the 2016 election, the church, and facebook.

This is not going to be a post about Donald Trump or my feelings about him. Honestly, if you know me, you already know my thoughts about him and there are probably hundreds if not thousands of articles that you could read if you want to learn about other peoples thoughts on Mr. Trump. What I am hoping to do is to articulate what it is that caused my deep sadness and disappointment, not only in America, but also in the church. These are just my honest, unadulterated thoughts. I am not trying to attack anyone. I am not trying to attack the church. If you don't care to read on then I suggest you don't :)

In the days, weeks, and months following the election, I had a lot of time to really attempt to process why it was that I felt so low. I'm talking post-break up, low.  Initially, it was having to come to terms with the fact that people that I knew and loved voted for Donald Trump. Then it sort of evolved into disappointment that people did so for moral reasons. Then it became frustration that people were continually voicing support for him even after demonstrably terrible behavior. Most of my feelings were outward, trying to find fault with others for this tragedy.

I am convinced that if Donald Trump had won the election without the support of 81% of evangelicals, I would not feel the deep sense of loss and betrayal that I was feeling. I understood the reasons that the church could not embrace Hillary Clinton, however I struggled with finding the wisdom in "choosing the lesser of two evils" in voting for Donald Trump. Choosing the lesser of two evils is not in the Bible, I don't think. I would have loved to see the church rise up and be separate, rejecting both manifestations of political evil and pledging allegiance to a different Kingdom.

However, over the last several months, like a gentle knife, God has began to dismantle and rebuild the lens through which I see life. Firstly, I really struggled with putting people in two boxes--"Trump voters" and "Smart, enlightened individuals who are not stupid enough to vote for Trump". Once God showed me the err of my ways, I began to ask God to help me to see people the way He sees them, and also the way I wish to be seen. Not as the sum of my beliefs but rather as a human being, made in the image of God.

Hoping to strengthen my own confirmation bias, I began reading this book called The Myth of a Christian Nation by Gregory Boyd, as I was feeling like America wasn't a very Christian nation post-election. And while it has been a very good read, it has also been a convicting read.

“I believe a significant segment of American evangelicalism is guilty of nationalistic and political idolatry. To a frightful degree, I think, evangelicals fuse the kingdom of God with a preferred version of the kingdom of the world (whether it’s our national interests, a particular form of government, a particular political program, or so on). Rather than focusing our understanding of God’s kingdom on the person of Jesus—who, incidentally, never allowed himself to get pulled into the political disputes of his day—I believe many of us American evangelicals have allowed our understanding of the kingdom of God to be polluted with political ideals, agendas, and issues.” 

As I read that section in particular, I realized that I was guilty of allowing myself to get "pulled in to the political disputes" of today. Whoops. And I realized that the issues that I was talking about on Facebook were all problematic before Donald Trump was elected and likely will still be issues after he is gone. He is not the root, but rather a symptom of a greater problem. What is that greater problem? Well, like everything else in life, it is multi-faceted.

Anyways, I have been reflecting on what it means to be part of the solution and I'm not convinced that Facebook is the most helpful for me in this season. Here a few reasons why. I used to think that sharing/posting the right videos of the latest stupid thing that Trump did or said would be enough to make people see reason. Spoiler alert--its not! Just like when people posted and shared how amazing Trump was or how he was God's choice for America or how terrible Obama was did absolutely nothing to change my perspective. At best, you are just setting yourself up to receive affirmation from people who already agree with you. Which, don't get me wrong, feels pretty good. At the end of the day, we all just want to feel like we are not alone, whether it's with our thoughts & beliefs, or our struggles and the difficult things we are working through.

The second and more important reason has more to do with how we relate to other people on social media. I have never had my feelings hurt on social media like I did during this election cycle and in the months following and for the life of me, I could not understand how or why people who I only sort of knew could say the things they were saying to me. A few weeks ago in my house church, we were discussing how we hoped to engage with one another in a way that Paul talks about in the fourth chapter of Ephesians. That is where the popular Christian sound byte of "speak the truth in love" can be found. This phrase is often used to justify telling people "the hard truth" and "things they don't want to hear" because hey, they're being said in love. But if you read the entire chapter, you see that the foundation for being able to speak the truth in love is relationship. Generally speaking, you can't speak the truth in love with someone you don't have a relationship with. I mean, you can try, but there is no reason for them to receive it if the "love" with which you are speaking that truth to them has not been demonstrated through relationship.

So for me, the final straw was when a pastor at my church recently commented (and then deleted said comment) on one of my posts and told me that I needed to repent and that I was part of the problem that I was speaking of and questioned what I was doing to be part of "the solution". It's this sort of thing that often makes me feel unsafe within church spaces. I took a couple of days to reflect on why my feelings were hurt by this action. It wasn't because what he said was not true. I am not perfect, nor have I ever claimed to be. What upset me was the fact that he felt he could speak that into my life even though we have no real relationship outside of Facebook. And that right there is the problem with Facebook. It creates this false sense of connection and relationship. I'm not saying that there is no benefit whatsoever in Facebook, but I've seen the way it creates a false sense of courage where people say things to other people that they would never say to their face. I'm not exempt from this. I remember a couple years ago when I was in pharmacy school, I posted something to the effect of "If you are not vaccinating your children, I am absolutely judging you." I would absolutely never say that to someones face and I have no place judging anyone. See my point? We are no longer doing the sometimes hard work of growing and developing relationships in our real lives.

So anyways, that is the journey that I've been on in the last year. I'm thankful because I think that the election brought to light some issues in this country that need to be addressed and so now we can address them. I also think that it reflected how deeply polarized we are as a nation and how nothing helpful can come from such polarization. With that being said, I would like to encourage you to listen to the Depolarize! podcast. It has challenged me in more ways than I care to further discuss on here but you can ask me in person (or email or whatever) if you're curious. I personally loved the episode "How Political Should a Christian Be?" You can listen to "White Christian America" if you're feeling brave :)