From the Rector

Dear Friends in Christ,

I’ve been thinking a lot about the election this week. I imagine some of you have, too.

I’ve been all over the map ideologically and politically. As many of you know I’ve worked on campaigns for Pat Buchanan and Howard Dean both. How, you might ask? Well, it’s because, in different ways, I felt like they both were, at the time, speaking for folks who weren’t being heard.

In some ways, I find myself still pulled by both President Trump and Vice President Harris for similar reasons. I think both channel voices that are too easy to ignore in modern political life.

I spent many years of my life living at the heart of what we might call these days the coastal elite. A band once came to my first parish in New Haven and asked if they could film a music video at the church. I asked them if this would be something the church would find offensive. Would it be sacrilegious?

They said, “Oh no! It’s just anti-establishment! Is that a problem?” I said, “Well, look around!” I pointed to Yale University across the way and to the spire of the church as we stood on its lawn. I said, “We are the Episcopal Church, representing the Anglican Communion, at Yale University. Why would an anti-establishment message ever bother us?!”

They were good natured and laughed and I did, too. We let them film the video. I’ve never seen it. Who knows how many have?

I suppose that’s the nature of being the establishment. It’s easy for us to be a little blasé about people making fun of us because there’s little risk to us with a little noise now and then. I think that’s much of what’s happening in our current environment. People think there’s little harm in some disruption of the status quo. In fact, it may be good if some feathers get ruffled.

That’s the danger of being too enmeshed with the status quo. We lose sight of the cost of these times for folks who are counting their wins in days or months, not in centuries. I know folks who are DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) for whom this election is a real and present weight in their psyche. What happens to them and their children if an administration comes in that disregards the fact that they arrived here through no fault of their own, no choice of their own, and they are told they must return to countries where they don’t even speak the language?

I know folks who are LGBT who watched as an established precedent, Roe v. Wade, was overturned, and wonder if their marriage could be the next established precedent overturned. I know folks who have transgender children who have been through psychologists’ offices, endocrinologists’ offices, and more, and who have made the hard decisions with their doctors about the right course of action and are now wondering if the state will have the final say in their care.

I also know folks who have agonized over how to pay their bills and tried to balance the books at their business wondering how they’ll make it and how they’ll pay their employees if business taxes go up.

I know folks who saw their kids go off to wars in the Middle East and wonder if we’ll get enmeshed in more wars abroad if we don’t decide that we need no longer be the policeman of the world.

I know people who worked in factories that closed here and wonder if those places would still be open if we’d only had tougher tariffs.

These elections have consequences. They are real. They aren’t always only the ones we imagine.

Yet I do find myself coming back to something theological.

One of the things that sets the Anglican tradition apart from other traditions is that it is an affirming one. I don’t mean that in the modern sociological or political sense. I mean that in the deepest theological sense.

We do not spend our time pondering what we must condemn. We do not preoccupy ourselves with argument but try to find agreement.

We spend our time pondering Whom it is we adore. We spend our time in worship.

I suppose that when I consider where I am now with where I was politically and religiously at different points, I find myself thinking theologically.

Who is it that Christ calls me to love—to adore even?

Is Christ calling me to condemn or to love?

Is God pushing me to fear my enemies or pulling me toward loving my neighbors?

I don’t regret the votes I’ve cast or the candidates I’ve worked for. But I’ve learned from them. I’ve tried to figure out why I found them compelling even as I know God may be compelling me somewhere new now. God is still speaking. The Spirit is still moving. That will be true whether the candidate I hope will win does next week or not. God will still be at work in the world, in this nation, and in my heart.

If I trust that still small voice in me, then I can rest easy with my vote. If I still trust that still small voice, then I can rest assured in the promise of tomorrow. But will I still rest easy and assured because I’m too close to the status quo? Will I still rest easy because I’ve little at risk? That’s the question that will gnaw at me no matter who wins.

And that’s a good thing.

Because God is still speaking.

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Robert