Preaching in the Age of Donald Trump

Preach the Word! Be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves preachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.

II Timothy 4:2-4

Dad died twelve years ago today.

Part of his spiritual discipline was a regular reading of Oswald Chambers’ classic devotional, “My Utmost for His Highest.”

In his commentary on these verses, Chambers quotes from the King James Version: “This verse says, ‘Preach the Word! Be ready in season and out of season.’ In other words, we should ‘be ready’ whether we feel like it or not.” And then he observes, “If we do only what we feel inclined to do, some of us would never do anything. . . The proof that our relationship is right with God is that we do our best whether we feel inspired or not.”

Dad was a United Methodist pastor and he was always ready to preach the Word. He was persistent and faithful “in season and out.”

But it is perhaps just as well that he is not preaching in the age of Donald Trump.

This is not an easy time to be a Christian pastor. For that matter, it’s not an easy time to be a Christian. It’s hard to be faithful without appearing to be intensely and explicitly political.

Of course, the Gospel is a political document, but it transcends partisan politics. And although Jesus, like the Hebrew prophets before him, proclaimed an undeniably political message, we should not identify that message with one party or candidate.

It’s hard not to appear partisan in the age of Trump because he has done so many explicitly anti-Christian things. We will pause now in silent remembrance. We could start with teargassing children, or separating families, but it’s a very long list. And it seems to just keep getting longer.

There is nothing partisan about those issues, but it is hard to address them without some folks seeing it in partisan terms.

Dad always worried less than I do about appearing partisan. Actually, he didn’t worry about appearances at all. To say that he was outspoken would be an understatement. And to his credit, he never counted the cost of his witness in personal terms.

I never ask myself what Dad would say about this, because I already know.

For Dad, it was always about justice. He looked for the practical application of the gospel in contemporary life. And he was never afraid to tell you what he saw. In his mind, he had no choice.

Dad served in the Navy during World War II, and then again during the Korean War. In March of 1945, as soon as he turned 17, he received his High School diploma early and enlisted. But as a pastor, he was deeply committed to world peace.

On Veterans Day in 1966, when our church was hosting the American Legion, Dad felt he had no choice but to preach about how war generally, and the Vietnam War specifically, was a denial of everything Christ taught.

Not surprisingly, it did not go over that well.

His outspoken witness often got him into trouble, but that never kept him quiet.

If parishioners were upset with him, he would listen patiently, and explain gently. And then he would say that he was sorry, but he had no choice. He was just doing what he had to do. It was his job to preach, in season and out.

Sometimes they would agree to disagree. Sometimes his persistent witness would win them over. And other times they would leave to look for another church, with a preacher who had the good sense not to meddle in “politics.”

As a pastor in the age of Trump, I find myself trying to thread the needle; to be faithful without giving offense. But the truth is that I probably worry too much about the second part and too little about the first.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 

What Jesus Actually Taught

The poor are invited to the feast. Luke 14:15-24

Once Jesus was asked when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.”
Luke 17:20-21

It is time for my annual reflection on Kingdomtide and why it matters.

Yesterday was the First Sunday in Kingdomtide.

At least that’s what it was when I was growing up. In the old United Methodist liturgical calendar the Sundays from the end of August to the beginning of Advent were known as the season of “Kingdomtide.”

It was a time to reflect on the biblical promise of the Kingdom of God and to ask ourselves what the world would look like if we were serious about building the Kingdom of God on earth. Jesus preached the “good news of the Kingdom of God.”

For Jesus, the Kingdom of God was the Gospel. He announced that God was already at work in the world, and we were invited to live in the new reality that God was creating.

The idea of Kingdomtide as a liturgical season began in 1937 and lasted for barely half a century. Kingdomtide just never caught on. Initially, it seemed to have a lot going for it, not the least of which is that stretching out Pentecost, and counting the Sundays after Pentecost, is pretty boring. It also made sense because the fall lectionary texts emphasize building up the Kingdom of God.

And after all, Jesus’ whole message was about the Kingdom of God. That was what he called “the good news.”

But the season of Kingdomtide was doomed by the combined weight of liturgical purity and the concern (which I share) for looking beyond exclusively masculine terms for God.

God is not a King.

When the “new” United Methodist Hymnal was published in 1989, Kingdomtide was gone. I didn’t notice the change for several years. When I saw my error, I briefly surrendered to liturgical conformity and abandoned the season. But it was not long before I changed my mind.

How can we abandon the only liturgical season that is focused on what Jesus actually taught?

Whatever we call it, we need to do it.

Some time in the middle of the last century one of the great preachers said that our most important task is keeping the idea of the Kingdom of God alive in the human spirit. 

