progressiveness and became a Republican stronghold (it had been moving that direction, but that seems to be the watershed moment).

Whomever you voted for, if you are a Christian of any stripe, you are called by God to be an agent of peace and reconciliation. The mood of the country right now is not one of peace and reconciliation. Scripture says that they will know Christians by their love. Hmmm...last time I checked love didn't mean insulting people, attacking people, etc.—and I'm talking about both left and right here. Stetzer is correct. Scripture is very clear that we need to stand with the poor, the immigrant, the marginalized.

How to do that is the question that I'm grappling with right now. I live in a small community (1500 people) that is overwhelmingly white—after all, it's made up of Scandinavians! We're five hours from a major metropolitan area. What can I do? That's the question that I'm laying before God.

Yes, I will (continue to) pray. But what else is God calling me to do?

If, God forbid, Muslims are ordered to wear armbands, I will follow the example of the Danish when the Jews were commanded to wear a star of David armband, and wear one even though I am not Muslim. But before things get that far along (if they do), what can I do?

Just musing out loud here...
</idle musing>

2 comments:

kaleidme said...

I'm trying to figure this out, too. I'm wearing a safety pin, but I'm not sure that's nearly enough.

jps said...

Yes. I agree, it's not enough. Debbie and I were just discussing this yesterday on our walk.

Let's talk some more in San Antonio.

James