The Truth Will Set You Free (Part Two)
The Truth Will Set You Free (Part Two)
John 8:31-32
Last week, I tried to tell the truth about the long history that Christianity has of being co-opted by political powers. Whether it was the Roman Empire or the King of England or the pro-slavery forces in American history, savvy politicians have understood the potential for using people’s faith to manipulate and control them. Nothing says, “I get to keep my power,” quite like convincing people that God gave me that power in the first place. Everyone wants God on their side when they fight the next war or when they identify their God-forsaken enemies or when they have a stance on some question of the day that needs to be sanctioned.
Ideally, the church and the powers that be are meant to be in tension with one another, two powerful forces that can keep each other in check. As soon as a deal is struck and that tension is reduced, both the political process and the church suffer. Church and state alliances in Europe killed the church in Europe. The separation of church and state here, however fragile that tension may sometimes seem, is the lifeblood of the church in America. We are not an explicitly Christian nation. We are a multi-faith and no-faith-whatsoever nation. We are a better nation when people of all faiths and all ethical viewpoints raise their voices as the conscience of the nation, without fear of political retribution.
My point is not about supporting particular candidates. My point is that we have an infrastructure in this country that has worked for nearly 250 years—the longest surviving democacy in the world. The responsbility for protecting that infrastructure rests on every citizen. For those of us who enjoy religious freedom, we have to remember that it is our duty to protect the structures that provide us with that freedom.
At the end of last week’s sermon, I suggested three essential features of our democracy to which the collective conscience of our nation must attend. We can disagree about the issues of the day. We can disagree about our future direction as a country. Here are three truths, though, upon which all Americans must agree…
First, we have a constitution which is the foundation for our life together. We all must live within the bounds of that constitution or we must do the hard work to change that constitution. We cannot simply live by it when it is to our advantage and ignore it when it is not. We must be at least as willing to protect the rights of others as we are to cry out when our own rights have been violated.
Second, we must abide by the law. We should raise our voices in legislative processes. However, we must accept the results of those prcesses or work to have laws overturned. Should we choose to break the law as a matter of conscience, we must be prepared to bear the consequences of our choices. We have to recognize that without the structure that laws provide, we are reduced to power games and revenge.
Finally, we must honor the will of the people in our elections. We are a nation governed by the people. Those who govern are elected by the people. Those who are elected are accountable to the people. Of course, we have the right to appeal elections. However, when those appeals are exhausted, we must accept the results. To repeatedly and automatically and endlessly dispute and disaparge election results with no data to support those accusations is a direct assault on democracy.
As a people of faith, we will all have opinions about who should be elected, who would best represent us, and which party should prevail. For thirty years, I’ve said to you that faithful people can disagree and still be faithful people. I want you to hear that again today. Good and faithful people of conscience can come to different conclusions about policy and politicians. However, if our democracy is to survive, there must be a broad coalition of people of every faith and people with deep ethics who lead us past the purely partisan battles for power toward the higher ground of mutual interest and the higher good. The chance to do pretty much everything that matters to us is protected by our democratic structures. Those structures have endured only because people have acted out of something other than pure self-interest. The constitution has to be respected. We must abide by the law. The will of the people expressed in elections must be the final word.
So, let’s talk about protecting that structure in the year that is ahead. Let me do this by asking you to do a thought experiment with me. Imagine if, back in 2020, the Lake Forest High School football coach announced that the most important game in the history of football was their game, six months away, with Stevenson. Imagine that while stirring up that urgency at practices and pep rallies and parent meetings, he announced over and over again that the only way that Lake Forest could lose was if the game was stolen. The refs would have to be crooked. The high school sports authority would be in cahoots. The Stevenson players? Well, they’re all a bunch of lying, cheating, thugs.
Game day comes. The game, itself, is a clean game. Everyone who was there agreed. It was close but not that close in the end. Lake Forest lost by 10 points. The coach, though, screams, “See! I told you so!” He leads the victim’s chorus for the team and for the whole community. He reviews the tapes and points out the judgement calls that officials make every game but that in this game he considers evidence that the game was rigged. He insists that the state athletic association review the game. They do and uphold the result. For weeks and weeks, he’s on the news, making news, about something for which there is no evidence.