In the hyper-competitive winner-take-all culture of the twenty-first century, that task is even more urgent. Notions of economic justice, concern for the poor, non-violence, and simplicity are often seen as naïve or un-American. 

We need to reclaim the language of Jesus.

The Kingdom of God is a profoundly political idea. But it does not translate directly into what we popularly associate with “politics.” It is not about political parties or political labels.

As Robert Bellah wrote, "Politics are never ultimate, never absolute. We can and must fight the good fight for a better republic and a better world. But our hope does not depend on any political outcome. Our faith and our hope derive from Jesus Christ, who survives all nations and all politics."

In these deeply troubled times, it is easy to feel hopeless, but it is precisely in times such as these that we need to be grounded in Jesus’ message.

When his disciples asked Jesus to teach them how to pray, he told them to pray first for the Kingdom of God to come on earth. Two thousand years later, that should still be our first concern.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 

*A version of this post was first published on September 1, 2011.

With Nazis There Is No Moral Equivalence

"There is blame on both sides."
"There were very fine people on both sides."

Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also. 
I John 4:20-21

“They are Nazis,” Jurgen Moltmann declared, “and when you are confronted by Nazis you must defeat them.”

Nothing else matters, he insisted, until you get rid of the Nazis.

Moltmann, perhaps the last of the great German theologians of the twentieth century, made that prophetic declaration half a century ago. He was visiting the United States for a theological conference and he was talking about the segregationists in the south.

As my theology professor told the story, Moltmann had insisted  to his fellow theologians that they had no business discussing theology until they had first done something about the Nazis.

I remember thinking that although the segregationists were certainly bad, it was hyperbole to call them Nazis. But the events in Charlottesville this past weekend have proven me wrong. They call themselves Nazis.

Jurgen Moltmann grew up in a secular family in Hamburg. As a teenager he was drafted into the German Army near the end of the war. He was captured by the British and spent several years as a prisoner of war. During that time his captors presented him with descriptions and pictures of the concentration camps at Buchenwald and Auschwitz, and he was overwhelmed with guilt for what his country had done.

While he was held prisoner an American Army Chaplain gave him a New Testament and it transformed his life. “I did not find Christ,” he would later say, “Christ found me.” After the war he completed a doctorate in theology and his reflections on Nazism and the war led him to develop “A Theology of Hope.”

Moltmann could see, as Paul Tillich, Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Reinhold Niebuhr, and others had made clear before him that the absolute claims of Nazism were theological as well as political. And that those absolute claims made it antithetical to Christianity. 

When Moltmann insisted that there could be no theological discussion until Nazism had been addressed, he wasn’t introducing politics into theological discourse. He was recognizing that until they were dealt with, the absolute claims of Nazism made authentic theological discussion impossible.

I think we can say with absolute certainty that Donald Trump has not read Jurgen Moltmann, or any of the great theologians who could see the dangers of Nazism long before the first concentration camps were built. But one doesn’t need a deep understanding of theology and ethics to make a judgment on the events in Charlottesville.

When it comes to Nazis there are not two sides.

After the violence and death last Saturday, the President condemned the hatred and violence “on many sides.” And for emphasis he paused before repeating, “on many sides.”

On Monday he responded to forty-eight hours of nearly universal bipartisan criticism by “clarifying” his Saturday remarks to say that he unequivocally condemned the KKK, the Neo-Nazis, and the white supremacists. He was reading a script and looking very uncomfortable, but he stuck to his text. 

He did not try to spread the blame.

As CNN’s Dan Merica wrote, Tuesday’s news conference was a different story:

“The news conference laid bare his unvarnished view of who was to blame for the violence and what he thinks about the nationwide effort to remove statues of Confederate leaders. Trump's comments were the latest in what has been a jaw-dropping saga ever since the President made his first vague statement on the violence, blaming the conflicts on many sides.’ The comments also made clear that Trump's speech on Monday -- which vociferously blamed the violence on the ‘alt-right’ and neo-Nazi groups who initiated the protest -- was largely a sterilized version of his view.”

David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader, felt vindicated. In a Twitter post he said, “Thank you President Trump for your honesty and courage to tell the truth.”

White nationalist leader, Richard B. Spencer, who like Duke participated in the demonstrations over the weekend and has promised to continue protesting the planned removal of the statue of Robert E. Lee, tweeted that, “Trump’s statement was fair and down to earth.”

At the conclusion of the news conference, as he was leaving, Mr. Trump was asked if he was planning to visit Charlottesville. He answered with a question, “Does anyone know I own a house in Charlottesville?”

