You Can’t Control Politics, Only Your Own Choices

We can all add our two cents, whatever it is, whoever we are, and wherever we are: and the loving God can use all that for all of God’s purposes.

You can’t control politics, only your own choices. After the Super Tuesday results and Nikki Haley dropping out of the Republican primary, it looks like the 2024 presidential election will be between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. 

Donald Trump’s degenerating behavior – and his supporters’ delight in it –  is making more and more of my close friends and colleagues very afraid. Trump completely controls a whole political party, which bows to his orders, lies and selfish agenda — no matter how bizarre and dangerous they are. 

Democracy is under a more dire threat than at any time since the Civil War, with a modern version of that violent conflict potentially upon us again. When a completely amoral marketer (which is even worse than being an absolutely immoral human being) who has always been committed to only his own self interest, has succeeded in mobilizing the grievances of so many white Americans  – we are in deep trouble. And the fact that Trump’s message and movement goes deeper than political anger, but has evoked and catalyzed the worst demons of America’s racial history – which run very deep – puts us in even more trouble than just awful politics.

Only our better angels can save us, and they are up against a lot in 2024. As a colleague said recently, the Democrats and the left just don't understand religion, which puts us in another dangerous place with the rise of White Christian Nationalism as a galvanizing factor for Trump’s political base. The bad religion of Christian nationalism, which I call The False White Gospel, will not just be defeated by politics and media, but must be countered by reclaiming true biblical faith, especially the teachings of Jesus, that must be in direct public confrontation with the idolatrous and heretical religion that is inspiring Trump’s white base. The definition of heresy is always what turns Christians away from Jesus.

In another recent conversation, I spoke to a Muslim leader who believes, as I do, that the “Uncommitted” voters protesting Biden’s policy toward Israel are not just a protest signal but could end up helping Trump defeat Biden in the fall. The only real hope we have is for a change in Biden’s policies: telling Prime Minister Netanyahu that aid and support for his government will be cut off if Israel does not open up Gaza to humanitarian aid and demanding a just and secure two-states as the only solution to peace and security on all sides. Neither the brutality of Netanyahu’s regime nor the brutality of Hamas can be useful in finding that agreement, which must be secured with the help of the international community and leadership changes on both sides. 

While Joe Biden’s record, especially on domestic policy, is actually a good one – from my Christian social justice point of view – his limitations as a candidate and the continuing attacks on his aging by the polls and the media are also a deep concern, Yes, Joe Biden is old; and Donald Trump is an increasingly demented and dangerous man. Wisdom and experience, even faltering, must be compared with an incoherent violent autocrat, which is the choice that the White House and all those who fear Trump hope people will make in the fall. But there is real evil afoot in this election cycle, undergirded by false religion and a history of foreign policy injustice in the Middle East; and fighting evil on all sides must be at the forefront of this election campaign. 

I could recount the discouragement and hopelessness I hear on many other private and confidential phone calls that I have virtually every day But this is where we have to learn the lessons Desmond Tutu and all the other faith giants of social justice have taught us – that hope is not the same thing as optimism, and we must choose hope because of our faith.

I have to remind myself everyday of the reality that I can’t control politics, but I can make my own choices. And that is the message I want to share with each of you as the readers of my column. To act, because of our faith, is what we all always can do. And our Scriptures tell us that is how God can act through us. To use an old slogan, we can only offer our “two cents” and God can expand the value of what we have to offer.

At the same time, I have become wonderfully more aware of all the people, groups, networks and campaigns that are committed to faith and justice in this crucial election year and beyond. I can say without equivocation: You are not alone! We can all add our two cents, whatever it is, whoever we are, or wherever we are: and the loving God can use all that for all of God’s purposes. Because, even after elections as absolutely crucial as this one, we can always say we believe in God and everything follows from that.

My new book, “False White Gospel: Rejecting Christian Nationalism, Reclaiming True Faith, and Refounding Democracy,” is available for preorder. Please consider ordering a copy.