Rebecca Florence Miller
Our nation is currently beset by a candidacy that is based around one fundamental principle: winning. All that matters is winning, dominating, conquering. It doesn’t matter how one does this or who gets trodden underfoot. Winning is the one true value and virtue of the Trump campaign, under which everything and everyone else is subsumed.
You win if you have the hottest wife.
Pro-life wins if you discover that someone who could have been aborted become a winner, a “superstar.”
America wins if it becomes dominant again on the world stage, not if it is great because of strong character and values.
You win if you put down opponents instead of addressing their points, if you substitute insults for substance. If you defeat your opponent by tagging them with a catchy insult label.
Winning is having the best poll numbers.
Winning is beating up people who disagree.
Winning is outright lying if you need to sell people on something.
All that matters is winning.
That is how Trump voters can behave like cult members, shutting their ears to contrary, well-reasoned points and refusing to hear. At the end of the day, what really matters to them is winning. Maybe the prize is a Supreme Court justice to their liking. Maybe it is having a Republican in office again. Maybe it is being able to defeat a hated former President’s agenda. But what really matters is winning.
Trump did not create this phenomenon. The two political parties in this country have been substituting winning at all cost for character and substance for a long time. You can look at the moral compromises Hillary Clinton has undertaken, as well, over the course of her time in politics to see that there were many times she prized winning over all else. She is hardly the only one.
If you believe winning and achieving dominance is what matters most, you will eventually get a candidate like Donald Trump. He is the natural trajectory of our moral bankruptcy. That he should emerge in the party that claims that character, morals, and family values are near the top of the list in importance is telling. He is just showing us in bold relief that that isn’t true for many people, on both sides of the aisle. The hypocrisy is suffocating.
Enter a Christian named Russell Moore. Russell Moore doesn’t make sense to this world of politics because he believes in an upside-down kingdom, instead of the kingdom of dominance of this world. He is willing to stand up to the Republican party, to a powerful man like Donald Trump, and to earthly kingdoms and risk real backlash, not because he wants to suffer but because he knows a fundamental biblical principle. He really believes it.
And so Moore wrote a scathing prophetic rebuke like this, in The New York Times this week (hardly the first time he’s publicly criticized Trump):
The Bible calls on Christians to bear one another’s burdens. White American Christians who respond to cultural tumult with nostalgia fail to do this. They are blinding themselves to the injustices faced by their black and brown brothers and sisters in the supposedly idyllic Mayberry of white Christian America. That world was murder, sometimes literally, for minority evangelicals.
This has gospel implications not only for minorities and immigrants but for the so-called silent majority. A vast majority of Christians, on earth and in heaven, are not white and have never spoken English. A white American Christian who disregards nativist language is in for a shock. The man on the throne in heaven is a dark-skinned, Aramaic-speaking “foreigner” who is probably not all that impressed by chants of “Make America great again.”
Trump responded predictably, with insults instead of substance. When Trump does this, his followers fall in line with his narrative, and Trump forms their view of reality. This could result in real world consequences for Moore, depending on how well insulated he is at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. Certainly, if it was up to Trump, Moore would be going down, losing his position and prominence and social cache. Hopefully that won’t happen, but the thing that Trump really doesn’t understand is that those kinds of loses in earthly power do not ultimately control a Christian like Moore. Moore is a follower of the Crucified One. A crucified leader did not fulfill the earthly narrative of “make our country great again” when he walked this earth; instead, he offered his life up on the cross. He lost in order to win.
For in Scripture it says:
“See, I lay a stone in Zion,
a chosen and precious cornerstone,
and the one who trusts in him
will never be put to shame.”Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe,
“The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone,”and,
“A stone that causes people to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall.”–I Peter 2:6-8, NIV
The reason Jesus is a stumbling stone to people in this old world is because he shows us the way of the cross, not the way of glory. We don’t expect our heroes, our gods, our messiahs to die! We expect them to be victorious and to crush their enemies under their feet. But the one true Christ has done the opposite. In the brokenness of his death, new life sprang forth. Only after loss and death did resurrection come.
They came to Capernaum. When he was in the house, he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the road?” But they kept quiet because on the way they had argued about who was the greatest.
Sitting down, Jesus called the Twelve and said, “Anyone who wants to be first must be the very last, and the servant of all.”
He took a little child whom he placed among them. Taking the child in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me.”–Mark 9:33-35
This is the “upside-down kingdom.” This is the bewildering Christ that true disciples of his follow.
But, oh, how beguiling is the way of winning! How much our American mindset and our human mindset calls to us that what matters is dominating our opponents, being powerful, being top dog. How little we value the lowly, the unimportant, the “losers.”
I am convicted that much of my grief and anger at this horrifying campaign comes because I am not winning and my people are not winning and I can’t conceive of how good can move forward without winning.
Much of my sorrow also comes from worry and fear for the “other,” those people in society who are already powerless and disenfranchised. What will the winning of that which is evil mean for them? That is why I must keep fighting against the lies, selfishness, and moral rot of a Trump candidacy, but at the same time I am called to remember that Trump can never, never defeat God’s kingdom on earth. God’s kingdom on earth is found in the lowly, the powerless, the disenfranchised, the unexpected, and the “losers.” Russell Moore leads the way, unafraid to stand for what is right, no matter the cost.
God’s kingdom is not of this world. We will not win at all cost. We will stand for the values of God’s kingdom, even if it means losing. We will stand for the good of our neighbor. We will not go along with evil just so we can win.
God’s kingdom will ultimately triumph. Until then, we live in the time of “the now and the not yet.” We are called to bring God’s light to this world in whatever way is within our power. We cannot be defeated because the more we lose, the more we win. So let us fight for truth and justice and righteousness with all our hearts and without fear! Thanks be to God.
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P.S. Please also note that I am not a scientist, but a person with expertise in theology and the arts. While I am very interested in the relationship between science and faith, I do not believe I personally will be able to adequately address the many questions that inevitably come up related to science and religion. I encourage you to seek out the writings of theistic or Christian scientists to help with those discussions.
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Image credit: “Cross” by Alberto Cabrera, via Flickr, CC License 4.0.
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