Actually, he owns a winery.

"I mean I know a lot about Charlottesville," said the President. "Charlottesville is a great place that has been very badly hurt over the last couple of days."

He added: "I own actually one of the largest wineries in the United States, it is in Charlottesville."

Even by the strange standards of this administration it was bizarre and unsettling. His defenders will say that he is not a traditional politician and we need to get used to a very different style. But it was appalling by any measure. And deeply troubling.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 

The ACA Has Achieved Something Significant

Five Year Old James Cook of Cleveland, Ohio

When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them. Then some people came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

“I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.” And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”

Mark 2:1-5, 11-12


Modern readers tend to focus first on the miracle.

They may believe it literally, or they may see it as a metaphor. They may rationalize it, or they may see it pointing toward larger truths about healing and wholeness and forgiveness, they may focus on sin and guilt in relation to physical health.

But there is something else, central to the story, which is easily missed. What impresses Jesus is the four friends carrying the paralytic. “When he saw their faith” he offered the forgiveness that led to healing.

They picked him up and carried him.

When Jesus saw them carrying the man, he called that “faith.”

Over the past eight years of our national debate about the Affordable Care Act, one of the most contentious questions has been about whether or not healthy people have a responsibility to carry those who are ill.

And the good news is that we have made progress.

In September of 2011 CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer was moderating a Republican Presidential Candidates debate in Tampa Florida. He posed a hypothetical question to Dr. Ron Paul. If a healthy thirty year old man with a good income chose not to buy health insurance and then became catastrophically ill, what should happen? Paul tried to dodge the question by recalling (incorrectly) that years ago the churches took care of people who had no insurance, but a significant portion of the audience could be heard chanting, “Let him die! Let him die!”

Not our finest moment, though the Ayn Rand crowd must have rejoiced in the triumph of “the virtue of selfishness.”

No one is really happy with the individual mandate requirement of the Affordable Care Act. But without some means of requiring everyone to buy coverage it is impossible to pay for the very popular provisions protecting those with pre-existing conditions and eliminating the lifetime limits on coverage.

The ACA is far from perfect. But it has achieved something significant. It has shifted the terms of the debate.

When we first began discussing the ACA, one of the primary objections was that “we can’t afford it.” In other words, we won’t carry sick people. If people need to be carried they will have to pay for it on their own.

In the initial debates and in subsequent attempts at repeal, those against the ACA did not mention the folks without health insurance. And they did not seem worried that repeal would take away insurance from twenty million people who were previously uninsured and now have health insurance through the ACA.

But now that has shifted.

President Trump’s official position is that the ACA should be repealed and replaced with Health Savings Accounts, which is not really a viable alternative to insurance. But in his public statements he has repeatedly said that we can’t have twenty million people losing health insurance. And other opponents of the ACA have said the same thing.

In the long run we need some version of single payer health insurance like almost all of the developed world. And we could do this using the present Medicare model.

But for now at least we seem to have taken a small step toward.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 

Preaching and Pastoring in the Age of Trump

They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace. They acted shamefully, they committed abomination; yet they were not ashamed, they did not know how to blush.
Jeremiah 6:14-15a

Russell Moore is the President of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. And he is in trouble.

The Evangelical branch of Christianity in the United States was painfully split during the last election. The majority went with Donald Trump, but there were a few dissenters.

Russell Moore was probably the most visible among the critics. He was critical of Mr. Trump and he was critical of those Evangelicals who were willing to give up long held principles in order to support him.

In September of 2015, he published an op-ed piece in the New York Times asking, “Have Evangelicals Who Support Trump Lost Their Values?” 

He began his essay by recounting an episode from the television comedy “The Office,”

“. . . one of the characters, Dwight Schrute, nervously faces the prospect of delivering a speech after winning the title of top salesman of the year for his company, Dunder Mifflin. As a prank, his co-worker preps him for his moment by cribbing a speech from a dictator, coaching him to deliver it by pounding the lectern and waving his arms wildly. Dwight does it, and the audience gives a standing ovation to a manic tirade.”

“Watching a cartoonish TV character deliver authoritarian lines with no principles, just audacity,” he observed, “was hilarious back then, but that was before we saw it happening before our eyes in the race for the United States presidency.”

Moore was willing to give Trump a pass on his newly proclaimed and politically opportunistic affirmation of Evangelical Christianity. What bothered Moore was his personal morality, or lack thereof.

“We should not demand to see the long-form certificate for Mr. Trump’s second birth. We should, though, ask about his personal character and fitness for office. His personal morality is clear, not because of tabloid exposés but because of his own boasts. His attitude toward women is that of a Bronze Age warlord. He tells us in one of his books that he revels in the fact that he gets to sleep with some of the “top women in the world.” He has divorced two wives (so far) for other women.”

