One of the most common metaphors throughout the Bible is that of shepherds (political and religious leaders) who are in charge of the sheep (AKA the common people). Throughout the Hebrew scriptures, God continually calls out the bad shepherds that are misleading and mistreating the people under them, while trying to put into place good shepherds instead – Ezekiel 34 is a great example of this type of metaphor.
Truthfully, as an individualistic American, I don’t really like the shepherd metaphor as it implies that most human beings are simple sheep, without the capacity to make complex decisions on their own. (The pejorative use of the term “sheeple” as a secular insult to castigate people who believe in vaccines and a round earth hasn’t helped my aversion to the concept.)
However, after witnessing the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6th, I actually realize the metaphor of sheep and shepherds is quite apt. Without shifting away any blame from the average Joes and Karens who perpetrated the Capitol invasion (I hope they all face appropriate civil and criminal penalties), the simple truth is that this act would not have happened without the long list of political, cultural, and religious leaders/shepherds who instigated it. After all, six months ago virtually none of these Capitol invaders knew about the role Congress plays in certifying the Electoral College vote. Thusthe mass gathering and violence we saw on January 6th is almost entirely due to the bad shepherds that organized it, promoted it, and then allowed it to happen.
Many of those who stormed the Capitol were planning to take hostages–note the zip ties– and execute them on camera. There was even a noose and gallows set up outside the Capitol.
It’s easy to imagine how differently January 6th would have gone if we didn’t have so many bad shepherds misleading the sheep
If Trump, the political shepherd of our nation, had peacefully conceded the election back in November or December, most of these sheep would have grumbled but peacefully gone along with it. If Trump had not demanded a mass rally in Washington DC on January 6, calling for his followers to march on the Capitol, a few diehard protesters still would have been there, but not the thousands we saw overpower the police.
If far-right newscasters, politicians, and media personalities hadn’t invented and spread hundreds of false and misleading narratives about the election, the sheep would have accepted the conclusions of the 60+ different federal judges (many of whom were appointed by Trump!) that the elections was free, fair, and without widespread fraud. If these same shepherds hadn’t kept stringing along false hopes that Mike Pence would magically overturn the election on January 6, the sheep would not have been so devastated when the inevitable certification of the election results happened.
If conservative Christian pastors and theologians had taught their flocks to love their enemies, instead of dominating and killing them, we would not have seen Christian banners and symbols waved as battle flags and taken into the halls of Congress. If these Christian leaders had accurately taught that white supremacy and Christian nationalism are satanic heresies from the pit of hell, these sheep would not have been so bloodthirsty and eager to overturn the legitimate election of someone who doesn’t represent those things to them. If these Christian shepherds had spent more time speaking against the dangerous Qanon / End Times conspiracies actively spreading in their pews instead of against scary liberal acronyms like “CRT”, “BLM”, and “AOC”, maybe their congregants would have been less likely to fly to Washington DC to beat up cops and scrawl “Murder the Press” on the Capitol walls.
A STUNNING 45 % of Republicans support the storming of the US CapitolLink
The blame for what happened on January 6th does not solely fall on the far-right: If the liberal shepherds who run social media corporations such as Facebook and Twitter had heeded the warnings of experts and taken steps to stop the radicalization of sheep on their platform via viral fake news and incendiary accounts, there would be far fewer people falling prey to conspiracy theories like Qanon or the election fraud narrative. Granted, there’s always a few kooks in every society, but without the aid of social media their numbers would be much smaller. [On a related note, I have actually come around to agree with conservative pundits that Section 230 should be repealed and the federal government should regulate social media corporations much more firmly than it currently is. These massive, greedy companies have shown over and over that they care more about profit than people; they are the bad shepherds that are allowing wolves to eat their sheep and cannot be trusted to keep self-regulating without any checks and balance.]
Those are just a few of the bad shepherds who are to blame for the shameful actions we saw on January 6th. To my knowledge, none of these shepherds have publicly repented of their ways. What will God’s judgment upon these bad shepherds look like? And perhaps an even more important question: who will raise up a generation of good shepherds to better guide the sheep?
This is one of my favorite bits of writing I did in 2020, and it was first published here for the website Eleven-ThirtyEight (which I would argue is one of the most thoughtful and insightful Star Wars blogs out there). I’ve been a guest writer on Eleven-ThirtyEight a number of times– you can view my other articles by clicking here.
