Amid unprecedented challenges, a transforming antidote to fear
Karl Rove is a political consultant and former White House Deputy Chief of Staff. In a recent Wall Street Journal commentary, he writes: “No presidential election has been remotely like this one.”
Let’s list some ways he’s right:
- Kamala Harris formally secured the Democratic presidential nomination on Monday, becoming the first woman of color to lead a major party ticket.
- She selected Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate yesterday, introducing him at a rally in Philadelphia. If elected, he would be the first practicing Lutheran to serve as vice president. (Hubert Humphrey was raised Lutheran but attended a Methodist church.)
- This after President Joe Biden withdrew from the race closer to the election than any incumbent seeking reelection in US history.
- The Republican nominee, Donald J. Trump, if successful, would be only the second president to be elected, defeated for reelection, and then reelected. (Grover Cleveland was the first.)
- His running mate, J. D. Vance, is the first millennial on a major party ticket.
And the list goes on.
While the candidates are unprecedented in many ways, many of the challenges the winners will face are unprecedented as well.
Are there terrorists among us?
Israel has not faced an existential threat like the present conflict since its founding in 1948. Iran, considered by Congress to be the “largest terrorist network in the world today,” is threatening to attack Israel directly and is using its proxies in the region to mount a sustained, multi-pronged offensive against the Jewish state.
US military assets focused on China are now being reassigned to support Israel. Underscoring the threat to American forces in the region, seven US personnel were wounded Monday in a rocket attack by Iran-backed militias on a base in Iraq.
This at a time when the future of war looks very little like the past. For example, drones operated by AI systems are already being deployed by Ukraine against Russia and in conflicts across Africa. A Foreign Affairs analysis warns that the US is unprepared for this new world: our jets, ships, and tanks are not equipped to defend against an onslaught of drones, nor has our military fully embraced artificial intelligence.
In related news: Russia announced recently that it will train its troops to use nuclear weapons on the battlefield. Our mainland remains highly vulnerable to Chinese and Russian hybrid attacks utilizing long-range conventional-strike capabilities along with cyber espionage, disruptive cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, and disinformation campaigns. And we are vulnerable to attacks from within: the House Judiciary Committee issued a report this week stating that at least ninety-nine illegal aliens on the terrorist watchlist have been released into the country since January 2021.
It’s enough to make our week-long question especially urgent: How does the transformative love of Christ relate to a chaotic and fearful time like this?
“Honest but reluctant taxpayers”
The Anglican Book of Common Prayer includes this eloquent entreaty (my emphasis):
O God, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon us your mercy; that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal.
In his sermon titled “A Slip of the Tongue,” C. S. Lewis confesses that he had been praying these words recently and found that he had misspoken: “I had meant to pray that I might so pass through things temporal that I finally lost not the things eternal; I found I had prayed so to pass through things eternal that I finally lost not the things temporal.”
Upon reflection, Lewis realizes that “what I had inadvertently said very nearly expressed something I had really wished.” He explains his wish: to be religious enough to curry God’s favor without requiring inconvenient concessions on his part.
This wish is ours as well. In one of his most famous analogies, Lewis observes that in our response to the lordship of Christ,
We are in fact very like honest but reluctant taxpayers. We approve of an income tax in principle. We make our returns truthfully. But we dread a rise in the tax. We are very careful to pay no more than is necessary. And we hope—we very ardently hope—that after we have paid it there will still be enough left to live on.
Here’s the problem: God can only lead those who will follow and can only give what we will receive. Our spiritual compartmentalization into sacred and secular, religion and the “real world,” keeps us from experiencing his omnipotent, omniscient best. We reduce the King of the universe to a genie we consult when necessary.
And this he will not honor. As Lewis states, “It is not so much of our time and so much of our attention that God demands; it is not even all our time and all our attention; it is ourselves.”
“There’s no bargaining with him”
Here’s how this fact relates to the conflicts we’ve described today: When we respond to the transforming love of Christ by making him our master and ourselves his subject, the consequences in our lives are then his responsibility. When we are our own master, the consequences are ours.
Which approach is the better antidote to fear of the future and anxiety in the present?
In his sermon, Lewis declares:
“He claims all, because he is love and must bless. He cannot bless us unless he has us. When we try to keep within us an area that is our own, we try to keep an area of death. Therefore, in love, he claims all. There’s no bargaining with him.”
How fully would your Father say he “has” you today?
Wednesday news to know:
*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.
Quote for the day:
“A day must come in our lives, as definite as the day of our conversion, when we give up all right to ourselves and submit to the absolute lordship of Jesus Christ.” —Watchman Nee
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