At the Start of Four Short Years

Last week, Congress certified the election of Donald Trump as our 47th president. His inauguration will be held on January 20 and he will be president for four more years — four short years. That is, not nearly enough time to change our troubled culture and politics.

Shrill, extreme voices on both the left and right will continue to drum up support for their agendas by using fear, anger, and hatred.

I predict that the unscientific, reality-denying refusal to see abortion as killing a child, claiming instead that it’s “health care” and no different from, say, an appendectomy will still be with us in 2029. Unscientific, reality-denying “gender inclusivity” will continue. As Eileen J. O’Connor, a former Justice Department lawyer, wrote in The Wall Street Journal, “the drive to erase the reality of biological facts and their significance in society, culture and human relations has continued to gain ground. Its corrosive effects on our culture are ever more evident.”

Even if bloated monstrosities like the Department of Education can be reined in by the new Department of Government Efficiency (good grief, another department?), entrenched education bureaucracies will remain to expand their hordes of expensive administrators and lower standards, that provide — at best — mediocre schooling for our kids.

And the confused idea that freedom of speech and other freedoms are “privileges” granted by government rather than “rights” that precede government has more advocates than just Kamala Harris. Those people aren’t going away, either.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

What, then. should we do?

A White Horse, Not Air Force One

First, be realistic. The second coming of Donald Trump is not the Second Coming.

When George W. Bush was elected president in 2000, I was managing Chuck Colson’s daily radio commentary, BreakPoint. Colson knew Bush, and when his friend was elected president, he was ecstatic. At the same time, he was a realist with a Christian worldview. “The Kingdom of God,” he said repeatedly on the radio, in speeches, and in conversations, “does not arrive on Air Force One.”

It can’t be said often enough: “The Kingdom of God does not arrive on Air Force One,” so don’t expect it to. Donald Trump will be president for a mere four years. What then? Does his reelection represent a cultural shift, or is it an anomaly? Will he accomplish his goals? Will we be better off in four years than we are now? We don’t know, but we do know that vast cultural changes do not occur overnight. So be realistic.

Second, look to yourself. Nearly 100 years ago, St. Josemaria Escriva wrote, “A secret, an open secret: these world crises are crises of saints.” That is, we’re short on saints.

Yet our primary calling as Christians is to sainthood — to holiness. 1 Peter 1:15-16 puts it simply: “as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.'”

The Vatican II document Lumen Gentium talks about “the universal call to holiness.” After saying, “that all the faithful of Christ of whatever rank or status, are called to the fullness of the Christian life and to the perfection of charity,” it goes on to propose this holiness as a solution to our troubled culture and politics: “by this holiness as such a more human manner of living is promoted in this earthly society.” If you want a more human world, become a saint.

Reformation Takes a Village

Third, look to others. In his article, “The Anti-Social Century,” Derek Thompson cites scholar Marc Dunkleman’s notion of three concentric rings. The inner ring is the intimate ring of family. The outer ring is the wide ring of “shared affinities” including politics. These two rings appear to be healthy, but the middle ring that keeps the two in check is ailing. This is the ring of what Thompson calls “the village.” Others call it “mediating institutions.” It’s the ring of the PTA, church, Rotary Club, volunteering, adult softball, book study groups, and block parties. That is, it’s the ring of neighbors, people we know (though not necessarily well). Or perhaps more accurately, it’s the ring of people we don’t know — and that’s the problem.

Thompson writes, “The village is our best arena for practicing productive disagreement and compromise — in other words, democracy. So it’s no surprise that the erosion of the village has coincided with the emergence of a grotesque style of politics, in which every election feels like an existential quest to vanquish an intramural enemy.” We need to bring back the village, to make friend with people who are not like us, to practice neighborliness. As many people have commented, “All politics is local.”

So what should we do in the next four years? We should realize that we live in a sinful world with big problems — problems bigger than any president. After that, in the words of Jesus, “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind” — the very definition of holiness — “and your neighbor as yourself” — including, of course, your enemy (Luke 10:27, see Matthew 5:43-47).

As important as the presidency is, in the final analysis, love for God and others is what really changes the world. So pray for Mr. Trump, for the Republicans, for the Democrats, and your neighbors, and strive to be the solution to our crisis of saints.

James Tonkowich is a freelance writer, speaker, and commentator on spirituality, religion, and public life. He is the author of The Liberty Threat: The Attack on Religious Freedom in America Today and Pears, Grapes, and Dates: A Good Life After Mid-Life and serves as director of distance learning at Wyoming Catholic College. He also hosts the college’s weekly podcast, The After Dinner Scholar.

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