Paul Prather

4 min read ⭑

As the presidential election of 2024 moves inexorably closer, polls say the contest is too close to call. With each passing day the political ads get meaner, the vitriol grows more caustic.

Each camp hopes to convince us that if the other side wins, it’s the end of the USA as we’ve known and loved it for 240-odd (sometimes very odd!) years. The grand experiment will end. America will crumble into history’s ash bin.

The opposing candidate isn’t just the usual muttonhead the other party always nominates, but a venal, amoral despot. His or her supporters are, to a person, violent racists or pedophile communists.

We’ve already witnessed two unsuccessful attempts to assassinate one candidate. There are rumblings about plots to rig the voting — both parties have their own conspiracy theory here — about civil insurrections, even about, God forbid, civil war.

Every day when I read or listen to the national news, I want to drive over to the public square and shout, “You kids stop it! Stop it right now! Go to your rooms, and don’t come out until you can act like grown-ups!”

So, before things get any further out of hand, let me offer up some thoughts on the election for all of us who are civically involved but not fanatics:

The outcome of this election doesn’t foretell the end of the nation. Unless, of course, it does. I mean, we’ve got a nuclear-armed North Korea hanging out there, and climate change, and war in the Middle East, and AI and who knows what potential pandemic lurking for us. Things could always go very badly very quickly, depending on — and maybe regardless of — who’s in charge. But that’s true of every election.

More generally, though, we’ve already elected 46 U.S. presidents, including a handful of geniuses and a boatload of idiots and crooks, and so far none of them has been able to drive this big, beautiful bus off a cliff. America is just too large and complex for one yo-yo to control it. A nuclear attack from abroad or some similar cataclysm aside, there’s probably only so much damage a single president can do.

To steal a line from political commentator and talk show host Bill Maher, you can’t hate half the country. In America we’re about equally split between those who lean Republican and those who lean Democrat. In very rough numbers, that’s about 170 million folks on each side. And we’re not divided between North and South anymore, either, as we were when we fell out in the 1800s. We’re all intermingled.

You can’t just make up your mind to hate that many of the people around you, or at least you shouldn’t. The folks in the other faction are your supermarket’s produce manager and your accountant and your kid’s little league coach and the sweet old guy in the next cubicle at work. You couldn’t ignore, much less despise them all if you tried.

Just agree to disagree. They’re not satanic, they’re … a smidgeon misguided.

Wherever you live, a solid majority of the people don’t give a fig about politics. Most people are deeply involved in minding their own business and living their own lives. They’re perfectly willing to let others do the same. They may pull a different lever than you in the voting booth, but largely they couldn’t care less about the outcome or about how you vote.

The politicians and activists want us to think everyone is wrought up 24/7 about Kamala Harris or Donald Trump, that we’re all seething with anger and self-righteousness. But even for people who vote, mainly it’s not that big of a deal — it’s an hour out of their day once every four years. They’re way more invested in cutting their grass and planning their vacations.

Whether or not you’re religious, try to hang onto Jesus’ principle of loving your enemies. It’s a radical idea, largely misunderstood to this day. When Jesus talked about “love,” he typically used the rare Greek word “agape.”

In Greek, agape referred to a particular type of love that didn’t rely on emotions. It had little to do with how you felt. Instead, it was all about what you did. That’s how you could love someone who was your enemy. It didn’t require you to actually like the person. It didn’t require you to agree with him on the Roman occupation of Jerusalem. Hey, he was your enemy, right?

What Jesus meant was that even if you perceive a person as your ideological opposite, even if you disagree with everything she stands for, treat her the way someone who loved her would treat her. That is, treat her as God would treat her.

Perform the deeds of love that make this world a fit place to live in. If your enemy looks hungry, buy him a meal. If you see her injured in a bicycle wreck, call 911 and stay with her until the ambulance comes. If his marriage fails, offer up a prayer on his behalf.

I’m of the opinion that Democrats and Republicans alike could benefit from showing more agape and less bile.

Paul Prather has been a rural Pentecostal pastor in Kentucky for more than 40 years. Also a journalist, he was The Lexington Herald-Leader’s staff religion writer in the 1990s, before leaving to devote his full time to the ministry. He now writes a regular column about faith and religion for the Herald-Leader, where this column first appeared. Prather’s written four books. You can email him at pratpd@yahoo.com.

This article is republished from Religion Unplugged under a Creative Commons license.

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