To My Trump-Voting American Christian Friends
Dear Trump-voting American Christian friends,
Yes, I have quite a few of you. I wish you'd rather have voted against Mr. Trump, but you tell me that you voted as you did because babies are human before they are born (and I agree with you that they are) and Mrs. Clinton promised them no protection (and she did not), and that you feared that a Clinton administration would have threatened your freedom to fully practice your religious convictions (and you probably had a case on that point), and that, anyway, Mrs. Clinton is a monster (which is, honestly, a monstrous thing to say of another human person).
You tell me that you are not racist, or misogynist, or religiously bigoted, and I am willing to believe you (discounting for now that we all suffer from implicit biases), even as you voted for a presidential candidate whose campaign at the very least overtly offered succor to racism, misogyny, and religious bigotry.
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I am willing to trust your words, for now. Stand up for the vulnerable and for what is right over the next four years and show me that my trust is warranted.
America really, really matters. Apart from the fact that I know and love your country (I lived in Los Angeles for five years, worked in Washington DC for two, enjoyed many visits to small town Iowa, and still get more excited about a trip to New York City than to anywhere else in the world), we all know that, in political terms, the fate of the world is in your hands.
Patriot though I am to Canada and South Africa, to both of which I owe the fealty of a citizen, I recognize that the sobriquet "Leader of the Free World" was earned with the blood of American soldiers on the battlefields of the two World Wars and the Cold War, and for that all enemies of tyranny owe you a lasting debt of gratitude. America retains this power to constrain evil.
So, with respect, and affection, and honest admiration for your country, and taking your own claims in good faith, know that I will be looking to you, first, over the coming four years.
Not to the brave little band of #NeverTrump Republicans. Not to those of your fellow citizens who voted for Mrs. Clinton, or for a third party candidate, or who irresponsibly abstained from voting. Not to the truly misguided and idolatrous white nationalists of the alt-right.
No: I, and the world, will be looking to you, self-identified Christian Americans who voted for Mr. Trump.
You have chosen for yourself the responsibility of being the paladins of the promise of your nation's founding, of the rule of your constitution, of the high moral expectations of Christian social doctrine.
1. If the Trump administration threatens the civil rights of Americans or the human rights of others, will yours be the first voices of protest we will hear?
If you are in elected office, will yours be the first votes to protect the vulnerable? If you are public servants in America's government bureaucracies, will you put your careers on the line in defense of the rule of law? Hardest of all, if you are officers in America's armed forces, what will you do when you receive orders from your Commander in Chief that demand of you that you commit war crimes? Will yours be the most resolute of efforts to defend an America to which all of us in the rest of the world can continue to look as a most worthy experiment, premised on the dignity and rights of the human person?
2. If the Trump administration turns America's international security covenants with your allies into mere commercial contracts, will yours be the public theologies that offer the most rigorous and persuasive arguments for nations remaining true to their sacred bonds?
Will you take the lead against American power becoming a global protection racket? Will you draw deeply from the wells of centuries of Christian just war doctrine, a near century of Christian human rights doctrine, the marvelous 20th century work of Christian theologians faced with Hitler and Stalin, and hold America to a higher standard than mere mercenaries?
3. If the Trump administration relinquishes America's role as the world's greatest advocate for international trade, can we count on you to speak up with compassion for those who are most economically vulnerable?
Will you help calibrate with care the balance in which to weigh national interests and the global common good? Will you consider with compassion the effects on America's poorest millions and the world's poorest billions? May we expect from you prudent arguments on international political economy, guided by love of God and neighbor?
Show us your grit, your honor, and your resolve.
With fond (if baffled and bewildered) affection,
Gideon