As someone who works with college students through a campus ministry, my favorite part of the job is leadership development. Every year I try to guide students to take steps forward along a leadership “pipeline”: taking risks, sticking with commitments, inviting others into a vision, being honest about past mistakes, and dealing with failure—all while doing so with a measure of humility. That’s why I’ve loved the recurring theme of leadership development in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, particularly as it relates to passing the baton to the next generation. There are many ways that we see characters grow in this trilogy, but perhaps the clearest development arc of a leader is that of Poe Dameron.
Whether it’s his risk-taking in The Force Awakens, his lessons learned the hard way in The Last Jedi, or his final maturation in The Rise of Skywalker, we see a continued path of development for Poe into a leader far beyond just another stereotypical flyboy or lone ranger. Poe’s steady growth as a Resistance leader, under the guidance of Leia and other mentors, is a stirring model for anyone looking for a clear picture of a leadership pipeline in action.
Basic Leadership Skills: Boldness, technical skill, and beginning to cast vision
In the opening of The Force Awakens, Poe Dameron is a commander and a skilled pilot, sent by Leia to retrieve a valuable piece of intel. Within the opening twenty minutes of the film, Poe exudes basic leadership skills such as boldness, the ability to take risks, and technical prowess. Thinking quickly, Poe entrusts the map to BB-8 when he realizes his capture is imminent. After his X-wing is disabled, he grabs a rifle and starts providing covering fire for the Jakku villagers. A few scenes later, as Finn helps him break out of First Order captivity, Poe quickly teaches him how to operate TIE fighter weaponry, and coaches him through the process of destroying some of the turbolasers. Throughout their escape, Poe does not denigrate Finn or doubt him, but instead affirms him. Thus the viewer is introduced to Poe as someone with the clear stirrings of leadership qualities: he takes initiative, exhibits proficiency in technical skills, and can quickly teach other individuals basic tasks.
Although Poe disappears for the middle act of TFA, he jumps right back into the action for the final one. Back at the Resistance base, Poe advocates for Finn to Leia—“Finn’s familiar with [Starkiller Base]”. It’s a small moment, but meaningful: so often leadership simply involves networking the right people to each other, and then stepping back and letting the process take over. Poe could have tried to share the information on Finn’s behalf, claiming credit, but he happily lets Finn take the lead with Leia. Later, leading the attack on Starkiller Base, he keeps his dialogue centered and encouraging, reminding Black Squadron of the big picture: “Yeah, we gotta keep hitting it! (…) Remember, when that sun is gone, that weapon will be ready to fire, but as long as there’s light, we got a chance.” Perhaps a bit cheesy, as far as dialogue goes, but it gets the job done. At the climax of the film, Poe bravely flies inside the very structure he’s trying to blow up, destroying it from the inside.
Thus in TFA, we see someone with the basic building blocks of a leader. Poe is bold and daring, willing to take risks for the sake of others and the broader mission. Moreover, he has clear technical skills, and is able to quickly teach those to others, whether it’s describing how to fire a TIE’s lasers or explaining how large Starkiller Base is. Lastly, Poe is able to quickly encourage and refocus the allies he’s fighting alongside, even in the midst of battle. If TFA were the only film to show Poe’s arc as a leader, it would be inspirational, but perhaps a bit basic. TLJ and TROS take his growth as a leader to the next level.
Intermediate Leadership Skills: Leading squads, learning from failure, and preserving those you lead
At the beginning of The Last Jedi, Poe leads another stunt to save the day: attacking a Dreadnought head-on. Since the point of this is simply to delay the First Order, Leia orders Poe to retreat once she learns the evacuation is complete. Her priority is the continued existence of the Resistance, not a token military victory that she knows will do nothing to dent the First Order’s overall forces. Unfortunately, Poe only sees the opportunity to take down a Dreadnought, and refuses to retreat—leading to heavy losses.
“There were heroes on that mission!” Poe blusters to Leia after she demotes him. “Dead heroes. No leaders,” Leia corrects him. “I need you to learn that.” Unlike the First Order, which has limitless resources, it is crucially important for Resistance leaders to steward those under their care and raise them up to be the next generation of leaders. As Admiral Holdo says, “We are the spark that will ignite the fire that will restore the Republic. That spark, this Resistance, must survive.” I believe it’s this same dynamic that lies at the heart of Admiral Holdo’s dismissive attitude towards Poe. Holdo is surely aware of Poe’s incredible skills in an X-wing, but she knows that derring-do is not the right way to preserve the Resistance given their current tactical situation. For the second time in The Last Jedi, Poe has a choice: whether to sit back and accept his senior commander’s view of the bigger picture, or to attempt a flashy, riskier plan that will put him back in the center of the action.
