From the Pulpit: Dean Randy on Compassionate Citizenship

Like you, Dean Randy Hollerith is already exhausted at the thought of the coming election season, but he has some practical tips for navigating 2024, starting with compassion.

As he put it in his Sunday sermon, Dean Randy is troubled by our current information echo-chamber, where the algorithms of social media and politicized news tell us only what we want to hear, or connect us only with people (and viewpoints) that we agree with.

“As a result,” he says, “what we hold to be authoritative is limited by our rather narrow worldview, and consequently, everything becomes intensely personal and it becomes too easy to demonize and belittle one another.”

But as Christians, he reminds us, we are called to answer to a higher authority.

“What is the authority in our lives that guides and shapes our decisions and actions? Is it a party platform or a specific candidate? There’s an old saying that a politician will never save you, and boy isn’t that the case, but Christ and his ways can save you and me and all of us, and I think the best thing we can do in the months to come is to lift up and double down on those ways, on those values.

Do we demonize people we disagree with? No. Instead, we strive to love the people we disagree with.

Do we belittle the people who think very differently than we do? No. We treat them with compassion because they are neighbors, and so we strive to love them as we love ourselves.”

And then this, quoting from scholar Arthur C. Brooks:

“‘Courage isn’t standing up to the people with whom you disagree. Courage is standing up to the people with whom you agree on behalf of those with whom you disagree.’ Lemme say that again. ‘Courage isn’t standing up to the people with whom you disagree. Courage is standing up to the people with whom you agree on behalf of those with whom you disagree.’

Are you strong enough to do that? That, I believe, is one way we can live up to Jesus’ teachings to love our enemies. My friends, the good news for those of us who call ourselves Christians is that we answer to a higher authority than any politician or political platform. In the end, it isn’t who becomes President that matters most. Rather, it’s the imperative to follow the way of Jesus so that we can build the kingdom of God.”