Grief and Grace

Beyond self-care.

Do not put your trust in princes,
    in mortals, in whom there is no help.
When their breath departs, they return to the earth;
    on that very day their plans perish.

Psalm 146:3-4

In the wake of the election outcome, I’ve seen a lot of notes from more mainline/progressive churches offering space for people to grieve the results.

Being that I live in a political “blue” area, it isn’t surprising to see this. But on a deeper level, it does bother me because in offering comfort and care to people who are dealing with the fact that their candidate lost, I know that if Kamala Harris won the presidency, these same churches would not be offering space to Trump supporters to grieve their loss.

That says something. It tells me that those churches support one candidate and ideology over another. It shows they are tipping their hand.

Now, I say this as someone who voted, albeit reluctantly, for Harris. I didn’t have a lot of enthusiasm for her or the Democrats, but I couldn’t in good conscience vote for Donald Trump for all the reasons most Democrats and non-Trump Republicans did. I don’t think he is fit for the presidency. I think he could harm (but not kill) American democracy. But Harris lost. While I am sad about that, I am not bereft about this. This is not Germany in 1933. This is what happens in a democracy, someone wins and someone loses.

What bothers me is this: is it a good idea to cater to people only on one side of the political aisle? I get that people are upset, but what does this say to people in your congregation who might have voted for Trump? If you are a congregation that says everyone is welcome, what does having a service of grief for Harris supporters say to them?

I’m not saying that people shouldn’t be sad that their candidate didn’t win. I am also not saying that we shouldn’t be worried about what Donald Trump could do in office and how that could affect our nation and our world.

But even with all of that, what matters should matter for Christians is how we respond towards others. How are we caring for those who didn’t vote the way we wanted to? And are we putting politics before our faith and care for the other?

I know there are tons of Progressive Christians out there who will say they will quiet-quit Trump voters because they think they are voting because they hate immigrants or trans folk. My Facebook and Twitter feeds are full of these people virtue signaling to each other about how they are righteous Christians.

But how can you say you love enemies when you do that?

Throughout the election season, I’ve been thinking about two interviews I did earlier in the year: one with Disciples of Christ pastor David Emery and another with Presbyterian Pastor Joshua Gritter. Gritter told me that on November 10 the first Sunday after the election he would not talk about said election. Instead, he and his wife who is a co-pastor, would start a series on the Lord’s Prayer. People might see that as crazy, but I remember his response:

Gritter responded with a real hypothetical: suppose a woman enters your sanctuary the Sunday after the election visiting your congregation for the first time.  She is knee-deep in grief over the loss of someone close in her life.  What does she need to hear on that Sunday? What she doesn’t need to hear on that Sunday is politics. This woman is looking for something bigger than her pain, Gritter says, but if he preaches against a certain candidate he does this woman no favors. “So that person leaves, not only with no comfort or hope about the grief they've experienced but feeling shame for the fact that they voted for someone in a free election. In my mind, that's irresponsible pastoral leadership.”

David Emery said something similar:

I remember an interview with David Emery, a Disciples of Christ pastor in Tulsa who talks about how sometimes the church can get so much into social justice that we forget the people who might be living good lives on the outside, but who can’t keep it together and just need someone who can listen to them and pray for them. They need to know the God of the universe cares for them.

There are a lot of people who are in pain and not because they lost an election. Some are dealing with grief over the loss of a loved one, or dealing with someone who is addicted to drugs. Others are dealing with kids who are harming themselves. What they need is to hear that someone cares and that God cares. They need to hear good news. They need to hear the good news.

Bret Stephens and David Brooks have made the case in their post-election columns about how Democrats ignored working-class voters and how much America is very divided by class. Brooks made an important point about how high school grads die nearly a decade sooner than those of us with college degrees. Another New York Times columnist, Nicholas Kristoff shares stories of the working-class people in his hometown in Oregon are faring and it is not well:

I see the disenchantment with Democrats in my hometown, Yamhill, which traditionally was dependent on timber, agriculture and light manufacturing. But then good union jobs left, meth arrived and everything changed. Today more than a third of the kids on my old No. 6 school bus are dead from drugs, alcohol, suicide and reckless accidents.

Here’s an astonishing statistic from Bureau of Labor Statistics data: Blue-collar private-sector workers were actually earning more on average in 1972, after adjusting for inflation, than they are now in 2024. So today’s blue-collar workers are on average earning less in real dollars than their grandparents were 52 years ago.

I get that there is a lot of sadness over the loss. I get that there is concern of what a second Trump administration might do. But where is the grace and love towards those who are struggling in so many ways?

“But what about LGBTQ people who feel afraid for their lives!” I can hear some of my progressive friends say. As a gay man, I can understand some of the apprehension of the incoming Trump administration, but I also think we should be listening and caring about those who are struggling and who might have voted for Trump.

I think that while progressive Christians might do a good job of talking about how we love and accept everyone, the reality is that we aren’t that different from the evangelicals we criticize all the time- we love those who are like us.

But are we willing to love the guy who might wear a red MAGA hat and is also worried about their kids? What about the Latino mother and father who voted for Trump? Will we minister to them or harangue them for their vote?

At the top of this essay, I share a bit from Psalm 146 and I’ve been chewing over the phrase, “Don’t put your trust in princes.” Of course, evangelicals have been placing their trust in politics and have supported Trump with little criticism, but mainline/progressive Christians have done the same thing, placing their trust in Democrats and the frustrations I see on Facebook bear that out.

But we don’t place our trust in Kamala Harris or Joe Biden or even Donald Trump. We place our trust in God. We place our trust in the one who loves us, all of us. And because we are loved by this God, we then share that love with everyone no matter how they vote.

So feel sad today about the outcome of the election, but then get up and get to work loving the world with the good news.