Once again, Poe chooses action, supporting Finn and Rose’s plan to sneak aboard the Supremacy and disable the hyperspace tracker. Through the course of this doomed scheme, however, we see Poe take leadership in some new ways. He carefully listens to younger leaders explain their plan, and sends them on their way with the resources they need (coordinating with Lieutenant Connix to aid their escape). Later, he gathers additional co-conspirators who join him in mutiny after a failed attempt to win Admiral Holdo’s support for his plan. Say what you will about Poe’s mistakes here, but he is clearly willing to develop a plan, bring others into it, and risk his own reputation and life for it. It would be admirable, if it weren’t so risky to the overall Resistance. I can almost feel Leia’s frustration before she stuns him: Come on, you should know better by now!
Despite the mutiny, Leia and Holdo don’t seem to hold a grudge against Poe (perhaps they see a bit of themselves in him?). As Poe lies stunned on a gurney, Holdo gently touches his face and slyly nods to Leia, “That one’s a troublemaker—I like him.” “Me too,” Leia agrees. I might be reading too much into it, but I resonate a lot with this small exchange: two senior leaders smiling about a talented up-and-comer who has obvious potential but needs just a bit more maturing. Poe’s leadership skills are immensely valuable, if only he can grasp the bigger picture: preserving the Resistance is more important than immediate action. “[Holdo was] more interested in protecting the light than she was seeming like a hero,” Leia gently chides Poe once he regains consciousness.
Finally, at the end of TLJ, Poe begins to understand this lesson. In an echo of Leia’s order to him at the start of the film, Poe orders Finn to retreat from his futile attack on the battering cannon. And later, when Finn wants to leap into battle to help Luke Skywalker, Poe stops him. “He’s stalling so we can escape. (…) We are the spark that’ll light the fire that will burn the First Order down. Skywalker’s doing this so we can survive.” Poe gets it! Finally, Leia can relax, knowing the future of the Resistance is in good hands. “What are you looking at me for?” she says. “Follow him!”
Perhaps Rose’s quote summarizes this leadership lesson best: “That’s how we’re gonna win. Not fighting what we hate, saving what we love.” In our own world, too many underdeveloped leaders are consumed by the causes they lead, becoming bitter as they face resistance, or devouring the very people they lead for the sake of the mission. This type of toxic leadership culture ends up treating individuals as pawns, not worth protecting if there is some short-term profit to be earned or goal to be achieved. In contrast, leaders who are actually maturing are those who begin, like Poe, to understand that the future of the movement lies more in saving and growing one’s fellow travelers over the long haul, rather than simply using them up for a short-term utilitarian gain. Poe has advanced a lot as a leader by the end of TLJ; in TROS, Poe will complete his growth.
Mature Leadership: Being honest about one’s past, acknowledging weakness, and raising up other leaders
In TROS, we see Poe become the general Leia always saw in him: he owns up to his past, acknowledges his shortcomings, and leads other leaders. For the first chunk of the film, though, Poe is the same risk-taking, pep-talking, squad-leading commander we witnessed in the previous films. That’s great—the need for those basic leadership skills don’t go away. But his turn to even deeper maturity comes in the second act when he realizes he needs to go back to Kijimi, a system where he had betrayed and deserted his old spice-running friends. We see Poe weigh the cost of facing those he had wronged (and coming clean about his past to Finn and Rey) against the bigger picture—“If this mission fails, it’s all been for nothing. All we’ve done, all this time.” In both the Star Wars universe and our own, too many leaders try to bury shameful past secrets, or attempt to hide present biases, vices, and weaknesses. Of course, those areas of brokenness only fester in secrecy. Poe takes the big step of not only facing his secret shame, but doing so in the presence of those he loves. In the end, it’s not as painful or embarrassing as he fears it will be, and the risk opens up the possibility of reconciling with Zorii and his other former compatriots.