It is important to remember that he wrote those words more than a year before that famous tape surfaced in which Mr. Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women. 

A number of Evangelicals who at first shared Moore’s critique eventually came to support Mr. Trump as “the lesser to two evils.” But Russell Moore never wavered. 

Interestingly, almost all of the backlash directed against Moore is about his failure to represent the clear majority of Southern Baptists and Evangelicals who voted for Trump. No one is arguing that he is wrong in principle. He has committed the great sin of being out of touch with his constituency.

I have major disagreements with Dr. Moore on everything from marriage equality and abortion to biblical interpretation and theology. But I have always respected his clarity of vision and I understand his dilemma.

These are perilous times for those of us who are pastors. 

We have a responsibility which is unlike any other. We have to say something. It’s part of the job description. 

Not only are we supposed to say something. We are supposed to speak the truth. Not just any truth. We are specifically charged with speaking the truth of the Gospel, regardless of the circumstances. 

It is challenging in the best of times. Jesus called his disciples to take up the cross and follow him. In first century Israel the cross was a symbol of treason and a means of executing those who were guilty of that crime. To stand up for justice and peace and non-violence is to stand against the normalcy of violence and injustice, and to move in a different direction.

Authentic preaching is never easy.

Karl Barth said that we need to have the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. In the digital age, of course, we can have both in the same tablet or phone, but that does not make the task any easier.

We are always tempted toward timidity. We want to avoid conflict.
We want to say, “Peace, peace, when there is no peace.” 

The Gospel is always at odds with the culture. But in a time of great divisiveness, the gap seems even greater. And the divisions are within the church as well as outside of it.


Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 

Dad Had It Right

Rev. Edwin A. Trench 1928-2006

But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died through the one man’s trespass, much more surely have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for the many.  Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.
Romans 5:15,18

Dad died ten years ago today. 

It is perhaps just as well that he did not live to see our recent election. 

He might have mispronounced "misogynist," but he would not have been quiet about electing one to the white house. 

To say that he was outspoken would be an understatement. That's not always an advantage for a pastor. But to his credit, he never counted the cost of his witness in personal terms. 

Those who regularly read this blog know that over the past eighteen months I have written frequently about the issues, but I stopped short of endorsing a candidate. 

There are two major reasons for making that choice. First, I believe that although the gospel is an intensely political document, it transcends partisan politics. And although Jesus, like the Hebrew prophets before him, proclaimed an undeniably political message, we should not identify that message with one party or candidate. And second, I believe that I need to be a pastor to everyone, regardless of their politics. Endorsing a candidate would compromise that relationship.

Dad saw it differently.

For him, it was always about justice. He looked for the practical application of the gospel in contemporary life. And he was never afraid to tell you what he saw. In his mind, he had no choice.

His outspoken witness often got him into trouble, but that never kept him quiet.

His willingness to say what needed to be said was impressive, but his greatest gifts were as a pastor rather than as a prophet.

A few years ago, before a graveside service for a distant member of the church, a woman came over and introduced herself. She told me that she belonged to a neighboring United Methodist church and that she was a Lay Speaker, and a leader in that church. “I remember your father,” she said. He was the pastor in Coventry when I was a teenager.”

“He came to visit at our house and he was talking to my mother. And he invited me to come to the youth group. I told him that I didn’t really believe in Jesus, so I didn’t want to come to the youth group.

“My mother was so embarrassed. And she was so angry with me. But your father just smiled. ‘That’s okay,’ he said. ‘You think about it, and if you want to attend, we’d love to have you.’ He didn’t get upset. And he didn’t tell me I was wrong to think that way. I’ll always remember that. 

“And then later I went to the youth group and it was great. But I’ll always remember the way he reacted.”

When the great theologian Karl Barth was asked to sum up his many complex volumes of “Church Dogmatics,” he said, 

Jesu liebt mich, ganz gewiss,

Denn die Bibel sagt mir dies

“Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

That would also have summarized Dad’s theology, although it sounded much more profound coming from Barth. Dad was not a theologian, but he was a pastor, and he understood the practical application of the faith pastorally as well as politically.

He was convinced that “God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.” And he was convinced that God’s grace, in Christ, extended to everyone, whether they believed it or not. Sadly, Dad’s intuitive response to a questioning teen made a lasting impression in part because it was not what she expected from those who call themselves Christians.

In Paul’s exposition of Christ as the New Adam, his basic assertion is that in Adam we have all sinned and in Christ we have all been justified (forgiven and made right with God).

