I Could Be Wrong About Everything
eating your vegetables, elections, and church
Fall is glorious. Elections are dumb.
But I could be wrong.
I look around at the landscape, the natural one and the political one and the social/economic/churchy/global one and maybe nothing is dumb but everything is broken. Or maybe everything is riddled with glory, with hints and shadows of a goodness that has been lost. And because we know that the goodness still lingers, because we know these landscapes still matter, because we can’t give up on any of it, we keep fighting.
I’ve been fighting with myself lately. An exercise against self-righteousness I suppose. Every time I hear an argument for or against a candidate, a cause, a you-name-it thing I should be getting behind, I argue back. What if you’re wrong? I ask myself. What if you don’t see it right?
Josh and I were having a somewhat heated discussion the other morning, trying to remember exactly how we raised our first few kids.
They ate only vegetables and home-baked goods.
No, they definitely ate potato chips. A lot of them.
We were far more strict about their diet and consistent with our rules overall.
No, no we weren’t.
And what did we have as evidence? Anecdotes, memories, clouds. I could be wrong about what I remember. I could be wrong about my assessment of our current situation. Even though I feel strongly about it, the thought occurs to me that I could be wrong.
It doesn’t even have to be a full-on sweep of wrongness. I could be mistaken in just a facet or a part of what I remember or observe or believe is the right thing to do. But it also could be a full-on sweeping wrongness. I could well be utterly and completely in the wrong.
I found a copy of my now-graduated son’s Church History textbook in his room, and since then have been avidly soaking up the sweep of human wrongness that has plagued the church since it’s inception.
This is a curious and tension-filled part of the church’s long history. You would think, you would hope that if Jesus left his disciples to be his witnesses, entrusting them to pass on the testimony of who He was and what He did, that he would keep them from disagreement or sliding into error or abuses against one another and their neighbors. But that is not the case.
Even as he heads towards his impending death, Jesus is conscious and fully aware of the sh*t show that is about to ensue, at least as far as his followers go. He knows Judas will betray him. He foretells Peter’s denial of him. In earlier passages, Jesus tells the parable of the Wheat and the Tares, plainly telling his disciples that there will always exist unbelievers in the mix of his followers and they are to leave both until the final Judgment, carried out by God alone (John 13). He knows it will be messy.
In the New Testament, the letters to the first-century churches are filled with correctives, warnings, and acknowledgment of personal and corporate failures. Read the letters to the seven churches in Revelation and it is no glowing report. It does not mean the Spirit of Jesus was not present and alive in those communities. He certainly was. But if we know anything, it is that from the very start, the slow swing from one side of the pendulum of error to the other had begun.
And so it continues. Every age, every manifestation of the Body of Christ has been plagued by error, by efforts to correct and reform, only to be followed by swings in the other direction. We’ve never had our act entirely together. We have always needed the continued work of repentance and renewal. We have always required humility.
So here we have this dumb election. I’ll call it dumb because it feels far from honest, far from intellectually astute, far from the ideals of wisdom and principled leadership, and from the philosophically rich underpinnings that led to democratic elections in this great republic in the first place.
I know this sinking into the mire has made many reject participation altogether. For many Christians, the separation of church and state means the church has little to say about worldly matters. Our spiritual lives are divorced from the public square and can go on as usual without being muddied by what goes on there. If they do care about politics, it is relegated to an arena separate from their life as followers of Christ. Either they check out and disengage, or perhaps they are deeply entrenched in politics but in such a way that the commands of Jesus have little impact on how they act or think about it.
But conversely, there are Christians who believe it is the church’s role to enact moral and even civil leadership in society. This gets muddled in theory, where the vision falls anywhere from Christians being active in a democratic government to a sort of religious theocracy— think early Puritanism or John Knox’s Scottish Presbyterians.
I can’t decide if I would rather check out or be uber-engaged. Both excesses have their blind spots. But they are appealing.
When people get hyper about exercising their right to vote, or are so zealously sure that voting for this or that candidate is the only choice for a true Christian, I keep thinking about everyone else throughout world history who could not frame things in this way. Even now, what would a Christian in China say (if) they were given the right to vote between two communist leaders who espoused an atheistic worldview? What does an Australian do when they are required by law to vote, and neither option represents their views or beliefs?
I would like to say this election is dumb, and I don’t want to participate. But I don’t think I have that luxury. I would also like my hard-earned (by others, not by me) right to vote to matter and for my belief in the dignity of man as ordained by God to be listened to by my government representatives. But that’s not the case.
And yet, what I cannot get away from is that God has placed us where he has placed us, and we must live in the times we are given. I cannot check out, and I can’t get hyper about the outcomes. I do have to faithfully and with great humility choose and vote because this is the country and the century and the decade and the state and the government where God has placed me. I have to care and not care.
Part of caring is also recognizing that in this situation, there is no good choice. And yet, we have to choose. Rather than fabricate the righteousness of one candidate over another, I think we need to be honest.
Abortion is a big deal. Without going into all the arguments about it, I will say only this: neither candidate comes even close to representing my views on abortion and valuing the dignity of women as God intended. For many, many Christians, this is THE hill on which they will die when it comes down to who to vote for. The research and the rhetoric show that neither candidate will bring an end to or even a decline in abortions. Perhaps our faith and efforts should be in something else.
Foreign involvement and policies are something America is uniquely responsible for at this time in history. A Christian should care about how we conduct ourselves and use our incredible power and influence in the world for human flourishing. Neither candidate represents my view of a wise, self-controlled person of integrity who will lead well in this area.
The President of the United States takes an oath to uphold the Constitution. This is an oath also taken by every Federal and State government official. It’s an oath my son took on his first day at the Naval Academy. I was impressed to listen to the group of 1400 strong yell it out at the top of their lungs. It comforted me that their allegiance is not to a man or any faction, but to the Constitution. And that anyone who asks or tells them to do anything in violation of it should be disobeyed. On this one issue I can say that for all intents and purposes, Harris appears to have respect for the Constitution and will submit to our form of government. Trump does not and will not. Time will tell how this plays out.
And here’s the thing: I could be wrong. I could be wrong about everything. And so could you.
History tells us that the church is always in need of reform. There is always some blind spot. History also tells us that the church is usually at its best, its message most clear and its spiritual life most healthy, when it is marginalized, even oppressed. For that reason, my biggest takeaway during these Dumb Election days is that as much as I would wish for leaders who are good and godly, our duties as Christians remain crystal clear. The church has, at least historically, been better at being a prophetic voice than a dictatorial one. Because we get it wrong so often, and because the stakes are so high when we do, maybe we were never meant to be in charge. At least until Jesus returns and makes all things new.
But until that day, we don’t check out. And we don’t stake all our hopes in Presidents. We do our duty, here and now, however we can.
I could
I pray so much for our country. For the body of Christ. For every leader …. I pray in humility that as a person who Loves Jesus that In all things, I represent him Well.
Even in my own brokenness - that He would shine out somehow someway.