Poe’s growth continues on Kijimi. After a tense reunion with Zorii, she offers him a chance for redemption, romance, and an escape from the destruction to come: by fleeing with her to the Colonies. Poe has the chance to save himself, but he turns it down. “I can’t walk out on this war. Not ‘til it’s over.” He then turns even more somber. “Maybe it is [over]. We sent out a call for help at the Battle of Crait. Nobody came. Everyone’s so afraid. They’ve given up.” This is Poe’s dark night of the soul, a level of vulnerability and lament that we haven’t seen from him before. Poe has been holding in these dark fears, but takes the time to share them with Zorii. Zorii, for her part, doesn’t try to take advantage of Poe’s dour mood, but encourages him: “I don’t believe you believe that.” Poe nods; encouraged or not, he’s committed to the Resistance, to the bitter end.
But Poe’s commitment to the Resistance isn’t necessarily enough. After a verbal spat with Finn on Kef Bir, Poe blurts out: “I’m not Leia!” Finn’s response doesn’t comfort him: “That’s for damn sure.” Up to that point, Poe could take comfort that the buck doesn’t stop with him and that Leia will always know what to do. Yet what happens when Leia is gone, and he has no choice but to take her place? All those fears—of failure, inadequacy, doubt—rise up within Poe as he sits in front of Leia’s shroud-covered body back at the Resistance base. Can he really lead the entire Resistance without Leia watching over him? Contrary to his prideful instincts in the previous films, Poe finally admits that he can’t be the leader the Resistance he needs: “I’m not ready.” He can’t simply defeat an empire all alone. But therein lies the secret, Lando tells him. “We had each other—that’s how we won.”
And this is the turning point, the final, most important lesson about leadership that Poe needs to learn: ultimately, his job as a leader is to empower other leaders. That’s what Leia, Holdo, and others have been doing for him this whole time, and their example pays off. Poe immediately asks Finn to come into command with him: “I can’t do this alone.” In an antithesis of the First Order’s philosophy, Poe knows that others have to be trusted, and empowered, to do the right thing to actually defeat the enemy. “The First Order wins by making us think we’re alone. We’re not alone. Good people will fight if we lead them. (…) What our mothers and fathers fought for, we will not let die.” And they don’t. Poe, along with Finn, Rey, Lando, Chewbacca, and dozens of other leaders, destroys the Sith fleet in poetic fashion: by targeting their central power systems (both personnel and equipment). Once Emperor Palpatine and General Pryde are gone, the First Order is leaderless and collapses under its own weight. The Resistance, on the other hand, is decentralized, chaotic, and chock-full of leaders—and it can’t be taken down quite so easily. This type of organizational structure makes no sense to the First Order: “It’s not a navy, sir, it’s just…people.” Yet like other mass movements we see in our world, the Resistance’s spark has turned into a raging bonfire, and no amount of opposing forces can ever snuff it out.
Poe’s journey as a leader is complex and not entirely his own; he owes much to Leia, Admiral Holdo, Finn, Lando, and others. But throughout the sequel trilogy, he consistently takes steps towards humility and maturity, and the Resistance is better for it. Leaders in our own world would do well to apply the lessons of Poe’s leadership arc to both their own growth and to how they develop those under their care.
“Evangelism” is a word that often carries a negative connotation—of angry street preachers, or of post-church restaurant patrons who leave gospel tracts instead of tips. Be that as it may, evangelism simply defined is the act of telling others about the gospel/good news of Jesus and his Kingdom. In fact, evangelism of some form or another is commanded for every Christian! (For me personally it’s part of my job with InterVarsity to help give staff and college students a vision for evangelism, as well as the tools and techniques to do it skillfully in the context of a 21st-century university.) Recently, as I’ve been reflecting on the past few months, I believe there are four truths that we can observe about the 2020 election that also point to important lessons about evangelism.
1. Just like political advocacy, evangelism works best person-to-person in your current relational networks.
As part of my job, I often invite young adults to prayerfully consider who in their friend groups might be interested in discussions about faith and spirituality. The idea is that evangelism isn’t always about going up to strangers in grocery stores, but more often simply recognizing that God has already placed people in our lives with whom we have the opportunity to share his love and grace. To help students better understand this, I frequently ask them to physically draw a “network map” of all the people they’re connected to on campus (from their dorms, classes, clubs, sports, sororities, etc.), and to pray about who among them might be intrigued by Jesus. Invariably, students are surprised when they are drawn to someone they never dreamed would be interested in spiritual conversations, who ends up responding enthusiastically! Relational evangelism works because it builds on the foundation of your current friendships and relationships.
