Choosing Dangerous over flawed

By Faith Chatham - Jan. 9, 2017

Sarah Lerner sums it up:
"“Perfect is the enemy of the good.”
Those are the words I keep coming back to after the improbable, yet all-too-cliche, election of Donald Trump. Of course we empowered the least qualified and most dangerous man to the highest office of the land. Because his female opponent wasn’t perfect."

In a similar vein, I have been struggling with the quandray of how people can sit in the same church pews, participate in the same liturgy, and internalize it in vastly different ways when it comes to applying faith to political action and social justice. Some of the most scripturall literate, generous, devout people I know voted for Donald Trump.

I know that if a man were to put his hands up the skirt of a woman in the church or a woman were to grope a man's crotch these very same individuals would be meeting with the Senior pastoral staff and lay leaders to ensure that such unacceptable behavior ceased, and that if the perperator had any position of authority, that role be terminated. However,, they were able to listen to the tapes where Donald spoke of groping women and of pursuing a married woman despite her not showing any interest in him. They voted for him despite over a dozen women coming forward and sharing that he had groped them.

I know these people would be furious if they learned that a pastor, or large donor, used their authority to be in the dressing room of teenagers when they were not fully clothed; yet these same people vote for him despite numerous accounts of him barging into the dressing room of beauty pagent contestants, includng teen contestants. They voted for him despite release of tapes where in his own words he explained that being able to be in the dressing room when beautiful women were undressed was one of the benefits of pagent ownership.

I find it impossible to process this and make sense of it. Among my closest associates, people I admire for truly living their faith by not only study, but by being generous with their material resources and time,, serving in the community, and being there ready to lend people who need a helping hand, yet despite all of this are able to compartmentalize enough to still pull the lever to give Donald Trump control over the Attorney General, the DOJ, to be able to fill over 100 Federal Court vacancie where the judges will hear sexual assault, sexual harassment, and domestic violence cases.

I am uncomfortable in the pew because my mind keeps trying to make sense of this. Somehow it seems that the very best amound us,, those who truly apply their minds toward learning what religion should mean and applying it in their daily lives instead of being just pew potatos who show up on Sunday and lay it aside once they leave the church house... Somehow I cannot help but question if the best among us can know what is known about Donald Trump and can vote to give him this level of control over people's lives, then perhaps what we do "best" is greatly flawed as a faith community.

I am part of a congregation where we do not discuss politics in the Sunday School classes or from the pulpit. However, as individuals we get to know each other andwith such knowledge come knowing partisan prefence. My perception is that I am in the minority. I am not uncomfortable because I am in the minority. I am accustomed to that. This year however, it goes much farther than Democrat or Republican. It reaches to the core of who we are as decent human beings, what is acceptable in those old fashioned terms we call "common decency" and how we relate to others. I know we are not supposed to judge and I am acutely aware of my many shortcomings. I probably have many more than many of the individuals I know in my church who voted for Trump. However, I find that empowering him once it is known how he conducts himself with women and girls (and people who are disabled or are minorities) propels me to distance myself from the appearance that I condone such behavior. My faith and spiritual formation teaches me to denounce the kinds of practices he boast are his because he is a celebrity.

Those who rejected Hillary because she was "flawed" and empowered him despite his being perverted and aggressive and criminal perplex me. I cannot process this and come to grips with how we can study the same words, worship in the same ways, serve side by side, and asipre to similar ideals and yet come to such vastly different conclusions when we enter the privacy of the voting booth.