I remained awake for the election returns on Tuesday (November 3) until the early morning hours. Welcoming the blue-tsunami, a complete and consequential rebuke of Trump and Trumpism, MAGA and its favored form of the Christian faith, white Christian nationalism. I felt that this evening/morning was ironically a new “morning in America.” Surely, many of us remember the phrase "It's morning again in America." A 1984 political ad famously used it to support Ronald Reagan, both as a literal statement (people were shown going to work as they would in the morning), and as a metaphor for renewal. Wednesday brought with it the sense that it was like morning again after long dark days and nights of chaos, cruelty and corruption. There has been a flood of punditry explaining the reasons for such a dreadful night for Republicans. My preferred suggestion was from former Senator and presidential candidate Mitt Romney (R-Utah). On Wednesday, he listed the reasons he thought his party failed in this year's midterms. He wrote:
Bad policy, bad character make bad politics: erratic tariffs, impulsive Iran war, blanket pardons, apparent corruption, weaponized justice, ICE brutality, mountainous deficits, hiding Epstein, abandoning allies, and coddling enemies.
The collective analysis from a New York Times piece titled 'Decency Won': Nine (9) Writers on the Best and Worst Moments From Trump's Midterm Rout outlines several key factors driving the election results. Lydia Polgreen made one especially apt quote of note in that collective analysis.
Trump, king of the vulgar spectacle, won the presidency twice, though never with an outright popular majority. But this time, decency won... In an era of grubby corruption under a president who reveled in wanton cruelty, Americans have chosen a new path.
David Axelrod, the famous and highly trusted Democratic strategist, commented Tuesday night on one of the cable news networks:
We’ve been in a season of such cynicism and such anger… People want a season of decency .(The Atlantic, It’s the Morality, Stupid: Gal Beckerman)
Indeed, decency won convincingly! It is morning again in America!
Peter Wehner, a columnist for The Atlantic, weighed in on the analyzes of the election results. In an article titled A Good Night for the Christian Faith, Wehner cites the extraordinary victories of James Talarico in Texas and Reverend Adam Hamilton in Kansas and their significance for the nation. He writes:
Those who watched their campaigns and saw their victory speeches last night witnessed something altogether different. Talarico and Hamilton ( and Warnock) speak another language; they are in a different register. Talarico declared that “the politics of division is no match for the politics of love.” Both champion decency and kindness.
They draw on the Hebrew scripture, especially Micah 6: 8, where the prophet says the Lord requires us “to act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” They draw, too, on the New Testament: the parable of the Good Samaritan and the sermon on the mount; on the two great commandments to love God and to love your neighbor; and Matthew 25, where Jesus says that whatever we did for the least of these, we did it for him…
The pastor and author Brian Zahnd has described a crisis of faith he once went through, though not one about Jesus. “I felt like the Jesus I knew deserved a better Christianity than the Christianity I knew.” ( Jesus certainly does not deserve the Christianity we have known during the Trump administrations!)
The singer -songwriter Jon Guerra, in his compelling 2024 song, American Gospel, defines a counterfeit faith as Blessed are the powerful/ Blessed are the rich/ Blessed are the merciless? And the hypocrites. That is not, as Guerra’s song makes clear, the heart of the true Gospel, in which the blessed are the meek and the poor, the merciful and the pure in heart.
Many millions of Americans, and not a few evangelicals, have been sickened by those who distort the Gospel while pretending to proclaim it
Something deep and good is stirring in our land.
I believe too that something deep and good is stirring in our land, that it is morning again in America, especially in terms of what is happening in our faith communities. The nation has spoken in a resounding voice, saying many things through its rejection of the policies and criminal and corrupt practices of this administration. However, nothing is more important, at least in my view, than the conviction that the Christianity we have seen in this administration and promoted by its allies is not the Christianity we know and want for our nation.
Again, from Peter Wehner’s words:
For many, Christianity became a blunt -force instrument. Many fundamentalists and evangelicals seemed to relish conflict. They went looking for a political figure to be their fighter, their warrior, someone who would not just defeat the other side but bloody it. They found him in Donald J. Trump. The cruelest and most corrupt president in American history became an avatar of many of those who most loudly professed to follow Jesus.
The nation has now rejected that avatar and its brand of Christianity. The Jesus we know and follow deserves a better Christianity than the one so resoundingly rejected in this midterm election. He deserves the Christianity of scripture, the scriptures lifted by Talarico, Hamilton, Warnock and others throughout this transformative campaign. Reverend William Barbour II wrote recently about the election and what it means:
At its best, it is a call for moral revival…
Grounded in traditional values of love, justice and community, this moral call rejects an ideology that exalts cruelty and abandons community. It holds in contempt the encouragement of authoritarian enemies like Russia and the mindless assaults on friendly democracies. Americans are baffled by the rule of billionaires and bandits and the meanness of slashing education and healthcare for millions. It also refuses to further countenance historic levels of corruption and the unending stream of lies that distorts the very meaning of facts and the established truths of history. Unspeakable violence against neighbors who contribute to their communities is not the immigration reform we need, about this much, an overwhelming majority is clear.
We have rejected the dark vision of these past two years, and the dawn of a fresh new morning greets us. The Jesus we know, love and follow is among us and deserves the discipleship demanded by the times and its challenges, to no longer let the voices of a counterfeit faith dominant the politics and public market. Rather, let us speak of a genuine faith, the real deal, if you will.
I am reminded of a passage from the Gospel according to Matthew 4:18-22 (NRSVUE), so powerful in its simplicity:
8 As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea—for they were fishers. 19 And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people.” 20 Immediately they left their nets and followed him. 21 As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. 22 Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.
In this moment, Jesus calls us, brothers and sisters all, to be His disciples and to do His work. How soon will we respond? Immediately?