Singing the Lord’s Song in a Strange Land

Time to lean into faith.

The United States of America has just elected a dictator for the first time. There were a number of complicated reasons why Donald Trump won the election, but what is now clear is that the President of the United States is a man that even his former military advisors called “fascist to the core.” And many historians and lawyers from both sides of the political aisle said before the election that Trump was not committed to a “constitutional democracy.’ That has never happened before.

Aside from the candidates, our values and who we want to be as a country were also on the ballot. Donald Trump embodies and exemplifies the worst of America, and our worst won.

The man our nation elected is a corrupt, immoral, liar. And he is a criminal who does not believe in the rule of law. But Trump has always been an expert marketer, and became the vessel of grievance and anger which are widespread in America.

Inflation, immigration, deep divisions on complex cultural/moral issues, the “othering” of people for an “us and them” politics, and a clearly broken political system, all helped elect our own autocrat.

Many people feel alienated from politics, especially young people– and for good reasons. Many voted for Trump as the “disrupter” of the system or just stayed home because they don’t think either party cares about them. Working class people voted in their perceived economic self-interest, rightly or wrongly, because they have long felt abandoned and left behind by the elites of America– and they are right too. And the embedded racism and misogyny, which Donald Trump has run on since the beginning of his political career, still runs deep in America. It showed that the election of a Black woman for President is still not possible in our country. 

In the ongoing battle between our better angels and worst demons, the latter won out this time.  

Many other fascists in history, like those in Europe during the 1930s and around the world since,  similarly came to power through elections rather than through violence or coercion. They too won elections for complicated reasons and then turned their nations into autocracies. Trump praises these leaders and is in regular contact with them– like Trump’s ally Viktor Orbán of Hungary who visited him at Mar-a-Largo. 

What America's first fascist leader now does and how those things are received by the people who voted for him (out of their own perceived self interests and deep angers, instead of for the greater common good) has yet to be seen.

Already, in just over his first week as president-elect, Trump appointed Matt Gaetz to become our Attorney General to oversee the Department of Justice, which Gaetz has previously said should be destroyed along with the FBI. Gaetz is the kind of ardent partisan warrior who would also destroy the independence of the DOJ and turn it into Trump’s own prosecutor for retribution and revenge against his opponents. Gaetz’s appointment could also be used to cover up the allegations against him of sex trafficking and illegal drug use that would violate both the rule of law and ethical behavior. Autocrats always try to undermine the rule of law.

Trump appointed the Fox News host, Pete Hegseth, who has called for the excusing of war criminals. And he says he will appoint a new “Warrior Council” that could purge the military of generals who might not be loyal to Trump, and which could open up the use of the military against domestic protesters or to assist with his promised mass deportation. Autocrats always attempt a take-over of the military. 

Trump appointed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run the Department of Health and Human Services, “to go crazy with health” as the President said. To put a conspiratorial anti-vaxxer (including vaccines that have been proven over decades to protect our children) in charge of our medical agencies, violates the fundamental medical commitment to “do no harm.” 

In this whirlwind of quick nominations to his loyal supporters Trump has also named Tulsi Gabbard to become National Security Advisor who is another conspiracy theorist who, like Trump, has  admiration and affinity for Vladimir Putin. With an inexperienced and unqualified Gabbard overseeing intelligence for Trump, many foreign allies have already expressed concerns about sharing intelligence with the U.S. 

Associated Press and Faithful America

Core to these extreme appointments is Donald Trump’s desire to utilize recess appointments to appoint these individuals, subverting the Senate’s constitutional role and responsibility of “advice and consent”. Even though Republicans are in the majority in the Senate, Donald Trump doesn’t want to be beholden to the other equal branches of government. Diminishing the power of the legislative branch and focusing all power with the executive is a common characteristic of autocrats. Trump is using this as an early test of whether Republican Senators will stand up to their President by upholding their constitutional role.

I am personally exhausted from pastoring so many people since the election, as many of you have also done. I have tried to encourage people to focus on grieving rather than despair, and lament rather than depression . I’m also grateful for those friends that have pastored me too.

Last Sunday morning, as feelings of sorrow and dread washed over me, I worshiped at First Congregational Church, UCC, in Atlanta, Georgia. The Rev. Dr. Henry Simmons turned to Psalm 137, and repeated the question, “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?” 

The familiar text made me sit up and listen to a Scripture that has always been close to Black people in a strange land. I realized that’s what we all must do now in a land that may become stranger and stranger under the authoritarian rule of Donald Trump. Perhaps our vocation now is to try our best to sing the Lord’s song, more clearly than ever.

Perhaps providentially, Trump’s rising autocracy may be a time for us to remember that the followers of Jesus began as, and was always intended to be, a minority counter-cultural movement. Tying religion to particular nations and the will to political power has always been an idolatry and still is.

Our public discipleship must always be informed by the teachings of Jesus. And those gospel teachings may first come up in relation to Trump’s plans, already underway, to execute the greatest mass deportation of immigrants in American history. It threatens the people and families who Matthew 25 names as “strangers” among us– the very people Jesus calls us to protect. 

So let us lean into faith, worship, prayer, and action; believing that God is still God, no matter the outcome of the election of 2024.

And we are not alone. We have each other. Together let us “sing the Lord’s song in a strange land.”