"There are Trump voters in our congregation. Instead of shaming them, maybe we need to seek them out and listen." This is the biggest point I need to remember as a pastor and member of my community.
I was at an event in on Inauguration Day 2017 and the room, skewing democrat, was very anti-Trump. To the point that if I was a Trump voter I would not have been comfortable. I made the point to the group that statistically there was at least 1 Trump voter in the room and that if we were ever going to be able to learn from one another we'd need to start with listening instead of shame. That seems like forever ago.
I know this was written in 2016, but in the nearly ten years that Trump has been directly involved in politics, he has shown his character. People who identify as Republicans I can probably still talk to and many of them are voting for Harris. And then there are die hard separatists who call themselves MAGA. That is a totally different story (and I seriously doubt that those people are in your church).
Those people do not want to be reconciled. Reconciliation is a two way street and they have made it clear that they want no part of it. Reconciliation in this country has always been brief and probably more a strategic alliance against a common enemy than mutual trust and cooperation. To ignore that reality which keeps playing out in different forms over our country's history is to not appreciate that there are some things that we will not see common ground on. And instead of letting bygones be bygones, one group will openly antagonize the other and be bullies. While the left will admonish and look down on these people, trust me, they are typically not the ones that you have to worry about causing domestic violence/terrorism on a large scale. That calling card belongs to the far right.
And we have, unfortunately, a lot of far right sympathizers for various reasons. As people fall into this and become more entwined in the romantism/fantasy of a perfect Protestant Christian nation of yore that hand no problems whatsoever, their hearts become hardened, their eyes blinded and their hearts closed to any and all possibilities that do not align with their crystalized beliefs. You don't win with people who equate their struggle to a holy war. It's no longer a matter of policy, but good versus evil.
We live in dangerous times and fortunately, most Americans love democracy more than political vision of the far right. However, with the co-option of all the worst of American Protestantism within that group, the witness of Jesus suffers greatly and will forever close the doors to future generations. All we have to do is look how quickly Europe secularized after WWII to see what awaits the future of Christianity if this madness continues.
"There are Trump voters in our congregation. Instead of shaming them, maybe we need to seek them out and listen." This is the biggest point I need to remember as a pastor and member of my community.
I was at an event in on Inauguration Day 2017 and the room, skewing democrat, was very anti-Trump. To the point that if I was a Trump voter I would not have been comfortable. I made the point to the group that statistically there was at least 1 Trump voter in the room and that if we were ever going to be able to learn from one another we'd need to start with listening instead of shame. That seems like forever ago.
I know this was written in 2016, but in the nearly ten years that Trump has been directly involved in politics, he has shown his character. People who identify as Republicans I can probably still talk to and many of them are voting for Harris. And then there are die hard separatists who call themselves MAGA. That is a totally different story (and I seriously doubt that those people are in your church).
Those people do not want to be reconciled. Reconciliation is a two way street and they have made it clear that they want no part of it. Reconciliation in this country has always been brief and probably more a strategic alliance against a common enemy than mutual trust and cooperation. To ignore that reality which keeps playing out in different forms over our country's history is to not appreciate that there are some things that we will not see common ground on. And instead of letting bygones be bygones, one group will openly antagonize the other and be bullies. While the left will admonish and look down on these people, trust me, they are typically not the ones that you have to worry about causing domestic violence/terrorism on a large scale. That calling card belongs to the far right.
And we have, unfortunately, a lot of far right sympathizers for various reasons. As people fall into this and become more entwined in the romantism/fantasy of a perfect Protestant Christian nation of yore that hand no problems whatsoever, their hearts become hardened, their eyes blinded and their hearts closed to any and all possibilities that do not align with their crystalized beliefs. You don't win with people who equate their struggle to a holy war. It's no longer a matter of policy, but good versus evil.
We live in dangerous times and fortunately, most Americans love democracy more than political vision of the far right. However, with the co-option of all the worst of American Protestantism within that group, the witness of Jesus suffers greatly and will forever close the doors to future generations. All we have to do is look how quickly Europe secularized after WWII to see what awaits the future of Christianity if this madness continues.