by | Jul 15, 2024 | Uncategorized
Political violence looms large in our national history, to our shame. It does not have to define our future.
Foreign policy theorists have a term for when two countries unwillingly drift toward war. It’s called a security dilemma, and as Harvard international relations scholar Stephen M. Walt has explained at Foreign Policy magazine, it’s a scenario where “the actions that one state takes to make itself more secure—building armaments, putting military forces on alert, forming new alliances—tend to make other states less secure and lead them to respond in kind.”
“The result is a tightening spiral of hostility,” Walt wrote, “that leaves neither side better off than before.”
It’s easy to understand how this plays out internationally, with armies and bases and bombs. If Washington is concerned about a rising China, for example, it might expand US naval presence in the Indo-Pacific. But then Beijing, seeing American warships massing off its shores, might reasonably conclude our plans are more aggressive than we’re letting on—and amp up its weapons development and naval drills in turn. And so we could go round and round until one side or the other, perhaps in an unintended failure of communication, starts a world-altering war.
In the aftermath of the attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump on Saturday, it’s time to apply this concept closer to home: America’s right and left, Republicans and Democrats, are in a security dilemma. This tightening spiral of hostility is dangerous, and it must be unwound.
This is not a prediction of a second civil war in the style of the first, with large-scale armies and battles in the streets. I’ve long been skeptical of such forecasts, and I remain skeptical now. But an …
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by | Jul 14, 2024 | Uncategorized
Political violence offers a false sense of meaning. The church must model a different kind of glory.
In the hours of confusion and chaos since the assassination attempt at a Donald Trump rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday, in which the former president was injured and several others killed or critically wounded, partisans of all sorts immediately began to speculate about the motives of the shooter.
For many, this raised a weighty question about radicalization and what’s gone wrong in American democracy. Others’ musings came from a hope to “own” the other side. Some noted that, whatever the shooter’s political views or lack thereof, this episode probably says as much about the mental health crisis in American life as it does about our civic crisis. But what if these two crises are not as unrelated as we imagine?
Most Americans recognize the names of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, along with presidents closer to our own time. Many would struggle, though, to remember when James K. Polk and Franklin Pierce were inaugurated. Yet even those of us fuzzy on much of presidential history can probably identify immediately John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald—just as many who couldn’t name one of Ronald Reagan’s cabinet secretaries know the name of John Hinckley, his would-be assassin. Household names of 1968 like Edmund Muskie or Curtis LeMay have faded out of our memories, but we still know James Earl Ray and Sirhan Sirhan.
Psychologists tell us that people who engage in terrorism of any sort are often well aware of how lasting this kind of notoriety can be. For many, it’s the point of their violence. When all is stable, that sort of perversion can be channeled into more benign vanities. But when—as now—the country seems to be teetering on the edge of something …
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by | Jul 14, 2024 | Uncategorized
Evangelicals respond to the apparent assassination attempt at the former president’s campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
Evangelical leaders and politicians offered prayers for former president Donald Trump and thanked God for sparing his life following an apparent assassination attempt at a campaign rally in western Pennsylvania on Saturday.
Thousands of supporters joined a prayer call hosted by America First Policy Institute, hours after a bullet fired toward Trump grazed his right ear while he spoke before a crowd in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“We praise you today that President Trump is gonna be all right,” said Jentezen Franklin, a Georgia pastor who serves as one of Trump’s faith advisors. “We thank you, Lord, that he was wounded but he was not killed. So we thank you that you were there. You preserved his life.”
Franklin has prayed for and encouraged Trump through three campaigns now, commending his leadership and love of America. Franklin’s voice quavered as he described getting the call that “President Trump has been shot.”
“He knows now, like never before, that he is not immortal, that one day he will stand before you in fear and trembling,” Franklin prayed. “God, make him a man on a mission now. Make him a man, oh God, who you have raised up, like you did King David for Israel. Raise this man up for America, to keep us strong and powerful.”
In the comments, supporters added amens and posted Bible verses. One commenter referenced Psalm 91, which is a prayer with themes of divine protection. Another viewer, Ethelene White, wrote, “The angels [encamp] around President Trump and the families of those who passed away and were injured in this process,” a reference to Psalm 34:7.
Americans across the political spectrum condemned the attack—thought to be a possible …
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by | Jul 12, 2024 | Uncategorized
Our anxiety over church factions should lead us to dependence on Christ.
When I was in seminary 12 years ago, most of my classmates and I were discerning which denomination to join. Since many of us in our nondenominational seminary felt called to church leadership, this was a big decision. It’s one thing to worship somewhere, but it’s another to take ordination vows.
Being a pastor is a bit like being married: We pledge faithfulness to God within a specific family of people. The stakes felt high as we weighed which denominational family we should commit to—theological stances, interpersonal quirks, and structural problems included. Our seminary professors modeled that even the most ecumenically minded church leaders remain deeply impacted by their denominational context.
This is not a bad thing. Belonging to a specific body encourages us to invest in the health and integrity not only of our individual congregations but of our congregational networks. Ordained or not, we should be willing to engage in difficult conversations about the leadership structures and theological convictions and core values that characterize our respective traditions.
This summer, Christians from a variety of denominations (including the Southern Baptist Convention, Presbyterian Church in America, Anglican Church in North America, and Christian Reformed Church) held national meetings to discuss these convictions and values.
Denominational meetings aren’t always comfortable. This year, Baptists debated whether female staff members could be called pastors; Presbyterians disagreed about how to address the political polarization happening in their churches; and Anglicans discussed how to respond to and communicate about clergy misconduct. These conversations are worth our investment and effort.
But they …
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by | Jul 12, 2024 | Uncategorized
What the presidential debate and its aftermath should tell us about our culture of geriatric childishness.
This piece was adapted from Russell Moore’s newsletter. Subscribe here.
A friend of mine told me that he was at a long-planned gathering of half Republicans and half Democrats for the purpose of talking through partisan polarization. They watched the presidential debate together, and everyone was nervous that the respectful disagreements would devolve into the cheering and booing of team sports. He said it was actually the most unifying two hours of the entire meeting, because everyone was feeling the same thing: embarrassment.
No matter whether Team Red or Team Blue, the viewers recognized that our presidents once said things like, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself” and “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” Two weeks ago, from two 80-year-old men, one of whom is to lead the country for the next four years, we heard instead such lines as “I didn’t have sex with a porn star” and “Anyway … we finally beat … Medicare.” That was before they incoherently bickered about their respective golf handicaps.
When we ask, “Is this the best we can do?” we actually all know the answer. But neither man will step away, and there are no grownups that can make them.
This would be bad enough if it were only about which octogenarian will be occupying the only assisted living center in the world with a press office and a Situation Room. But the fact that our elderly leaders—one struggling to put sentences together, the other ranting with insanities and profanities—won’t leave the scene is about more than an election year. It’s about what it means to live in an era of diminished expectations.
For years, sociologists and philosophers …
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