EDITOR'S NOTE: In October 2021 I began a new venture writing a newspaper column titled "Finding Faith" for the Forum Communications Co. network of newspapers and websites. I was asked to contribute to the company's ongoing conversation about faith, lending a Lutheran and fairly ecumenical approach to the discussion. The column was published in several of the company's papers and websites, including The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead. This column originally appeared as a "Finding Faith" column on Nov. 1, 2024.
By The Rev. Devlyn Brooks
Ostensibly, the next time you read this column, we should know who our next president is.
And by then, a portion of us will be terrified by the election outcome, whomever the winning candidate is. … Others, of course, will be electrified by the winner.
But then there also will be a great many folks just happy it’s over.
This is what presidential elections are now in a country so evenly split. The last blowout win was President Ronald Reagan’s reelection in 1984, and before that it was President Richard Nixon’s reelection in 1972.
That means for the foreseeable future, likely every four years we are going to undergo this same election crucible that can strain relationships.
And then afterward there will be time during which we’ll need to make a conscious decision about how we come together to heal. … Or not, I suppose, which could be the answer if we want to continue to suffer along during the off-election years.
Some faith leaders believe it’s their duty to influence their followers to vote for a certain candidate. I suppose I’m less overt in that realm. I think if you’re close enough with your congregation, your preaching and teaching should speak for itself. … And hopefully it’s speaking for the gospel. There’s little controlling what others will do with that after.
So, rather, I will spend my days following the election the same way I spent them leading up to the election: Trying to understand those who I serve, and also my neighbors, friends and loved ones. After all, I think I can do far more good right now listening than I can speaking.
We’re told all the time by the media pundits and the social media influencers that we are so divided. But interestingly, the more time I’ve spent publicly in the past three months because of new work at our homeless shelter, the more I’ve found that most folks want the same basic things.
And so I wonder in the post-election season to come what it may look like to lay down the sabers and instead pick up an olive branch in regard to all of those whom we critically disagree with. After all, no healthy society can stay on a slow burn like this for years on end without critically injuring itself.
There will most certainly be warriors on either side of the political equation who stand to gain from continuing to froth at the bit regardless of the election outcome, but it will come down to the mass of people not on the extremes that will keep us driving forward as a civil society.
And I suggest a good rallying cry during this brief, relatively quiet time between elections is focusing on Jesus’ message of loving our neighbor. It’s as good of a place to start as any. Amen.
Devlyn Brooks is the interim CEO of Churches United in Moorhead, Minn., and an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America serving Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. He blogs about faith at findingfaithin.com, and can be reached at devlynbrooks@gmail.com.
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