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Dana’s Reply to a
Generation Z’s Comments on Our Post 13,
Trump Wins. Now What?
Good morning,
Thank you for your insightful comments on our blog, which John shared with
me. An unfortunate miscommunication between John and myself got the most
recent blog published before I finished my revisions, hence it
admittedly came off a bit one sided in its scope.
If you would care to, please go to the blog site and check out our very first
blog from back in July. It contains, perhaps, a more balanced look
at the American political scene, at least from my perspective.
My "yea and amen" comment was not so much an endorsement of Trump's
victory as it was my endorsement of Ms. Clinton's loss. My political
leanings are more Libertarian than either Democrat or Republican, in fact, in
many ways I consider myself a political atheist. To a greater or lesser
degree I believe all politicians speak with forked tongues.
Ms. Clinton, in my opinion, was a flawed candidate, with too many skeletons in
her closet for my comfort zone, and promoted a militant agenda, which I feel
would might serve to harm Christian churches had she been elected, but
potentially could have ignited armed confrontation with Russia, which
wouldn't have been good for anybody.
That said, Mr. Trump cannot be let off the hook, because he also was a
flawed candidate. His alleged moral indiscretions and inflammatory
rhetoric hardly made him the model for the evangelical's choice of a
leader. His winning of the election wasn't a victory for the Christian
church, by any means, and I disagree with my brothers and sisters in Christ who
see it as such. At best it might represent a temporary cessation of
direct hostility towards the Church, but it is far from ideal. It's what
the Church does with it that will make a difference or not in the
country.
Whether Mr. Trump will make a good or bad president, I cannot and will not
predict--time will tell. And while I believe Mr. Trump will not
be as militantly anti-Christian as I believe Ms. Clinton would have been
had she won (which remains to be seen), my problem is that the Christian church
allies itself with any political candidate at all, in hopes of seeing real
moral change in our country. We (the Church) should not be hitching our
wagon to any politician's star. We are following the wrong leader by so
doing.
That should not be taken to mean I advocate political irresponsibility on
anyone's behalf. We must never lose sight of the fact that in any
election, the lesser of two evils is still evil. Had Ms. Clinton and
Mr. Trump both been elected president and served as co-rulers, still the moral
state of the country, in my opinion, would change little.
Had Ms. Clinton been elected, I would have advocated for prayer for her as
leader, which should be the stance of all Christians despite whether or not she
was our choice for the office. But to think the spiritual and moral
problems facing our country can be solved by politics of any stripe would
be laughable, were it not so tragically incorrect.
We have a duty to support (to the degree it doesn't compromise our faith) our
leaders, but our obligations do not end there. We, the church, must be
the ones to "rescue the perishing," and the ones promoting
"justice for all." We must be the ones to give food, clothing
and shelter to the needy, and to try to make inroads into our declining
culture. It's the Church's responsibility to try to foster healing
between the races, and show charity and kindness to all--even those who
represent the most reprehensible of stances and behaviors in our society.
What kind of impact might it make if half of the white Christians in this
country left their white churches and started going to black, Hispanic, and
Asian (et al) churches? If the culture saw true love and harmony
being demonstrated between Christians of all races and ethnicities, might it
want to investigate and possibly become a part of such? What if we made
it our mission to bring homosexuals into our churches, and show the
genuine love of Christ to them as opposed to regarding them as the new
social leper? What if the Church so presented itself to the world that
unmarried pregnant girls first turned to the Church for help instead of
the abortion clinics? It shames me to say it, but if I were unsaved and
mired to my eyeballs in flagrant sin, the Church as it presents itself all too
often is the last place on earth I'd want to be.
I am not saying that the Church has to accept or excuse sin or
sinful behavior in order to be attractive to the culture--not at all, lest we
fall into the trap of which Dietrich Bonhoeffer warned, and that is
"justifying the sin instead of the sinner." When my son, as a
youngster, did wrong, I neither developed a hatred of him, nor did
I excuse his actions or pretend they weren't wrong, but I
lovingly tried to show him a better way, and do what might lead to changes in
him so as to correct the behavior at hand. The
Church stands guilty of hating the sinner as much as the sin, and we
demand that sinners clean up their acts before we want them around us.
It's a good thing Jesus didn't treat us so.
I could go on and on with like examples, but my point is that if we (the
Church) want the world and society to change, then we (the
Church) will have to change from being the pompous and bombastic voice of
the moral (and political) right, and actually become like Jesus to those who
are languishing in sin and despair. If we would stop using the Bible
as a weapon to bash the brains out of the heads of sinners who repulse our
fine, morally superior sensibilities, and instead started using our Bibles
to show sinners (just like us) that it's "...the goodness
of God that leads to repentance," (paraphrase of Romans 2:4B) and not
the judgment of God that we'd like to see fry all those dirty sinners (just
like us---ouch!!!) to a crisp, might that not, with God's
blessing, produce just a wee bit of good fruit? Is it not at
least worth a try? If we change our culture for the good, then the
politicians might look to us for answers, as opposed to our looking to
them...which is a recipe for spiritual and moral disaster.
To the degree we abdicate our Biblically mandated responsibilities to the
government, for them to handle, the more we will continue to have these
contentious, to the point of silliness, political debates and elections, and
the candidates who populate them.
Again, thank you for your comments and suggestions. Your points are well
taken. May the best come to you in your present and future
endeavors. It is my hope that you will continue reading the blog,
and that if either John or myself needs to broaden our perspectives a bit, you
will continue to offer to us your thoughts. Perhaps some of us old dogs can
indeed learn new tricks.
Respectfully,
Dana Acker
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