Thus I nearly laughed aloud when I read a news article about the 2020 election touting the benefits of “relational organizing,” which is functionally a very similar strategy to doing relational evangelism! To quote the article (which is lengthy and left-leaning but very interesting), “At its most basic, relational organizing is simply facilitating conversations between friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers. Instead of relying on traditional strategies like door knocking, phone calls, or texts from strangers, it harnesses existing relationships to mobilize voters….[one] meta-analysis of voter turnout studies found that outreach from friends and family was three times more effective at mobilizing voters than a door knock.” While the article I linked to focuses on progressive groups, this political strategy is not inherently liberal or conservative. Instead, it relies on a simple truth: people trust people they know over anonymous phone calls or ads that they see online.
In fact, while the 2020 election has inevitably included more anonymous digital ad campaigns than ever before, there’s more and more evidence that these are not what made the difference in the end (for either party!). Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale’s much-vaunted “Death Star” digital ad strategy ultimately ran out of money months before the election, with little to show to it. On the flip side, in Miami-Dade County, Republicans utilized in-person, door-to-door canvassing of predominantly Latino neighborhoods while Democrats practiced social distancing and relied solely on digital communication. The results were clear, as Republicans racked up a surprisingly high number of votes in this historically blue community. Whether in the domain of spreading the good news about Jesus or a piece of good news about a political candidate, it is clear that in-person, relational organizing is supremely better than trusting to digital campaigns and algorithms. Those tools have their place, but should not replace the work of in-person organizing.
An example of a network map
One final note on this topic–both relational evangelism and relational political organizing have as their key premise that each of us have within our friend groups people who disagree with us. Unfortunately, as people isolate more and more within their own bubbles, that becomes less and less true! There’s a sad reason behind why some Christians tend to evangelize their restaurant servers and people they meet on airplanes: those are literally the only non-Christians they encounter on a regular basis! Similarly, many Republicans and Democrats don’t have a single close friendship with someone of the other political party. If you’re seeking to be personally comfortable and never have meaningful interactions with people who are different than you, then that’s fine. But if you actually want to see other people understand and perhaps believe your viewpoint, then it is important to intentionally expand your networks to include more people who think differently from you.
2. As in politics, evangelism requires compelling communication and meeting people where they’re at
Another piece of my job involves helping staff and students know how to share the story of Jesus and his Kingdom in ways that make sense to the people they are communicating with. This can take many forms, such as asking good questions, listening well, sharing personal stories, eschewing confusing “Christianese jargon”, and knowing how to communicate core truths about Jesus in clear and concise ways. Perhaps most importantly, you need to communicate the next step for that person to make on their faith journey-which might be very small! A next step may be to try praying, to check out a church or Bible study, to ask a friend about some tough theological questions, or to do some more personal reflecting (and of course, some people are ready and excited to make a public decision such as becoming a Christian or being baptized, but these steps can’t happen unless these foundations are there).
In many ways, I would argue, these truths are also true when it comes to inviting people to consider supporting/voting for the political candidate/values you care about. We need to be able to communicate passionately but winsomely, inviting others to align themselves with our core beliefs without alienating them. One blogger writes:
“About the most significant election in modern American history, there is much we still don’t know. But some things are already becoming clear….Too many of us are not only unable to persuade people on the other side but also unwilling to try, uninterested in winning people over. Movements that agree on fundamental values need to learn to be better coalition allies to each other in spite of their differences….The fantasy that incremental change is most appealing to most people must be buried, and the prophets of real change must find the language and candidates to make the cause of social democracy less frightening to many Americans than it now is….We have ceased to be a country in disagreement; we are now a country of mutual disgust; and these widespread feelings of disgust essentially shut down politics. …The way out of this cold civil war is a politics that is thrilling, inclusive, substantive, visionary, galvanizing, empathetic, tolerant of different degrees of on-board-ness, and deft at meeting people where they are. Democracy is not a supermarket, where you pop in whenever you need something; it’s a farm, where you reap what you sow. Let’s plant.”
There’s a lot of great points in this paragraph that can also make connections to evangelism, but I especially love the farming metaphor at the end, which is a metaphor Jesus uses over and over. There is no magic factory or technique for introducing people to Jesus; like farming it takes hard work, time, maintenance, and in the end is a bit mysterious. Yet if we are faithful to do the work in casting a compelling vision and meeting people where they are at, whether in building our democracy or in introducing our friends to Jesus, there is certain to be a harvest.
“Lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!” John 4:35
3. Evangelism, much like political advocacy, is ultimately the pronouncement of a new ruler and a new Kingdom
Despite being a common term, most Christians are unaware of the original political and cultural connotations of the word “evangelism.” The Greek word from which we derive evangelism is evangelion / euangelion (note the root words eu = good, angelion = message.) One scholar defines it thus: “The original meaning of the word evangelion, “gospel,” is a technical term in Greek, meaning the announcement of a great military victory, or the rule of a new king or emperor. It’s the PR of empire, the announcement of good news of victory. As the imperial cult took hold, it was the standard word for any announcement of auspicious news about the emperor and the imperial family. This term figures in the vocabulary of the Roman emperors, who understood themselves as lords, saviours, and redeemers of the world. The messages issued by the emperor were called evangelion, regardless of whether or not their content was particularly cheerful and pleasant. The idea was that what comes from the emperor is a saving message, that it is not just a piece of news, but a change of the world for the better.”
Knowing this context, it thus becomes incredibly significant that Jesus and his disciples use this wide-spanning political terminology to explain the Kingdom of God. Following Jesus is not just a personal decision, nor one that only has private effects. To believe in Jesus is to believe that one now lives in a fundamentally different world, similar to (but much bigger than) the differences between a Caesar Augustus and a Caesar Nero, or between a President Trump and a President Biden. It’s not just about a new person in power, it’s about everything that new person represents.
Related to that, to proclaim a new ruler will be good news to some but bad news to others. When President Trump was declared president late on the night of Nov. 8, 2016, the next day was dark and mournful for many people (and joyful for others!). When President Biden was declared president at noon on Nov 7, 2020, thousands of people flooded the streets to celebrate (while others mourned or fumed privately). For Jesus, it’s clear for whom the announcement of his Kingship will feel like good news—it’s the poor, oppressed, and marginalized. For his very first sermon in Luke 4, Jesus quotes Isaiah 61: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” The flipside of that of course, is that Jesus’ Kingship is not automatically good news to those who are rich, comfortable, and powerful. In Luke 6 Jesus warns: “Woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep. Woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.” And that is why Jesus says that to follow him is to forsake comfort and ease, and instead embrace the way of suffering, the way of the cross.
Now granted that there are ways in which Jesus statements can also be interpreted metaphysically and not solely literally, the basic premise remains the same: sharing the gospel of Jesus should not be a story about a Santa Claus in the sky who wants to only live in your heart and give you a free ticket to heaven. Instead, it’s a radical pronouncement of the true ruler of the heavens and the earth, who is completely different than any other ruler, and calls us to live differently. Which brings me to my final point.
4. Like a president who’s been elected but not yet inaugurated, we too live in a transitory, in-between time where Jesus has already been declared King but has yet to return in his full power and glory.
A fourth thing we can learn about evangelism via the 2020 election comes from the period between the election and inauguration day. As is clear now (to most people), Joe Biden won the 2020 election but does not have yet full authority of the president. He is the “president-elect” which means that the authority is there waiting to be claimed and picked up on January 20, but constitutionally he is not yet the president-it’s still Donald Trump and he still has immense power! Now this of course is not unique to 2020; it has been true of every presidential transition. (In fact, in the early days of the United States, this interregnum period used to last until March, until the 20th Amendment was in 1933 passed to shorten it to January.)
In some ways, this in-between period can remind us of the state that we are in right now as Christians. Jesus 2000 years ago totally defeated sin, death, and Satan through his death on the cross and his resurrection three days later. However, although his kingdom was ushered in and initiated in many ways on that day, he has not yet taken full control of this world. In a sense he is president-elect and we are in the in-between period, the interregnum. Jesus has the rightful authority and is one day going to physically come back to earth, be fully inaugurated, and his kingdom will be fully present. But that is not yet the reality; we are still under the partial control of sin, death, and Satan (who is in this analogy a lame-duck president).
