The after party of a presidential election

Below is my column in today's edition of the Grand Haven Tribune. 

In the days following November’s election, I spent some time praying and pondering how best to respond as a pastor.

My parish, St. John’s Episcopal Church, has for decades been an historically progressive faith community. And so, there were many who were shocked and disturbed by Donald Trump’s election. At the same time, our parish strives for diversity and that includes diversity of political views. And so, there were members of my church who voted for Donald Trump for reasons that meant a lot to them – and reasons they were hesitant to share given the heat of the progressive blowback.

I worried about alienating those members of the body of Christ who had more conservative views even as I worried about marginalized members of my community who feared for their safety and security given some of the promises made by Trump in the election.

Then I remembered a book a colleague had recommended at a clergy gathering not too long ago. It is called “The After Party: Toward Better Christian Politics” by Curtis Chang and Nancy French. Both Curtis and French come from a conservative background and the book was clearly written with evangelical Christianity in mind, and yet I had heard that the principals of the book transcended party and tradition and were well worth reading. So, I put out information that, as we entered into the dark season of hope known as Advent, anyone who wanted could join me in reading the book and see if we could find a better way forward.

Much of the book is centered on the premise that there are basically four types of Christians when it comes to faith and politics, basing the typology on where an individual fell when it came to their level of hope and their level of humility.

The combatant is the Christian who is high in hope but lower in humility, fighting political battles with great hope but also with confidence that they absolutely know what’s right and that those who oppose them are absolutely wrong and out to do damage.

The opposite of the combatant is the person who is exhausted. Whereas the combatant is full of hope, the exhausted profile has pretty much lost all hope. They are humble, they don’t claim to have all the answers and are afraid no one can find a good way forward. So, they’ve kind of given up. They avoid conversations that are challenging, block people on social media, avoid the news, and would rather just not talk about politics at all. Surveys show this group is more widespread in our country than any other.

Also low on hope is the cynic. This person also has given up on engaging with those who are different than them, but they do it because they are also low on humility. They are certain they are right; they’re not interested in arguing about it anymore and they tend to, in the words of the authors, stew “in a spiritually degrading mix of pride and despair.”

The fourth type is what the authors call the disciple, the person who is both high and humility and high in hope. They are humble because they are able to acknowledge the complexity of the world and the issues that face us (compared to the certainty of the cynic and the combatant). And so they are eager to listen to those with whom they disagree, to discuss, and – most importantly – they think they might learn something. Unlike the exhausted, the disciple also is filled with hope because they believe that God is active in the world and will always raise up those who need to do the work that needs to be done. Like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, they believe that “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

If you want to take out the quiz from the book and see where you fall, you can do so online at https://redeemingbabel.org/hopehumilityquiz/.

It will perhaps surprise few of you who know me that I fell in the combatant territory (though, when I took the quiz, I was right on the edge of combatant and exhausted). At first that stung a little because it meant I have some work to do on humility. But then I took a deep breath, prayed, and realized the book is right. I do have some work to do on humility.

I also realized that another way to phrase that – both for myself and for others who might fall in a type that is low on humility – is to replace humility with curiosity. That’s not because I don’t need to grow in humility (I absolutely do), but because a great first step in developing more humility is to develop more curiosity.

While I (and a good amount of other people, I imagine), might find it challenging to be curious about the new administration that’s forming, particularly when that administration seems poised to act in ways that we believe will cause profound harm, perhaps we – perhaps I – can try to be curious about people who voted for this administration.

After all, it was not a small group of far-right extremists who voted for another Trump administration. It was a majority of our country (or, more accurately, a majority of those who showed up and voted). Even as Ottawa Impact lost its hold on our county, the county also still went for Trump by 68 percent. And so that means I need to get curious about my neighbors, my friends, and my parishioners.

It also means that if I don’t think I know people who voted for Trump, it’s likely that some of those close to me have given up on talking to me about some of the important issues facing us. Either that, or I have built a social circle that is simply an echo chamber of my own views.

I’m also grateful that each chapter of the book is clear that it’s not suggesting we are all going to be disciples, super high on hope, humility, and curiosity. In fact, each of the other groups (combatant, exhausted, and cynic) have gifts to bring to the conversation. The body of Christ is diverse, and each sort of person is needed. For people like me, the book says what is essential is remembering that my true battle is not against those who disagree, but against powers that seek to harm God’s children. If I can fight that battle, while being curious about those who are caught up by those powers, I’m heading in a good direction.

No one truly knows what the next four years will bring (except that we all probably agree there is going to be some upheaval.). But we must keep talking to one another if we want the next four years to move us forward as a people. I’m going to try harder on my end to do this better. I hope you’ll join me.

The Rev. Dr. Jared C. Cramer serves as rector of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Grand Haven. Information about his parish can be found at www.sjegh.com.