Up until all this kerfuffle, there were close games and even games that people felt might have turned on a bad call. The thing was, that no one really accused the other team of cheating or accused the refs of being corrupt—no one except the craziest folks whom no one took that seriously. The teams met on the field after the game and shook hands. The parents in the stands made peace with one another. Someone in the stands might have even mumbled as the ref walked past, “Good job, blue,” and meant it. This was being civil, practicing good sportsmanship, recognizing that games end and life goes on.
The only thing was, somehow, when everyone saw how easy it was to not be a good sport, it became easier for everyone else to do the same. When someone who is high profile crosses a line, the line starts to disappear. Coaches all over begin predicting their team’s victimization, too. They teach their players how to be bad losers and insufferable whiners. Now, though, four years later, Lake Forest is getting ready to play Stevenson again and against all the odds, that coach in Lake Forest is still the coach. And here we are, months from the big game and not only is the coach predicting the game will be rigged but so is everyone else who has decided to erase the “magic line” of truth along with him.
In all honesty, what saved our democracy in 2020 was that the system worked. There were opportunities for appeals…roughly 60 court cases in which folks could present evidence of corruption. 59 courts found no evidence of corruption. The one that did, found minuscule evidence and emphatically said that the evidence they found was nowhere near enough to affect the election’s results. Recounts happened in many states, none of which changed any results. People who propagated the stolen election were sued by those they blamed and lost billions of dollars in damages.
Does anyone think for a second that if actual evidence of a stolen election existed that it would not be put before us all to be scrutinized? Republican and Democratic authorities at all levels agreed that there was no such evidence. Of course, the truth is that people of integrity in both parties who stood their ground and refused to tamper with election results—local election officials, county officials, and state officials—were in many ways the last line of defense for the fair election results. The amazing thing was that people—regardless of their party affiliation— didn’t cave to pressure or to self-interest. They stood up for the truth. Democracy withstood the storm, even when the capital was stormed and defiled, even when several hundred members of the House of Representatives, having earlier run for their lives, later that same evening voted not to accept the certified election results.
The question is whether our democracy can withstand such an assault again. That Lake Forest coach is already screaming about how the game is going to be stolen. A host of other interested parties are agreeing. A lot of folks still don’t know what to make of the game four years ago because there wasn’t ever that moment when everyone finally shook hands. People are getting stirred up again. What are we going to do?
Our job, as part of the coalition that forms America’s conscience—people of every faith and ethical persuasion, from both sides of the aisle, and from all corners of our nation—is to recommit ourselves to telling the truth and preserving the infrastructure. No election in this country has ever been stolen. In a world in which two people can’t keep a secret, how would anyone pull the wool over the eyes of 330 million Americans. That’s absurd! If anyone disagrees, we will ask to see the facts first. And until they show us those facts, we will kindly ask them to quit yelling falsehoods that eat away at the heart of the nation that we all love.
Second, we will rely on the constitution to call “balls and strikes” in this process. States get to draw election districts and get to create their voting procedures. Different states will have different procedures. This does not make them corrupt. It is a reflection of a constitution that fundamentally respects the rights of individual states to determine their laws. We will respect and defend the free speech rights of every person—the college student on their campus, the politician in their stump speech, the supporters working on behalf of their candidates. However, while you may have the right to be offensive and even to lie, that makes the rest of us responsible for telling the truth and challenging you. Finally, we will carefully patrol everyone’s efforts to win with an eye on those who are willing to do anything to win. We will cry, “Foul!”
Third, we will challenge unjust laws and lobby our congressional representatives to change them. We will volunteer to work the polls and will be part of making sure that no voters are intimidated and that all votes are counted. We will not, however, stand back when lawyers and other experts bend the law every way they can and fundamentally deny that the people have spoken. Those who break the law in that process will be punished according to the law.
Finally, should our candidates lose (and we have all lost plenty of times) we will not be sore losers. Should our candidates win, we will not gloat or take vengeance on anyone else. We are one nation. We have to insure that the process has integrity. Then, we have to accept the result and move on. Our democracy and the right to practice our faith or to practice no faith at all, depend on this resolution to survive.
If we are willing to fight for this truth, then, and only then, will we remain free.