Moreover, similar to those in our world who still refuse to acknowledge Joe Biden as president-elect and may continue to ignore his authority after Inauguration day, there are many who don’t acknowledge Jesus as the as the Lord Savior and God of the world. (This analogy of course is NOT to compare Joe Biden to Jesus! Rather it’s just an illustration—one could have made this same analogy about Donald Trump back in 2016.) However for those of us who follow Jesus, we are called to pre-emptively consider ourselves citizens of his kingdom and to live as if we are already under the full reign of Jesus Christ. In a sense, just like President-elect Joe Biden has a “transition team” to help prepare the way for him being President, us Christians are essentially called to be a “transition team” to prepare the way for Jesus’ return. Among other reasons, that is why Christians are called to reject violence, greed, hate, and selfishness, and instead embrace the values of Jesus’ kingdom: generosity, sacrificial love, and selflessness. We’re preparing for the future ruler. That’s not the way the world works right now, but it’s a way of living that embodies what will be true in Jesus’ coming Kingdom.
For me, I would much rather be a part of Jesus’ “transition team” helping make this world ready for his reign than I would be part of Satan’s lame-duck regime, bitterly clinging to power and privileges that will soon disappear. If you’re not already, I invite you to considering joining me on Jesus’ “transition team”–let me know if you’d like to learn more about it! 🙂
This week I got to have a great conversation about politics with a young man who just graduated from college this past May. He was concerned about casting his vote, not feeling enthusiastic about either major party candidate, but also knowing that the stakes for this election were high. I got to talk through a few things with him, and he felt greatly encouraged and ready to vote. Here are a few pieces of wisdom that I shared yesterday, and I hope they may be of some use to others.
While this election is important, it will not solve America’s problems(however you define those). If Joe Biden is elected president, there will still be COVID-19, racism, police brutality, corporate greed, etc. And if Donald Trump is re-elected, there will still be abortion, “cancel culture”, “fake news”, affordable housing projects in the suburbs, etc. This is not to say a president has no power, of course they do (particularly in terms of things like executive orders, foreign policy, and in deciding how many refugees to accept each year). But a lot of these other issues are incredibly wide-spread, systemic, and deeply engrained at the local level, many of them going back hundreds of years. To think that a single vote in a single national election would somehow solve all these issues betrays a severe lack of knowledge about how America works. Which brings me to #2.
If the only political action you take is to vote every 4 years, you’re doing it wrong. Some people hate “politics” and treat it as a dirty word, but in reality its definition is simply this: “Politics (Greek: politiká, ‘affairs of the cities’) is the activities associated with making decisions in groups, such as the distribution of resources or status.” Politics is thus the outworking on a bigger scale the same type of decisions that we make every day on an individual level: questions about right and wrong, spending money, deciding what behaviors to tolerate or not, etc. If you are a Christian, you are required to “love your neighbor as ourself” and to “seek the shalom/peace/welfare of the city” in which we find ourselves (Jeremiah 29). That means political engagement is not supposed to be optional or occasional–it goes far beyond just casting a ballot! Each of us who claims to follow Jesus is commanded to care about issues that affect our communities and neighbors (rather than solely focusing on our own self-interest). As an example, for a person who is passionate about poverty, or abortion, or immigration, that person should not only be addressing those issues in a national election–there are tons of steps that person can take in their daily, local life to be a part of alleviating them. Demonstrations, protests, advocacy, showing up for school board meetings–the list goes on and on. All of these are political actions where you can arguably have a bigger impact than in a national election.
If you choose to be a single-issue voter, you’ve chosen to cede your ability to effectively pressure/encourage candidates on other issues. Once you indicate that you’re a single-issue voter on a certain issue, it means that the politician you’re voting for no longer has to do anything to win your support on any other issue! For example, if your only issue is “abortion“, it means that you don’t care if your politician lies, cheats, steals, kills, or passes awful laws on any other issue, so long as that person claims to share your views on abortion. This eliminates your ability to have bargaining power to move a politician on other issues–the politician knows at the end of the day you’re in his control because you’re a single-issue voter. To avoid that, you’ll want to practice tip #4.
Even if your candidate wins, you need to still hold them accountable. Many progressives fear that if Joe Biden is elected and Donald Trump leaves the White House, a lot of momentum for antiracist and antipoverty initiatives will disappear. I could imagine the same would be true for conservatives if Trump wins–after all, as a second-term lame duck President who can’t be re-elected, what incentive would Trump have to work hard on conservative issues in a second term? Thus it is important that no matter who wins this November, you keep the pressure high to move forward on the issues you care about.