For two thousand years, the majority interpretation of that passage has been that the first “all” refers to everyone (everyone has sinned) and the second “all” refers only to baptized Christian believers. 

Ironically, this notion that sin is unlimited while grace is restricted, is one more evidence of our tendency to “sin” in our biblical interpretation. So (ironically) it proves the first of Paul’s assertions. We are all self-centered and we want to believe that grace applies only to us and to the people who think like us. We believe in sin, but we have doubts about grace.

Why is that? In traditional language, it’s because we are “sinners.”

But Dad had it right.


Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.

Parts of this post were originally published on November 29, 2010.

Thanksgiving and the Kingdom of God in America

The First Thanksgiving by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (1899)

"Politics are never ultimate, never absolute. We can and must fight the good fight for a better republic and a better world. But our hope does not depend on any political outcome. Our faith and our hope derive from Jesus Christ, who survives all nations and all politics."

Robert N. Bellah

I have a special fondness the notion of the Kingdom of God in America. 

First, and in a serious way, because it was (and is) the agenda of Jesus to build the Kingdom of God on earth, and since I am an American Christian, my first responsibility is to build it here. 

But I also enjoy talking about the Kingdom of God because it makes everyone uncomfortable (including me). 

The secular left gets nervous about a theocracy and a religious vision, and the religious left is uncomfortable with the King imagery (I share the discomfort with “King” and I agree that in many ways it would be better to get the King imagery out of it and speak about the Reign of God, but I still think that falls short of the original.). 

The religious right wants religion to be personal rather than social, and they are nervous about the “politicization” of the Gospel, and the political right gets nervous about the Social Gospel and Social Justice.

That’s all good, because we are supposed to be uncomfortable with the Kingdom of God.

We should not look for ways to escape that discomfort. Jesus’ vision calls us into the future. We pray for the coming of the Kingdom of God on earth, and that must mean change. As soon as we are comfortable with the present, we remember again that we are called into the future. We are called to be a pilgrim people.

In a special way, Thanksgiving is central to understanding the Kingdom of God in America.

Robert Bellah was one of the greatest American Sociologists. He rose to national prominence when he wrote an essay on Civil Religion in America. (If you have never read the essay, you can get it on line by clicking here.) 

Bellah explained how Americans had developed a religious sensibility which was rooted in our Judeo-Christian heritage, but also uniquely American. We began with a covenant and a mission. Slavery was our original sin. Lincoln was our central prophet. And though we had a high view of our calling in the world, we were clear that America always stood under the judgment of God.

Thanksgiving is the most important holiday in our American Civil Religion. It was first instituted by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, as a time of national Repentance and Thanksgiving. A national day of repentance would be a tough sell in today’s political climate. 

As Christians, how do we relate to the uncivil tone of our political debate today?

It is a difficult question and there are no easy answers. It is particularly problematic today after a long season political campaigning in which the president-elect distinguished himself by shattering almost every norm of civilized discourse. One of his Republican challengers declared dramatically that “you can’t insult your way to the presidency.” But apparently you can.

We are in uncharted waters.

But as Christians, it is important that we keep perspective and that we focus on long term goals.

The Gospel is intensely political and we cannot read it with any measure of intellectual honestly and pretend otherwise. It is about proclaiming a vision of the Kingdom of God. It is about social and economic justice. But we must also remember, as Bellah points out, that the Kingdom of God can never be identified with any single political group or cause, or country. Instead, it is always the standard by which every political plan is judged.

As Bellah notes, “We can and must fight the good fight for a better republic and a better world.” But we need to be clear that there is a gap between our vision and God’s vision. This does not mean that one idea is as good as another, or that political issues do not matter. It does mean that we should approach political issues with Lincoln’s repentance and humility. 



Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 

A previous version of this blogpost was originally published on November 23, 2016.

What Has Changed and What Has Not

God is our refuge and strength,

   a very present help in trouble. 

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,

   though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea; 

though its waters roar and foam,

   though the mountains tremble with its tumult.

Psalm 46:1-3

For many of us, the past few days have been profoundly unsettling.

We were expecting to celebrate the election of the first woman President of the United States and we woke up on Wednesday to find that we had elected a man who is openly and unrepentantly misogynistic. 

Not a happy feeling. 

To take a biblical phrase out of context, some of us feel like strangers in a strange land.

In a blistering article in the Huffington Post, Sarah Ruiz-Grossman writes, “Dear Fellow White Women: We F**ked This Up.” And she follows that up with a startling statistic: “Exit polls show 53 percent of white women voted for Trump — compared to only 43 percent for Clinton.”

