If It Weren’t For Jesus, I Might Support Trump (Or: A History Of My -isms)

My faith was reawakened in 2010, and with it came a whole new world view. I had been baptized as an adult once before, on Superbowl Sunday in a freezing cold baptismal (the heater was broken) and I “accepted Jesus as my savior.” But in 2010, I chose to be baptized again, because this time, I wanted to make Jesus my LORD. I wanted to give him not just my heart, but my whole life.

Within what seems like seconds, I whipped my neck around and suddenly I was on staff at my church, up to my elbows in community service. Suddenly I was drawn out of my comfortable, shiny suburbia, thrust into the dimmer places right outside my door — crumbling homeless shelters; the ganglands of Newark; the places where the forgotten live. I ventured there and something life altering happened to me:

I met the stranger.

I touched the homeless and hungry — the untouchables of our day. I looked bad ass gang members in the eyes and I saw life there. I found communion with these people over pizza and 7Up. Jesus opened my heart and showed me what his heart breaks for.

Suddenly — now —  I look at the Syrian refugee and instead of fear, I feel compassion.

I look at the Muslim couple and instead of fear, I feel immense brotherly love.

Instead fear when I look at gang members now, I see children.

God’s children. Placed before me in an opportunity to love.

What I see happening in America today is a demagogue who knows precisely how to target the basest fears of our citizens. He uses generalities like “Everyone says so!” and “It’s going to be terrific!” and “Oh, my God, I can’t believe how successful I am!“, and people’s fears latch on to his generalizations, desperate to believe anything that will assuage it. Desperate enough to ignore his misogyny, his racism, his own narcissism and megalomania. Our fears are so powerful, we’re allowing Drumpf to steal our very humanity.

But Jesus calls us out of fear. Jesus calls us to be hospitable to strangers and to fear not. Jesus is a radical subversive. He goes against the status quo, against the fear-based propaganda and he gets to the heart of the matter.

I still struggle with fear — that’s normal. But I choose to not let that fear keep me from loving.

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Before you comment about how sinful it is of me to call The Donald by his family name, Drumpf, let me explain. A while back before The Donald won the nomination, John Oliver presented an absolutely hysterical and brilliant commentary  on Donald Trump. You can watch it for yourself, but suffice it to say that I downloaded the Drumpfinator, which automatically changes his name to its original spelling on any website I visit. I did it for my own personal entertainment, and wouldn’t change it even if I knew how. Somehow, it automatically changes how you see the name on my posts. I’m cool with that.

After all, referring to the man by his family name is nothing compared to some of the things he’s said about women, so it’s all good.