We Have Nothing to Fear

Imitating the Tranquility of Christ

I will never forget the evening of November 11, 2016. I was still in shock that our country was capable of electing someone as amoral as Donald Trump as our president. Of course I knew that both political parties fall far short of Christ’s standards. I was eight years old when the Monica Lewinsky scandal dominated the news, and Mom actually told me she quit watching the news until 9/11, partly because she was so appalled and disillusioned by Clinton’s behavior and how the media was covering it, and partly because I had big ears and was asking questions that there was just no age-appropriate way to answer. But something felt different about Donald Trump. He wasn’t just amoral, but his rhetoric felt dangerous and he didn’t seem to have intelligent policy positions at all, just a platform based on hate. At first, I wondered if maybe these feelings were due to my youth and inexperience. I had never witnessed a campaign with rhetoric as hateful and scary as that of Donald Trump in my lifetime, but relatively speaking, I hadn’t been alive that long. But older adults I love and respect, adults old enough to remember Richard Nixon, confirmed there was something different, in the foreboding sense of the word, about Donald Trump.

At the time, I was working full-time and wasn’t able to attend Bible study at the times our church offered, but I was disturbed to learn that many Christians supported Donald Trump because he promised to appoint conservative judges, and that this was causing division in Bible study groups. And then people I had known—or thought I had known—my whole life started parroting his hateful rhetoric. Fortunately, our church was and still is apolitical. The pastors do a wonderful job of sticking to the Bible and have never endorsed a political candidate. But the fact that pastors didn’t speak out boldly worried me. Electing someone as amoral as Donald Trump in exchange for conservative judges seemed like a very bad bargain to me, but yet so many Christians were supporting him. Was I the crazy one? And could the church survive such a blatant forfeiture of any credibility as a moral authority? In other words, as Daniel Dietrich so poignantly conveys in this song, how are young adults to reconcile the Jesus they were introduced to as children with the knowledge that their parents and Sunday school teachers now support Donald Trump?

One evening in June 2015, my dad and I were taking my dog Gilbert for a walk when we saw a neighbor also out with her dog. We got to talking and she mentioned she was one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, and wanted to know if I would be interested in studying the Bible with her. Now, please don’t reflexively stop reading. I did not convert to this religion because although I wasn’t as theologically grounded as I am now, I soon recognized some of their beliefs just weren’t right. For example they do not believe in the Doctrine of the Trinity and as such, do not recognize Jesus as being one with God and the Holy Spirit. They believe that Jesus was the Son of God, but that he was the archangel Michael. They believe he was killed by the Roman government—though not crucified on the cross but impaled on a stake—but they do not believe in his bodily resurrection from the dead. Also, I don’t mean any disrespect to Catholics or Jehovah’s Witnesses, but both religions rely on a central governing body to interpret the Bible for them rather than reading it and interpreting it for themselves with the help of the Holy Spirit, and when this happens, both faiths fall prey to legalism, something Jesus repeatedly rebuked the Pharisees about. But if you are secure in your faith, you have nothing to fear from studying other religious views, and as I would discover, God can use people of other faiths to enlighten us. So every Saturday morning at 11:00, this neighbor and another friend and fellow Witness would come to our house and we would sit around the dining room table enjoying muffins or cookies and discussing the Bible. We worked our way slowly through their introductory book What Does the Bible Really Teach? And they were also genuinely fascinated by my assistive technology and showed me how to navigate the organizations website. That season was also a difficult time in my life as my job was causing me anxiety, and they were a wonderful source of biblical encouragement. Though they have their own Bible translation, the vast majority of Bible verses are rendered the same as in our mainstream Bible translations. It is the way the Watch Tower interprets some verses that is unorthodox. But I do have to say that the highly structured worship and Bible study routine given to them by the Watch Tower means that they put many of us Evangelicals—myself included—to shame with their familiarity with Scripture.

