Our media and the Twitterati are obsessed with the US elections. Given the hold that US media, big tech and academia have on the Western world this is hardly surprising. And it is always great theatre and melodrama. But are they as important as we are continually told? Is it really the end of the world or the redawn of paradise?
Let’s look at this as if we were looking through a telescope. When you look at something really close then you get the impression that it is far bigger than it really is. In the eyes of your lens, it is all that you see. But adjust your telescope and move out to a greater distance and suddenly the whole perspective changes. Let’s try looking at the US elections up close, at a distance, and from an eternal perspective.
Up close
This election was a shellacking for the Republicans and the MAGA movement. Losing control of both the House and the Senate means that Donald Trump’s presidency will wind on as a typical lame duck presidency. But in the short term there is very little that will change - apart from a lot of media excitement. Things will continue as before. Although given the alliance of progressives with Islamists and the fact that some of their candidates were elected, it is likely that the Democrats will move even further left.
President Trump urged people to vote as if he were on the ballot. I think they did. But then he commented on the results “I wasn’t on the ballot. If I had been, I would’ve won with a landslide.” The hubris, narcissism and arrogance will continue. Not least because he tends to govern by executive order, and he will still have that power for the next two years. He still has the opportunity to do a great deal of good - and a great deal of harm. Time alone will tell.
The polling makes clear that it was the economy (especially gas prices) and the war in Iran which caused the defeat. But that does not stop politicians, commentators and clergy on both sides of the Atlantic making hyperbolic moralistic grandiose claims. Many of whom have tweeted out meaningless memes such as ‘voters have rejected the politics of cruelty…we have voted for love and hope not hate and division’ whilst at the same time, without a trace of self-awareness or irony, spewing hatred and division against those they disagree with.
Up close all I see is the same hyperbole, moralism, hatred and self-righteousness - meet the new boss - same as the old boss.
From a distance
We need some historical awareness. What happened this week is often what happens in US midterms. The party of the President in power loses badly. It was ever thus. On only two instances in the past 80 years has that been otherwise. We now move on to the next presidential election, then the next mid-terms, then another presidential election. It is an endless cycle where little changes. However, in the medium term I would suggest that there are at least three incremental effects this will have.
1. The decline of support for Israel and the continued Islamisation of US politics. Aber Kawas, a Palestinian American, was elected as a New York state legislator. This is the same New York that experienced 9/11 - attacks she has been accused of downplaying. Meanwhile, New Jersey’s Democratic congressman-elect Adam Hamawy was an associate of Omar Abdel Rahman - the ‘Blind Sheikh’ sentenced to life in prison for plotting to blow up New York City landmarks. Hamawy testified as a defence witness at his trial.
The new Muslim senator for Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, spoke Arabic in his victory speech, saying “alhamdulillah” which translates to “praise be to God”. At other election counts it was not American flags that were flying but Palestinian ones. At yet another the victory speech was given in Somali. The (temporary) alliance of Muslims and progressives will not end well - just ask the Communists in Iran!
2. The continuation of the culture of death. There is a particularly perverse video doing the rounds of young women jumping up and down and chanting ‘abortion is so back baby’. It is difficult to find words strong enough to condemn this evil. And yet we are told this is the politics of compassion!
3. The rise of Christian progressivism - which is in effect the equal and opposite of Christian nationalism. To my mind they are both sides of the same heretical coin. Six self-styled Christian progressive pastors have been elected to the Senate and Congress. And now a strange but predictable thing has happened - suddenly those who were condemning the alliance of Christianity and politics are now celebrating it.
And it’s not just progressives who want to celebrate. One Reformed evangelical tweeted:
“Christian Nationalists, I have good news and bad news. Good news is that vocal Christians who have promised to govern the nation in keeping with their beliefs have resoundingly won Senate seats in Texas and Kansas. The bad news is, uh, how do I break this to you…”
To see Senators whose values include abortion, transgenderism, same-sex marriage, support of Islam and the belief that the Bible is not the Word of God and Jesus is not the only way to God, being celebrated by a Reformed evangelical as Christians who will govern the nation is an indication of just how politicised and irrational much of Christian theology in the US has become. Personally I am not surprised that some Christians in a State which produced Joel Osteen think that James Talarico is a fine embodiment of Christianity.
All of this means that it is probable that the US will destroy itself from within. A corrupt Church and a corrupt politics can only lead one way. Without its Christian foundations it will collapse. Only a return to genuine biblical Christianity can save America from itself.
In the light of eternity
Those who see this can tend to despair. In order to avoid such despair we need to take a further look through our telescope - this time in the light of eternity. I read this morning Matthew 24 which warns us of the most tumultuous of times and then tells us, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” (Matthew 24:35). That is what we need to remember - the words, politicians and empires of this world will all pass away. But we have the word of God.
I will leave the last word with an African Christian leader who was faced with the collapse of the civilisation he belonged to - and which was often associated with the Christian Church. Augustine, facing up to the collapse of the Roman Empire, wrote The City of God - Against the Pagans. We could learn much from it …
“In this wicked world, and in these evil times, the Church through her present humiliation is preparing for future exaltation. She is being trained by the stings of fear, the tortures of sorrow, the distress of hardship, and the dangers of temptation; and she rejoices only in expectation, when her joy is wholesome. In this situation, many reprobates are mingled in the Church with the good, and both sorts are collected as it were in the dragnet of the gospel; and in this world, as in a sea, both kinds swim without separation, enclosed in nets until the shore is reached. There the evil are to be divided from the good; and among the good, as it were in his temple, ‘God will be all in all.’”
David Robertson writes on https://substack.com/@theweeflea
More by David Robertson
What should Christians make of Tommy Robinson?
Amid calls to 'make Britain Christian again', here are some questions for the Church