I really hope that this election is a massive landslide. It is scary to think that in a close election, one of the candidates (especially Trump, though I could imagine other scenarios too) could declare a pre-mature victory, and then mobilize his supporters to intimidate vote counters, mail workers, or others who are still working to count the remaining votes. [Just earlier this week, Donald Trump said that he hopes the Supreme Court will ban any votes from being counted after November 3rd–which is insane, because where I live in Pennsylvania, Cumberland County, announced they won’t even start counting mail-in ballots until November 4th! Does that mean that all those votes–from soldiers overseas and elderly people stuck at home–will be thrown out? Maybe! It is entirely possible that with a conservative Supreme Court and all the forces of the presidency at his command, Donald Trump can seriously mess with the margins of the votes. Voter suppression is an American tradition, and it’s only increased in recent years.] Perhaps even worse yet, is the threat of violence after the election. Far-right militia groups have been agitating for a civil war for decades now, and many of them operate throughout Pennsylvania and many others states. What happens if they think that the election was stolen from them? (One might argue that far-left groups might react similarly to a Trump win, but in my experience leftists don’t own AR-15s). My only hope is that despite the voter suppression, there’s a clear and massive winner on November 3rd that forces the other side to concede defeat and decide not to initiate violence.
If Trump does lose in a landslide, his presidency will have proven to be a misguided Faustian bargain for Republicans. Donald Trump has had a number of moderate policy wins for Republicans over the past four years, but I think any Republican could have achieved them–without inciting the left’s fury as much as Trump has. I think that the few major policy victories that Trump has won are not worth the cost that Republicans will pay going forward. If the polls are correct, even states like Texas and Georgia are threatening to turn blue–indicating that Trump has tarnished the Republican brand, perhaps for a generation. [Moreover 2020 is the worst possible year for Republicans to lose in a landslide, because there will be redistricting happening in the wake of the Census. If Dems sweep nationally, they will be able to remake congressional districts to undo Republican gerrymandering and perhaps even incorporate some gerrymandering of their own – which is what Republicans did in 2010 after they swept the midterms during the last Census.] In contrast, imagine a different world for Republicans right now if Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, John Kasich, or even Jeb Bush had become the Republican nominee in 2016. Best case scenario–they beat Hillary, pass the same corporate tax cuts and get the same Supreme Court justices, but without triggering the left so much as to create a massive pro-Democrat backlash. Worst case scenario, Hillary would have won in 2016, but now would be in the same rough position that Trump is in now–facing a potentially historic loss as an incumbent in a redistricting year. All that said, I think that embracing Trump was a strategic mistake for Republicans, as he has been a relatively ineffective politician compared to what could have been achieved, especially when you consider he controlled all 3 branches of government for the first half of his term.
Do you want your vote to matter? Move to a swing state–it’s so fun being the center of attention! Right now according to election website fivethirtyeight.com, Pennsylvania is the state most likely to decide the election due to the vagaries of the Electoral College. As such there are so many texts, calls, campaign rallies, and promises being made to Pennsylvanians right now. It’s overwhelming but I like it! In contrast, imagine if you are a conservative living on the East Coast or West Coast, or a liberal living in the Deep South–not only does your vote not matter, but no one cares about your issues because you don’t live in a swing state! Of course, if we somehow were to eliminate the Electoral College and elect people based on the popular vote, then presidential candidates would start to care about conservatives in upstate New York, or about liberals in southern Alabama. But until then, if you want your vote to matter, you should consider relocating to Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, Ohio, Arizona or one of the other swing states. And that brings me to my final point.
Vote for who you want. There’s a lot of pressure from both sides of the political spectrum to vote for either Trump or Biden, so as not to “waste one’s vote.” And there is a certain level of truth to that, especially in a swing state. The reality is is that until America moves away from a first-past the post, winner-takes-all electoral system to something like other countries have (such as a parliamentary system), we will always be stuck with two parties. It’s like a game of chess –in chess the rules are designed for only two players, there’s no way for a third player to play/win unless you change the rules. This article has some great suggestions for how to alter American elections to enable more parties to bloom, but it’s hard to imagine either major party agreeing to any of these changes…. Now, all that said though, if you refuse to vote for Biden or Trump I believe you have a few options. You can leave the choice of President blank and just vote for the local/state races. You can vote third-party, or write someone in. Recall from my Point #2 that there are so many other ways to make change in this world besides just one vote. If your conscience does not allow you to choose one of the two major candidates, then don’t feel like you absolutely have to. Although that reminds me of a line in the TV show 30 Rock:
Anyway, happy Election Day–see you on the other side!
