Author: Charles Wilson

Happy Thanksgiving, Across the world of social media and other avenues of advice and admonitions and things we are told to look at, the message,

President Trump is a symptom, not a cause: focusing this moment on him and his maneuvers is precisely what he wants, and risks dulling each of us to the real danger we are in and blinding us to its true source. Many Christians (I count myself among them) have tended to try to get along with our “right-wing” siblings of varying stripes. They are not our enemies, easily dismissed as “crazy people” out there who take to the streets and wield the signs—they are our fathers and mothers, our grandparents, our crazy Uncle Bills, our police officers, our Sunday School teachers and our friends.

A farmer once told me that, when plowing a field, he can both feel and hear differences when the plow crosses an old, forgotten, unmarked grave.  Perhaps, like the farmer’s knowing plow, differences can be felt here sitting on the ground in a Shaker cemetery.  Should I be kneeling?

While the Gospel is not a political platform, it is a radical message of inclusion with political implications.  For example, women’s equality, racial justice, LGBTQ rights, protections for the poor and marginalized are all important political issues, but they are also at the heart of the Gospel. The Good News of Jesus that has been passed down to us through our tradition is thoroughly progressive, not in terms of lining up perfectly with a political platform but in seeking to ever expand the circle of community and equality.  In the United States, a move toward greater equality in all of these vital issues has been achieved either directly through the voting process or through legislative and judicial decisions built upon a foundational commitment to democratic elections.