Musings

America’s Founding Fathers had the wisdom to set up checks and balances between the three branches of government: the Executive, the Legislative and the Judicial. This balance of powers has served our country well over most of our history. But it came under severe assault under the presidency of Donald Trump; who made decisions as if he has unlimited power to do as he pleases to satisfy his own self-interests. At the same time, with few exceptions, a hyper-partisanship has flourished in the halls of Congress that has led to legislative gridlock. The result has been a frontal attack on the checks and balances needed to maintain a robust democracy that would have been fatal to the American Democratic experiment had it not been for the courageous public service of members of the judiciary; from both sides sides of the political aisle, who would not cave into the autocratic commitments of President Trump. Their meticulous commitment to the state and local laws governing election returns revealed the nonsense of President Trump’s claims of widespread election fraud. Although they were true to their callings as public servants without seeking applause, they are heroes who deserve our applause. 

But this victory for democracy has a deeper dimension upon which we need to focus. It points to the possibility of a return to a way of doing politics that is centered on building unity rather than creating self-serving divisions. 

I believe it is fair to judge that President Trump’s way of doing politics focused on creating divisions. Consider, for example, President Trump’s approach to NOT addressing the rampant racial inequities in America. From the earliest days of his presidency when he declared that there were “good people on both sides” of the protests in Charlottesville, he has played to the fears of white Americans that people of people of color will erode their white privilege, thus creating unbridgeable divisions between white Americans and Americans of color. In the process of doing so, he has created a stark asymmetry between how differing groups of Americans view constitutionally permitted protests over racial inequalities: The protests on those in the “Black Lives Matter” movement are viewed by a significant group of Americans as  inciters of violence, while another significant group of Americans view those who oppose the elements of the “Black Lives Matter” movement as “peaceful protestors,” with the result that nothing is done to address existing rampant racial inequalities, 

Since I plan on voting for Joe Biden in the upcoming presidential election, my first target audience for this reflection consists of those citizens who consider themselves to be “progressives”; having supported Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren in the early primaries.

Having talked with a number of such “progressives,” I sense that many citizens who situate themselves in that category are thinking of not voting because they will not vote for President Trump and they don’t believe Joe Biden is progressive enough to warrant their support. I will now unpack why I think such a decision by these progressives “not to vote” is a bad idea.

I believe I understand the reasons these progressives have for not wanting to vote. They are strong proponents of the progressive agendas advanced by Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren, and they do not wish to settle for the “less progressive” agenda that would likely emerge under a Joe Biden presidency.

The first step that led to my commitment to listen to the pain of others came when no one was willing to listen to my pain.

It was in the summer of 1993 when I was called into the office of the President of Messiah College (PA) and was told that my services as Vice President for Academic Affairs was being terminated immediately because of my “lack of deference to the President and Board of Trustees.” From my perspective, the reason for my being fired  was that my collaborative leadership style was diametrically opposed to the command-and-control style of the President and Board.

A bruhaha resulted amongst my faculty. In an attempt to calm the troubled waters, the Board solicited the services of a mediator, who, I was told, talked to a lot of people, but never talked to me. 

How could that be since it was my firing that led to the turmoil? The pain of being fired was amplified significantly by the fact that this mediator was not willing to listen to my side of the story; not willing to listen to my pain. I had been silenced.

It is indisputable that Christianity, as practiced by the institutional church, is thriving in the global south (centered in Africa, Latin America and Asia), where the majority of Christians now live, and is declining precipitously in the western world, especially among those many millennials in America who now designate their religious affiliation as “none.”

Given that reality, Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, in his excellent book Future Faith, calls Christians in the Western World to listen carefully to their brothers and sisters in Christ in the global south about their views regarding the Christian faith that are at odds with dominant Western Views.

Richard Mouw, President Emeritus of Fuller Theological Seminary, points to the rarity of Christians combining deep convictions about their beliefs with gentleness and respect toward those who disagree with them in a fascinating and disturbing reflection on the many sermons he heard during his boyhood days in a Christian Reformed Church in New Jersey on the last two sentences in 1 Peter 3: 15.

As every reader of my website knows by now, since I never tire of saying it, in one way or another, the premise that underlies my Respectful Conversation project since its inception about eight years ago is that providing someone who disagrees with you a safe and welcoming space to express that disagreement and then talking respectfully about your disagreement is a deep expression of love.

I generally add that this is much easier said than done. I recently read the following words of truth, which are also easy to say but extremely difficult to live by.

In a just and fair society, the healthy should care for the sick; the rich should care for the poor; the mighty should care for the weak; and the prosecutor should care about the prisoner.