Now What?

At that time, some Pharisees came up and said to Jesus, “Get away from here, because Herod wants to kill you.” But he said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Look, I am casting out demons and performing healings today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will complete my work'" (Luke 13:31-32).

This passage from yesterday's gospel reading speaks to how I believe I'm to live my life on this side of the 2024 election. That Donald Trump is a fox, I have no doubt. While modern Western culture tends to associate a fox with cleverness, biblically, a fox can indicate an insignificant person, a deceiver, or destroyer. H.W. Hoehner writes in his book, Herod Antipas:

A person who is designated a fox is an insignificant or basic person. He lacks real power and dignity, using cunning deceit to achieve his aims.

How Donald Trump and Kamala Harris responded to their respective election losses in 2020 and 2024 tells us most of what we need to know about their characters. It’s still stunning to me that the American people reelected an election denier who encouraged a riot on January 6, 2021, and then sat back and watched it unfold while hundreds of people were being injured (including 140 police officers), our Vice President’s life was being threatened, and the Capitol building was being damaged. Contrast that response with Harris’ concession speech:

A fundamental principle of American democracy is that when we lose an election, we accept the results. That principle as much as any other distinguishes democracy from monarchy or tyranny, and anyone who seeks the public trust must honor it. At the same time in our nation, we owe loyalty not to a president or a party, but to the Constitution of the United States, and loyalty to our conscience and to our God.

My allegiance to all three is why I am here to say, while I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fuels this campaign, the fight for freedom, for opportunity, for fairness and the dignity of all people, a fight for the ideals at the heart of our nation, the ideals that reflect America at our best. That is a fight I will never give up.

At this point, there is little that we don’t know about Trump's character. What we don’t know is what he will do during the next four years. Many of us are concerned that he will do the things he’s been saying – like prosecuting his political opponents, filling the federal bureaucracy with loyalists, taking licenses away from major media outlets, mass deportation of undocumented and even legal immigrants, abandoning Ukraine, and creating tariffs that the majority of economists agree will significantly raise prices rather than lower them. Most Americans aren’t afraid of these things happening because they aren’t aware of them. They tuned Trump out a long time ago, but like his vibe. Others listen but recognize that Trump is a blowhard and doubt he’ll follow through. And then there are true-blood MAGA folks, the 10-20 % of us, who know precisely what Trump has said and can’t wait for him to fulfill his promise to be a dictator on day one.

We know what Trump is capable of. For example, we know he’s capable of separating children from their parents when they cross the border, putting them in cages, and sending them without adequate record-keeping to different parts of the country. I have a friend who worked for an agency that had to find foster homes for some of these children. Another friend, who works with some of the most traumatized children in our region and across the state, gets choked up when the subject is brought up.

We also know what Trump's rhetoric inspires in people. After the election, white nationalist Nick Fuentes posted, “Your body, my choice. Forever,” and gloated that men will now legally control women’s bodies. His post got at least 22,000 “likes.” Charlottesville was no fluke. We already know what kind of role model Trump will provide for our children over the next four years, as bullying increased after the 2016 election.

Herod Antipas’ father tried to kill Jesus by killing all boys younger than two years old in the town of Bethlehem. That event forced Jesus and his family to live as refugees in another country. People who are excited about Trump's promise to deport millions of undocumented immigrants should probably consider Jesus' words: 'Whatever you've done to the stranger, you've done to me' (Matthew 25:31-46). Evangelical Christians have sometimes compared Trump to the Persian king Cyrus in the Hebrew Bible. I’ve always thought that was a stretch. It seemed to me that the Herods were a better match.

The Herods were able to do pretty much anything they wanted. Things won’t be quite so easy for Trump. But, undoubtedly, this will be a rocky four years for the rest of us. What happened in this election has been happening throughout the world. People have been allowing their denial, anger, and grief around Covid to turn out of office those who tried to put things back together again. (We've been the most successful.) Many are turning to autocrats to be their saviors. I suspect the pendulum will swing back again, though, in some countries, constitutional changes will make that difficult. Hopefully, our constitutional norms will hold, but there are no guarantees.

I don’t want to oversimplify the reasons Americans voted as they did. As is often the case, people took many paths to vote for Trump. I’ve been thinking over the last few days about what Jesus said on the cross: “Father, forgive them; they don’t know what they’re doing.” I don’t think Jesus was just being gracious. Much of the time, people really don’t know what they’re doing when they vote. It doesn't help that people are told to distrust the mainstream media. Because of people's busy, often hardship-filled lives, it's always been difficult for voters to make informed decisions, especially in a conspiracy theory-laden social media culture where basic facts are up for grabs.

I admit that Christians’ support of Trump has been troubling and humiliating for me. I agree with Brian Zahnd that most of the responsibility lies with the shepherds rather than the sheep. I also know from experience that pastoring a congregation is hard, and that addressing political issues in a sermon carries all sorts of pitfalls. I suspect the problem is deeper, though. It has to do with how we understand the gospel, including the teachings of Jesus, and how people are being discipled between presidential elections.

I’m determined not to allow that fox, Donald Trump, to take too much of my time and attention. Like Jesus, I want to be about completing my work. That work includes a variety of themes and projects. There is a book I’m working on about what it means to be made in God's image. Soon, I hope to be able to record songs I’ve written about each of the Beatitudes – words of Jesus I believe are needed for this season. I want to think about and write about the future of the church. For example, I envision a kind of Copernican revolution in three areas: how we approach Scripture, our understanding of power, and what it means to be human.

There are people to care for, weekly Bible studies to lead, and periodic sermons to preach.

And I want to hold all my projects lightly. I’m aware that situations created by Trump’s administration may call for a more demanding and sacrificial response than writing a blog post or book. Each day, I want to remember to repeat what Abraham said in response to God's call:

“Here I am.”

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