“When the demographic split for the exit polls came out, showing the divide between Trump and Clinton supporters, my eyes immediately jumped to one group: white women. Tell me we came through for our sisters of color, I begged, at least this one time. We didn’t.

“So I am ashamed. I am ashamed of my country. I am ashamed of white people. But more than anyone else, I am ashamed of white women.”

It feels like a seismic shift.

But, in fact, it really isn’t. It may be an uncomfortable look in the mirror, but the country really has not changed.

Hillary Clinton apparently will win the popular vote (and we will probably have a healthy debate about the Electoral College, which disproportionately increases the influence of smaller states and makes votes in swing states more important than votes in Alabama or Rhode Island). But regardless of the final outcome, the margin will be tiny.

Basically, it’s a tie.

And when we look more closely at the numbers, the demographic percentages are almost identical to 2012. Donald Trump did as well among white women in 2016 as Mitt Romney did in 2012. 

There are small shifts among other demographics, but nothing major.

Donald Trump won because his supporters were more enthusiastic (and a lot angrier) than those supporting Hillary Clinton. A higher percentage of his supporters actually went to the polls and voted. To paraphrase a campaign slogan, “Anger Trumps Apathy.” He hit a nerve.

The country did not change and yet our trajectory has shifted. 

We may disengage with other nations on climate change, on trade, and on mutual defense agreements. And then there are those all important Supreme Court appointments.

On the positive side, there is at least the possibility of a bipartisan approach to job creation and infrastructure. And the truth is that presidents are almost never as bad as their opponents fear or as effective as their supporters hope.

Campaigns are won and lost at the extremes, but governance gravitates toward the center.

I am aware, of course, that I can take the long view because I am in a place of privilege. Not everyone has that luxury.

On Wednesday morning I got a call from an African-American woman in our congregation.

"Bill," she said, "I'm scared. He's a racist. What's going to happen to people of color?" She was shocked that he could get elected, and she was especially afraid for her grandsons. "Hillary is not perfect," she said, "but she's not a racist." 

And then she talked about what Clinton had done on behalf of children. "All children," she said. "She didn't care what color they were, she loved them all."

We talked about hope and justice and loving one another.

That is not a phone call I ever expected to get in 2016, but it brought home to me how terrifying this is for those who are vulnerable.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.

The Jackie Robinson of Presidential Politics

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. 
Philippians 4:8

When Branch Rickey was looking for a candidate to integrate professional baseball, he needed a gifted athlete, of course, but he also needed a man who could endure the inevitable epithets and slurs without striking back. Jackie Robinson was that remarkable mixture of spectacular ability, fierce competitive spirit and personal grace and dignity.

Barack Obama has been the Jackie Robinson of presidential politics.

Last February, New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote an opinion piece titled, “I Miss Barack Obama.”

We were still early in the primary season then, but already there were signs that the campaign this year would be marked by what Brooks called “a decline in behavioral standards across the board.” And then he observed that, “Many of the traits of character and leadership that Obama possesses, and that maybe we have taken too much for granted, have suddenly gone missing or are in short supply.”

I launched this blog the week of President Obama’s first inaugural. My first post was about the Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery’s benediction, which I had found very moving. The prayer began with a quotation from James Weldon Johnson’s great hymn, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which has become the Black National Anthem. And it ends with references to the Hebrew Prophets. In between, he called on the nation to reject greed and violence, to embrace inclusion rather than exclusion, and love rather than hate.

But Lowery drew intense criticism for the last paragraph of the prayer, when he called on the nation to work toward that day “when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right.”

The blogosphere exploded with righteous indignation that Lowery had declared that white people had never done what was right. Lowery, they declared, was a racist.

It was nonsense, of course, Lowery was taking an old racist rhyme and turning it upside down.

It probably never occurred to him that anyone would take it as a blanket condemnation of white people. It certainly never occurred to me.

But that firestorm over the inaugural benediction set the tone for the avalanche of attacks that would follow President Obama throughout his tenure. The general theme would be that our first African-American President was himself a racist.

Among other things, the attackers declared that he was not born in the United States, that he was a Kenyan, that he was a Muslim, that he was a Marxist, and that he was the worst president in history.

And through it all, he maintained a quiet dignity. He never lashed out. He never made personal attacks. And he never seemed to bear any animosity even toward people who obviously hated him.

Last fall, the poet, environmentalist and theologian Wendell Berry wrote about the racism directed at President Obama by members of congress:

“Some of the President’s congressional enemies—and these may be the most honest of them—have openly insulted him.  But such candor is not necessary.  Elected officials or candidates seeking the support or the votes of racists do not need to question the authenticity of Mr. Obama’s birth certificate or to call him a Muslim, a communist, a nazi, or a traitor.  They need only to stand silently by while such slurs and falsehoods are loudly voiced in public by others.  To the racist constituency, their silence is a message that secures votes.  Their silence declares that no truth or dignity is worth as much as a vote.”

Remarkably, those who have responded to his presidency with racism also accuse him of dividing the country. The contention is that President Obama is responsible for the racism of those who have attacked him. It is enough to make you crazy. But through it all he has maintained a calm dignity.

In his essay, Brooks outlined three great virtues of the Obama presidency:

“The first and most important of these is basic integrity. The Obama administration has been remarkably scandal-free. Think of the way Iran-contra or the Lewinsky scandals swallowed years from Reagan and Clinton.”

  “Second, a sense of basic humanity. Donald Trump has spent much of this campaign vowing to block Muslim immigration. You can only say that if you treat Muslim Americans as an abstraction. President Obama, meanwhile, went to a mosque, looked into people’s eyes and gave a wonderful speech reasserting their place as Americans.”

“Third, a soundness in his decision-making process. Over the years I have spoken to many members of this administration who were disappointed that the president didn’t take their advice. But those disappointed staffers almost always felt that their views had been considered in depth.”

President Obama has made mistakes and miscalculations. Policies are always subject to debate. But his basic character and demeanor have been exemplary. 

We will miss him.


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Some Comments on that Famous Video

Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate asked him, “What is truth?”
John 18:36-38

If you thought that Donald Trump’s lewd comments caught on tape would cost him the endorsement of his evangelical supporters, you would mostly be wrong.

Most of them are still on board.

One of the strange commonplaces of politics and religion in America is that conservative evangelical pastors routinely endorse political candidates and mainline pastors do not. And the conservative evangelicals do not just endorse a candidate. They are not shy about telling us that God has raised up this one or that one on a holy mission. Since they are the only ones speaking, this creates an asymmetrical picture and makes it look as if all Christians are conservative evangelicals.

This is not because mainline pastors do not think that the Gospel has political implications. On the contrary, we are more likely to emphasize the politics of Jesus than the evangelicals.

We recognize that the Bible is a profoundly political book. The prophets proclaim God’s passion for justice as the foundation of the social order. And the message of Jesus is centered on “the good news of the Kingdom of God.” In the Lord’s Prayer, our first petition is, “Thy Kingdom come.” When the early church spoke of Jesus as “Lord,” and “Savior,” and “Son of God,” they knew that all of these terms were used to apply to the Emperor. And they knew that the Empire had killed Jesus because he was a political threat. When early Christians said that Jesus was “Lord,” they were also saying, “and Caesar is not.”

The Gospel is intensely political and we cannot read it with any measure of intellectual honestly and pretend otherwise. It is about proclaiming a vision of the Kingdom of God. It is about social and economic justice. But we must also remember that the Kingdom of God can never be identified with any single political group or cause, or country. Instead, it is always the standard by which every political plan is judged.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who certainly understood the political implications of the Gospel better than most, never endorsed a political candidate.

In the famous scene from John’s Gospel excerpted above, Pilate asks Jesus whether or not he is a king, and Jesus responds with one of the best known verses in the Bible. In the older, and more familiar, King James Version, it is translated as “My kingdom is not of this world.”

That is often taken to mean that Jesus is concerned with “heaven” rather than with any earthly kingdom. But if that were the case, then he would not have told his followers to pray for the kingdom of God to come on earth. Jesus was telling Pilate that his kingdom was not like other kingdoms. It was not built on violence and oppression; it was built on non-violent justice.

Unfortunately, that is not a concept easily reduced to a bumper sticker or a sound-bite, and it is not surprising that when mainline pastors do venture into the political arena we are often misunderstood.

After the release of the famous Donald Trump video, Bishop John Schol, who is the United Methodist Bishop of the Greater New Jersey area, posted the following statement on Facebook: 

“Because of my role, I do not comment on political elections and candidates. But this is not a political commentary. It is a faith comment, a comment about the human condition. The recent revelation of Donald Trump’s view of women as sex objects goes against the Scriptures and who God created us as female and male. While we know there are men everywhere who think and talk about women in this way, these comments should never go unchecked whether in private conversation or public conversation. The world needs people everywhere to denounce such comments and call for just treatment of women everywhere. When these comments go unchecked, they give permission for the physical, sexual and emotional abuse of women. The world needs all of us to be better and do better.”

He received many positive responses, but he also received a huge amount of pushback.

Some comments criticized him for making a political statement. Others criticized him for taking sides, or for focusing on words rather than actions. And still others thought he should balance his criticism of Trump by criticizing Hillary Clinton for . . . something.

First, a criticism of Mr. Trump should not be interpreted as an endorsement of Secretary Clinton.

Second, it’s not just about what Mr. Trump said on the video; it’s about what he said he did. He said that he committed sexual assaults on numerous women.

Finally, we need to move beyond our obsessive need for a false equivalency. The video is lewd. And if you want more lewd comments from Mr. Trump, you can listen to what he said about his daughter on Howard Stern’s radio program. 

Some things are just wrong. 

All by themselves.

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Big Papi Comments on Donald Trump's Wall

David Ortiz and Derek Jeter

As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
II Timothy 4:6-7

We want our athletes to be heroes. We want them to be good as well as great.

We know that there is no moral value in hitting a home run, or throwing a touchdown pass, or sinking a three pointer, but we cannot help ourselves.

When it comes to athletes, I am a profound skeptic. But I can’t help myself.

In spite of all the evidence, I want to believe that Ted Williams was a good person. 

And I haven't yet gotten over my disappointment with Lance Armstrong.

Of course, there have been some athletes who have combined exceptional goodness with athletic greatness: Bill Russell, Bob Cousy, and Robert Gordon Orr come to mind. Al Kaline. Stan Musial. Roberto Clemente. And I would probably add Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Jerry West if they had not committed the unforgiveable sin of playing for the Lakers.

And somewhere in that constellation, I see David Ortiz.

He is not perfect. In 2009 a New York Times report said that he was one of 104 Major League players who tested positive for something in a 2003 drug check that was supposed to be confidential. His excuse is that he was careless in the use of a supplement. 

But it’s hard not to love Big Papi. His career numbers are staggering. And it’s not just what he did, but when he did it. I am skeptical of calling someone a “clutch” hitter, but Ortiz may be the exception. Before Ortiz came to the Red Sox they had not won a World Series in more than eight decades. Since his arrival they have won three.

Major League Baseball has a rule against fraternizing with fans or with members of the opposing team. The rule, 3.09, reads in full: 

“Players in uniform shall not address or mingle with spectators, nor sit in the stands before, during, or after a game. No manager, coach or player shall address any spectator before or during a game. Players of opposing teams shall not fraternize at any time while in uniform.”

Big Papi pays no attention. He is friends with everyone and everyone loves him. He talks to the fans when he is on deck waiting to bat. When he gets on base, he is always smiling. And he is always talking to the players on the other team. 

In an interview in Spanish with Jorge Ortiz of USA Today, he was asked to comment on the status of Latinos and immigrants in the United States, particularly in light of the current presidential campaign.

Ortiz, who became an American citizen in 2008, said that he does not normally comment on political issues and is not particularly knowledgeable about politics. But he said that Donald Trump’s promise to build a wall to seal off the southern border and have Mexico pay for it, and Trump’s statements about Mexico sending rapists and criminals to the USA, “didn’t sit well with me.”

“When you speak like that about us, it’s a slap in the face,” said Ortiz.

“I walk around sometimes, and I see Mexican people trying to earn a living in an honest way. And to hear somebody make those kinds of comments, it hits you. I think as Latin people we deserve better. Things have gotten much better in that regard. … As Latin people we deserve respect, no matter where you’re from. And especially our Mexican brothers, who come here willing to do all the dirty work.

“Latin people here in the United States are the spark plug of the country’s economy. Whoever opposes that is going to lose. And not just Latin people but immigrants. I’m talking about people who come from Africa, from Asia, other places. All those people come here with one goal, to realize the American dream, and you have to include them in our group.”

It means something that David Ortiz, who is one of the most popular athletes in America and also one of the most well-known Latinos in America, would take the risk of speaking out. 

In an instant, he put a face on the issue. And not just any face. A beloved face, larger than life.

I first heard about the interview on sports talk radio as I was driving home for lunch yesterday. And I was appalled by the comments. 

The hosts spoke as if they were talking about a child. They noted that David admitted he really didn’t know very much about politics. 

"Doesn’t he know we’re talking about illegal immigrants?" they asked. Donald Trump isn’t going to deport all immigrants, just the illegals. Trump didn’t say all Mexicans were rapists. David just doesn’t understand the issue. And it went on like that.

I guess if you are a very large black guy with an accent who smiles all the time and seems to love everybody it’s easy for people to think you are not very smart. Now we know why Bill Russell smiled so seldom.

For the record, I think David understands precisely what the issues are.

And you don’t need a Ph.D. in Political Science to feel a slap in the face.

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