It’s only January and the road we’ll travel this year appears not only twisty and snow-laden but also plenty bumpy.
For those wanting to think a few miles ahead, I’m sharing a few of the religious trends that are on my mind for this year.
The second Trump administration and a new religious milieu
The day before Donald Trump’s inauguration, a Christian group called Let Us Worship set up a tent not far from the White House. Known for its emotionally-charged public worship, the group had staged a series of 2020 protests against COVID-19 restrictions as well as worship events at state capitals across the nation. Gathering in DC to welcome a new administration, they represent a new face of a decades-long alliance between Christianity and Republican politics. The modern alliance looks, in part, like that pre-inaugural tent service and its guitar-playing Millennial leader, Sean Feucht. It can be discerned in the Martin Luther King-inflected benediction offered by the Reverend Lorenzo Sewell at Trump’s swearing-in ceremony.
Matthew D. Taylor’s 2024 book The Violent Take it By Force is helpful reading on a movement of which Let Us Worship is just one part: the New Apostolic Reformation. Taylor narrates how a movement took shape among non-denominational churches and prayer networks that embrace prophesy and ecstatic worship as core expressions of Christianity. Added to these charismatic practices is a distinct belief that God calls faithful Christians (as defined in their terms) to govern all the spheres of society. Many see Trump’s assertion of power as a manifestation of the same divine mandate.
As election day nears, I’m turning down the hum of news and political analysis and turning toward a few actions: canvassing in my neighborhood, casting my ballot, volunteering at a polling site on election day. I’m trying to avoid the temptation to explain my fellow citizens in favor of simply showing up with them.
In this showing up, I’m thinking about Pope Francis’ invitation to the practice of encounter. Encounter seeks understanding not only by entertaining ideas about people but also through face-to-face presence with them.
Encounter always involves some uncertainty. My canvassing walk sheet tells me which doors likely lead to my candidate’s supporters; the reality may be entirely different once the door opens.
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This summer, I’m sharing a foundational practice of mine: attention to detail. What I mean is not meticulousness - although that’s also worthwhile. Instead, I mean the practice of careful attention to people and communities such that their nuances and complexities come into view.
American author Marilynne Robinson characterizes attention to detail as a spiritual posture and places it in opposition to another stance: contempt. As Robinson explained:
