{"id":831,"date":"2016-12-01T20:56:35","date_gmt":"2016-12-01T20:56:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/?p=831"},"modified":"2020-10-28T20:02:23","modified_gmt":"2020-10-28T20:02:23","slug":"a-womanist-perspective-on-the-election-of-donald-trump-what-pastors-are-called-to-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/learn.elca.org\/jle\/a-womanist-perspective-on-the-election-of-donald-trump-what-pastors-are-called-to-do\/","title":{"rendered":"A Womanist Perspective on the Election of Donald Trump: What Pastors Are Called to Do"},"content":{"rendered":"

[1] When JLE\u2019s editor, Dr. Carmelo Santos, invited me to pen an article to guide a pastor\u2019s preaching and actions in the midst of this current, turbulent situation since our recent presidential election – I was intrigued, even eager, to submit something. Yet I was also hesitant – I\u2019m not Lutheran and I wondered if Lutherans would think that my voice is credible or worthy of being read. Then I thought to myself, \u201cWell, my Lutheran siblings often tell me,<\/em> \u2018you are a child of God,\u2019\u201d then maybe I\u2019ll start here.\u201d<\/em> So with this singular theological claim I often hear among Lutherans, along with the notion of being a \u201csibling,\u201d that I will dwell for a portion of this essay. For as often as I hear it and believe these convicting words with all of my heart, soul, mind and strength, still I cringe when I hear them, because I don\u2019t often experience an ethical response corresponding to the depth of meaning I attach to them.<\/p>\n

[2] Therefore, I issue a warning now. My aim in writing this piece is not to offend, but rather offer some insights about how these words are in fact an affront – not only to me but even to the integrity of the words themselves – when offered to vulnerable people who are directly and negatively impacted by the election of Donald Trump. I am keenly aware that we are celebrating a half-millennium of Lutheranism, hence a word from another reformed partner as well as communion partner is most certainly in order. Moreover, I have been teaching at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago since 2000, and thus, have been entrusted with educating and preparing women and men for ministerial leadership in the ELCA for 16 years \u2013 and as such my academic credentials and theological gifts for the ministry of teaching are a proven asset. But just as teaching in this ELCA setting has been the joy of my life, as with all joyful things in life there have also been struggles, struggles, which I will also share.<\/p>\n

Who am I?<\/strong><\/p>\n

[3] Let me introduce myself to you. I am a constructive theologian and anthropologist of African descent who comes to the task of understanding and analyzing the recent presidential election from a hermeneutic of plurality. I work from my many contexts and thus I consider myself a multi-disciplinary scholar. I approach this essay first from my social location. I\u2019m a temporally able-bodied African American, an out-heterosexual[1] woman, living in a country infused with patterns of behavior that force people to be pressed-down and constrained by a myriad of multi-sectorial societal structures. This inadvertent pressing-down is known as oppression, causing some to have a lived experience of not being able to breathe. And the Latin root of this word, \u201copprimere\u201d meaning \u201cpressed\/pushed down,\u201d I find compelling.<\/p>\n

[4] I have a daughter who lives with asthma and often has trouble breathing. This is the case even though she takes medicine daily to control this disease, which still constricts her lungs causing sharp pain. Even an abrupt change in the weather can cause this. Last week when temperatures in Chicago dipped to below freezing she was transported by ambulance from her school bus to the ER. Going to an ER is no-joke, as it fills us with anxiety, disrupts our lives, and makes us wholly dependent upon medical professionals to both help my daughter breathe again and help us cope and find relief. So I believe living with oppression(s) is similar to having asthma. One\u2019s life is interrupted because an ascribed feature of one\u2019s body\/self-causes a person to struggle to breathe\/live \u2013 to struggle despite God\u2019s intention for all living creatures to have the breath of life.<\/p>\n

[5] Like the drop in temperature that sent my daughter and me to the ER, Donald Trump\u2019s election is such a dramatic shift in the life of this nation. Here at home and abroad, people believe the United States strives for the best for all its citizens and people. The office of the President of the United States is symbolically and structurally the most powerful office in the world. Though I do not believe that this office supersedes the Triune God\u2019s power, I do know that this particular office, none-the-less, has the power to institutionalize policies that will harm all people – particularly the vulnerable. Trump\u2019s likely appointment of Rex Tillerman, the Exxon Mobil CEO, as Secretary of State \u2013 with his ties to Vladimir Putin – will be a threat to our entire body politic. His appointment of Senator Jeff Sessions as Attorney General will likewise make Bull Conner \u2013 a chief antagonist of the Civil Rights movement – seem a puppy. Likely, lynching by gun or choking (e.g., Eric Gardner in Staten Island) will dramatically increase as it has over the last four years. Its victims will continue to be predominately black and brown people, but victims will also likely be anyone with visible or confessed identities that are not white, heterosexual, able-bodied, and Christian. The nation\u2019s recent upticks in hate crimes since Trump\u2019s election demonstrates this. The violent rhetoric of his campaign is now taking shape in his political appointments.<\/p>\n

A Womanist Response to Trump\u2019s Election<\/strong><\/p>\n

[6] Since I am an African American woman committed to a liberation perspective, I call myself a \u2018womanist\u2019 – using a term that Alice Walker coined in 1983.[2] Understanding what a womanist is and what the term means is essential for understanding a womanist perspective of a Trump presidency.<\/p>\n

[7] A womanist such as myself is concerned about the vernacular, that is, what happens in everyday life to ordinary people. She is committed to dealing with concerns about food, shelter and clothing, about health, life and death. She is concerned about these things because they bring concord and manage difference.[3] Thus, a womanist seeks solutions via grassroots and is committed to the notion that those historically silenced are indispensable to social change.<\/p>\n

[8] Further, as an anti-oppressionist discipline, womanism is against all forms of oppression and actively fights against them. A womanist is not limited to battling racism and sexism but also fights against homophobia\/heterosexism, ableism, ageism (discrimination based on youth and age) – anything that thwarts the development and flourishing of the systemically oppressed. Womanism advances shared aspirations and seeks the best possible quality of life all members of a community.[4] Finally, womanism affirms the spirit. A womanist is fully cognizant and clearly articulates her relationship with \u201ca spiritual\/transcendent realm with which human life, living kind, and the material world are all intertwined.\u201d[5]<\/p>\n

[9] There are many ways a person\u2019s life can be blocked by overlapping oppressions that create death-dealing realities for those under multiple subjugations (e.g. transgender Muslim Latinxs living in poverty). Intersectionality demonstrates that multiple identities do not function autonomously, but rather transect and coalesce. My own intersectionality is being a black woman, juxtaposed with being an African American Christian woman ordained in the United Methodist Church. Adding to this list, I approach my work as an African American Ordained Christian Theologian in the Womanist tradition. I am also an anthropologist called to love my neighbor as myself, and I must love myself first so I can love my neighbor properly. If I confess that all people are made in God\u2019s image; if every human being is a child of God – and therefore my sibling – it means that I have a familial obligation or a moral ethic to stand upon with my neighbor.<\/p>\n

[10] Hence, it perplexes me that Christians who voted for Donald Trump expect me to feel good when they assert with authority, \u201cYou are a child of God and therefore we are siblings.\u201d I know and believe the first part of the theological claim and I know the second part \u201ctherefore we are siblings,\u201d is a theological claim but it is tortuous for me to hear and difficult for me to believe. As such, I view it as an empty theological declaration because there is sociologically speaking little ethical evidence that \u201cwe are siblings\u201d demonstrated in our day-to-day relationship. Another way to state this is that the theological anthropology of our relationship is not congruent with our faith claims. If we are siblings, then we are to love each other as we love ourselves. (Love your neighbor as yourself.) My self-love is demonstrated by the ways I, with God\u2019s help, support my own flourishing. Thus, when I love my neighbor as my sibling I want her\/him to flourish as well. As such when I hear or see things that harm my neighbor\/sibling I ask theological and sociological questions because siblings stand up for each other. As such in our present climate with a president-elect Trump I implore, what does it mean that our new president, based on statements and gestures that he has publicly made, does not seem to view Mexicans, Muslims, people living with disabilities, women, and African Americans as fully human; that he is committed to \u201cStop and Frisk\u201d policies that buttress the prison industrial complex as well as the elementary-school-to-prison pipeline for black and brown children; that he called President Obama \u201cstupid\u201d; that he knowingly twists the truth to suit his interests; that I live in fear for my Muslim neighbor\u2019s life and for my Mexican sibling\u2019s children. So I must say to Trump, \u201cGet your hands off my sister! Stop saying psychologically harmful things to children of immigrants! Stop saying dangerous things that make grown men live with fear.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

[11] Therefore, I must and I will resist Trump\u2019s harmful policies with every fiber in my body because they oppose life for my vulnerable siblings, children of God. Since I understand \u201csibling\u201d to involve having a serious relational connection to another child of God\u2014I ask you not to call me sibling if for you that word does not have my correspondingly responsible vernacular ethic. Don\u2019t say \u201cwe all of us are children of God\u201d<\/em> to make yourself feel better. I already know that I am a child of God, which is the reason I fight oppression for myself and other vulnerable folks. When your self-interests mean my demise, then know I that you view dimly those who endure intersectional oppressions, as I do. Our bright lights will never be dimmed, for their current runs straight from the living, Triune God.<\/p>\n

The Terror of Living in a Trump Era<\/strong><\/p>\n

[12] The sage poet Maya Angelou had a saying that comes to mind whenever I see someone who behaves in a way that is not congruent with the values they claim to live by: “If people show you who they are, believe them.”[6] So when listening to the news on television one evening, after I heard Donald Trump call president Obama \u201cstupid,\u201d I walked over to the television, hands still wet and dripping from the dish water soap, and turned it off. For I could read between the lines that this six-letter word was really meant as a four-letter word. That six-letter word is not allowed in my house, especially as my daughter can hear it. Angelou\u2019s dictum applies here \u2013 but Donald Trump has shown this nation and the world over and over again exactly who he is and people don\u2019t seem to want to believe him.<\/p>\n

[13] I now find myself post-election remembering the words of Heidegger, \u201cOnly a god can save us.\u201d[7] For me \u2018a god\u2019 is the Triune God of our faith. What would make an African American womanist scholar quote Heidegger? I understand Heidegger\u2019s statement to be in a particular historical moment, and as January 20, 2017 draws near with Trump officially being sworn in as president of this country, I see parallels between our present moment and Nazi Germany. As in these post-war years, I hear people re-declaring these beautiful words: that \u201cthe Holocaust\u201d will never happen again. \u201cWe will not allow it,\u201d<\/em> they say, \u201cnot on our watch\u201d<\/em> \u2013 and I add myself to this chorus.<\/p>\n

[14] Let me respond by saying a couple of things. First, my point of departure, as a liberation theologian, is \u2018from below.\u2019 I examine culture and history through listening for and to those whose narrative is missing, erased. Who are those that suffer macro-aggressions in micro-contexts?<\/em> Who are so pushed off the map that we don\u2019t even notice that they are missing? Consequently, as a womanist I am deeply concerned about those who are forever \u201cinvisible in plain sight,\u201d who are not noticed as missing by their peers. When these most vulnerable members of our society begin to say, \u201cI can\u2019t breathe.\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t feel safe.\u201d \u201cSomething\u2019s wrong.\u201d<\/em> – then I know we are close to a crisis. Those who are marginalized during normal times are completely erased during a time of crisis, scapegoated by those in power. This is dangerous and we must take their concerns with the utmost seriousness.<\/p>\n

[15] Second, Trump has shown us who he is by his discourse. His rhetoric polarized the nation to the extent that even clear-thinking people shooed his words away, as though calling him into question was not allowed. And even though some did criticize him, our press habitually fell prey to the whims of a candidate who is a master of getting attention \u2013and hence elevated destructive discourse instead of setting boundaries and standards. For the media, \u201cunbiased reporting\u201d on Trump seemed to have meant reporting what frankly amounted to trash in order to boost sales or perhaps to assuage our collective guilt for having chosen wrong over right. Did critical thinking enter into their editorial calculus? Did their analysis ever admit that harm was being done to the common good? When does the first amendment consider that yelling fire in a crowded theater sounds a little like saying, \u201cRussia, find the emails!\u201d[8]<\/p>\n

[16] It must not be forgotten that in Germany in 1933, Hitler\u2019s grand plan was parsed out little by little over a long period of time \u2013 the seeds of which he\u2019d cultivated since 22 years of age. And it was all put in place so gradually that no one noticed the build-up until it was too late.[9]<\/p>\n

[17] I am also painfully aware that while the Jewish Holocaust is the best-known it is by no means the only genocide that has occurred. Since many among the US citizenry do not seem to see indigenous peoples (First-Nation people who are sovereign nations within our borders) we don\u2019t speak about the genocide of Native peoples; in fact, in some circles it seems sacrilegious to even mention it. There are also the Armenian and Rwandan genocides as well as the torturous Middle-passage where an African genocide was committed in the name of early global capitalism and justified by the idea of \u201cprogress.\u201d My point is that as a womanist I know that it is simply insufficient to just say \u201cNever again!\u201d when in reality this has never really stopped happening. This too, we must admit.<\/p>\n

What Pastors Can Preach<\/strong><\/p>\n

[18] Pay attention when vulnerable people share concerns that are not noticed by the historically dominant culture.<\/em> The dominant culture often minimizes these voices to their own detriment. Even more significantly, some historically \u201cothered\u201d people who work, live and have their being in a historically dominant culture often \u201cgo along to get along\u201d because it is difficult to express their full worth in unsafe environments. So as with rape victims and children – we are called to not discount them when they cry out for help. This must not happen. And when brought to their attention, pastors must be willing to take a stand and speak out.<\/p>\n

[19] Pastors can also offer hope. Many African American pastors have had to weave a tapestry of Gospel-hope even as their flocks are persistently dismayed, disappointed, heartbroken, and angered. These preachers have always given sermons reminding their people of similar times in the history of this country when African Americans have had to \u201ckeep on keeping on,\u201d especially on the morning after death-dealing decisions have stifled our breath. Look at our history for confirmation. We came through the following, each an infamous illustration of our struggle:<\/p>\n