There is a better response by people of faith to political change than playing a victim being denied basic rights.
I hear what political right-wingers and evangelicals foment in fear of losing liberties. I’ve endured this paranoid hype since I was young preacher’s kid. But, honestly, as an ordained minister working over 35 years in the church and community, I have not had a single right or expression of faith challenged or diminished—not one.
On the other hand, I have repeatedly witnessed right-wingers and evangelicals impugn and deny rights to my LGBTQ neighbors, use privilege to deny equity and equal justice, ignore or fuel racism, demean immigrants, blame poor neighbors for their poverty, and align themselves with a godless ideology based on greed and exploitation.
Right-wing and evangelical paranoia and conspiracy theories are based on false fears and a choice to see oneself and one’s religion as a victim whenever individuals or groups arrogantly try to breach the separation of church and state written into the US Constitution.
The Constitutional separation of church and state has been extremely breached during the Trump years. Both faith and government of, by, and for the people is diminished because of the power grabbing by some evangelical groups. Ultimately, they have just been used by an authoritarian tyrant.
Reestablishing a Constitutional separation of church and state after four years of mutual exploitation between Trump and evangelicals may feel, by comparison, like a rollback or denial of rights to them, but it is merely restoring basic separation for the common good of all US Citizens and our neighbors.
Perhaps right-wingers and evangelicals disgruntled because their candidate legitimately lost the election and lashing out with paranoid notions might consider a different response—a genuinely faith-based response. Try this: there is no law against loving one’s neighbor as oneself. This is, in fact, the fulfillment of faith’s highest aspirations and most basic daily opportunity.