By November 11, I had learned that they are taught to remain neutral when it comes to political affairs. They do not lobby, vote, serve on a jury or in the military or run for political office. Their loyalty is to God’s Kingdom alone, and by remaining neutral, they are able to speak freely to people of all political persuasions about the good news of God’s kingdom. Political neutrality also allows them to live out the truth that God’s kingdom is global. A Jehovah’s Witness living in the United States has no trouble forging a bond of unity with a Witness from Russia, even though there is conflict between the earthly governments of these countries. They make valid arguments, as Jesus did refuse to accept political office (John 6:15), and taught that his kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36). I will say that I believe Jehovah’s Witnesses take this argument too far in the sense that the Bible is full of examples of prophets holding kings accountable for bad behavior, and Jesus commands us to advocate for the widow, the orphan, the poor and the refugee which I believe requires calling out elected leaders and institutions that oppress them, and voting against people whose entire platform is based on hate. I believe what Jesus means when he says we should be in the world but not of the world, is that we should not hunker down in our religious bubbles and just wait for the kingdom to come, but should offer society a foretaste of God’s kingdom by imitating Jesus and calling out people and institutions that oppress the marginalized in society. At the same time, I believe Jehovah’s Witnesses make a valid argument in that there is a slippery slope from speaking out against people and systems that oppress the marginalized, and succumbing to idolatry, putting all your hope in a person or political party when God’s kingdom is the only real hope for humanity as all earthly governments will one day meet their end.

Usually I met with the Witnesses on Saturday mornings, but the week of November 11, 2016, my neighbor had a scheduling conflict, so rather than missing a week of Bible study, she invited me over to her house on Friday evening. She and her husband cooked a wonderful dinner of salmon and vegetables, and over dinner when they asked me how I was doing, I couldn’t help confiding in them how I couldn’t believe Donald Trump had been elected. “It still feels like it should be a bad dream that we will all wake up from,” I remember saying and then I had to ask, “I know you are neutral in political matters, but have you been watching the news?” To this question, she laughed, not a laugh of insensitivity to my concern, but the knowing laugh of someone who is at peace. She said they do follow the news, and even admitted that they have to remind one another that they are supposed to be neutral. But then she reminded me how this kind of chaos on earth is foretold in Scripture but that Christ promised he will return and put an end to this system of things when he establishes his kingdom on earth.

Russel Moore, the editor-in-chief of Christianity Today recently published a book reflecting on the turmoil facing the American evangelical movement today. In this book, Losing our Religion, he recounts Matthew 16:13-20 when Jesus takes his disciples to Caesarea Philippi and asks his disciples who they believe he is. When Peter correctly answers that Jesus is the son of God, Jesus says that flesh and blood did not reveal this to him but his father in heaven and then declares that Peter is the rock on which the church will be built. What Russel Moore found compelling about this passage is that in addition to this site belonging to the house of Herod, archeological evidence has also revealed that this is the site where for centuries, people worshipped the god Pan, a symbol of Pagan nature worship. So by bringing the apostles to this site, Jesus is opposing both Pagan worship, and the political forces that would crucify him, but in a way that is not frantic or frenzied. “He has the tranquility that comes from the confidence that his church will be built and that nothing—not even the gates of hell—could overturn that promise” (Page 25). That is what the Witnesses had that was so awesome, tranquility, and that’s what we as evangelicals are supposed to have too. Russel Moore also observes, “Some are panicked about rising secularism and what they fear will be hostility to the church, but act in ways that tie the witness of the church to forms of power that actually fuel secularization” (Page 24). Some—and I definitely have fallen into this group—are tempted to succumb to cynicism when people we thought we knew take positions we never imagined. But we are both operating from a place of fear, an observation I was humbled by. The first group fears that the collapse of the culture will lead to the collapse of the church, and people like me fear that the church will not survive the present scandals that pass for Christian “influence.” This observation made me realize we all, but I first and foremost, need to show empathy and grace toward one another and repent of self-righteous, judgmental attitudes, and in my case maybe even words I have written on my blogs. We both need to remember that our God is faithful and keeps his promises, and if Jesus told Peter that not even the gates of hell will prevail against his church, then we have absolutely nothing to fear from the collapse of American culture, or an authoritarian like Donald Trump.

I don’t know what the future holds. Our democracy may not survive, and the church may take a different form in my lifetime than the church of my parents and grandparents. But I believe we will be okay, and whenever I am feeling discouraged, I thank God for bringing the Witnesses into my life to show me what tranquility looks like.