About Last Night
11.09.16
Those of you who know me personally or follow me on social media have a pretty good grasp on my thoughts and feelings about this election. You’re probably tired of hearing me talk about it, of seeing my tweets come through your timeline or my statuses on Facebook.
I’m not writing here to apologize for that, and I’m not writing here to give voice to my opinion on President-elect Donald Trump. For that, you can visit me on Twitter or Facebook.
I’m writing this, at 2 a.m. in the morning, because I want to initiate a conversation about what it will look like to be a Gospel-minded individual in the United States of America over the next four years.
I want to encourage us all to resist the temptation to become jaded and cynical. Jaded and cynical people are people who sit out, and sitting out is not the posture of someone with a Gospel worldview. Gospel people get involved in the affairs of the world because our Savior got involved in the affairs of the world: Rather than addressing the problem of sin as something far-off and removed, Jesus came to earth to taste our sadness, to dirty His hands with us. Now we are His hands; Jesus’ desire for our lives is that we would find meaning in dirtying ourselves in the service of our neighbor, giving even our very lives away for the good of others.
This means that when we believe the Gospel we believe that our salvation has a purpose beyond our salvation — that is, that we have been indwelt by the Holy Spirit and given grace upon grace to empower us to play a part in mending what is broken in the world. That responsibility is ours, entrusted to us by our Lord, and to abdicate that responsibility to anyone else — including the government — is to stand athwart the redemptive mission of God.
It also means that we are to be vigilant in our pursuit of the truth. Gospel-minded people reject the privilege of living in a fantasy world. We see the world as it is, not as we want it to be. When we see something happening in our world, we pursue wisdom and understanding, rather than immediately seeking out an opinion that aligns with ours to confirm our biases. When we enter into spirited discussion with those who might disagree with us, we do so having put in the hard work of informing ourselves and having synthesized a position as part of a coherent worldview. When we have thoughtfully considered our political ideology, we are freed to interact with others in a way that is loving and honest, even and especially when conversations become spirited. When we disagree — and we will disagree — we do so in a way that honors the other and honors Christ, because the world is watching.
Lastly, I think it’s important that we maintain some perspective:
A seminary professor of mine told me some time ago about a missionary friend working in a secure country where Christianity is illegal. When the government in this particular country executes Christians they stone them to death, cut them into pieces, and toss their dismembered bodies in the street. When people are caught with Bibles their hands are sliced to ribbons. Christians in other parts of the world fear the raised fist or the raised sword. In America, we fear the raised eyebrow and the raised gavel. Our religious liberties may be encroached upon in the next four years. It may become more inconvenient or uncomfortable to practice the Christian faith in America. But we would do well to maintain a posture of humility and gratitude, knowing we still live in a country where we are free to live out our faith without fear of imprisonment or execution.
In the end, “The aim of our charge is love, which issues from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.” Each of us is responsible, first and foremost, to pursue purity of heart, which yields the blessing of integrity and a clean conscience, making a sincere faith possible. It is through this pipeline that love flows, and love is the fulfillment of God’s Law.
Love is not opposed to strong opinions or disagreements. Love is not opposed to political engagement. Love is opposed, however, to apathy, to ambivalence. It is against these, primarily, that we must fight, rejecting passivity and accepting the responsibility of repairing what is broken in our nation, all the while pointing people to the ultimate Healer, who can not only heal a nation, but who can even heal the human heart.
This is the task before us, as followers of Christ and lovers of the Gospel: To bind up the nation’s wounds, dirtying our hands with the work of redemption, all the while sharing the Good and True story that Jesus has defeated sin, death, and evil, by His own death and resurrection, and is making all things new — even us.
