Below you will find an open letter to the Electors of the United States Electoral College for 2016. Yesterday I sent a very slightly different version to each of the electors for my home state of Pennsylvania.
It may appear off of my usual historical and theological topics, but it is not.
Theologically, this is an action I take as a Christian citizen, seeking to help righteousness prevail and justice be done in my country.
And I know I am able to do this because I know a bit of history — the Constitution, through its Bill of Rights, guarantees my rights of free speech and freedom of religion.
I sent it, and I post it here, because the risks in our country and our world are both great and grave.
I don’t want to have to tell my children that I stood by in silence.
An Open Letter to the Electors
Dear ______:
I am writing to you in your capacity as an elector for your state.
First of all, thank you for your good service to your party in a challenging election season.
Second, I urge you to fulfill your responsibility for the defense of the Constitution by casting your vote against Donald Trump. Please do so even if in your state this is an act of civil disobedience.
When the Electoral College was created, the purpose was to bring wise action if, through whatever chain of events, someone was elected who turned out to be grossly unqualified or otherwise dangerous to the Constitution.
This situation has come to pass. The oath of office for the President is, almost in its entirety, to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Donald Trump, in his campaign, repeatedly and emphatically stated his intention to work against the explicit contents of the Constitution.
In particular please note his policies that stand against the free exercise of religion, and his threats against the free press, both of which are rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
It is also important to note that he boasted on tape of having committed sexual assault, and after he did so a significant number of women came forward to say they had been victims of his mistreatment in this way. Please do not put in office someone with whom you would not allow your daughter to be alone.
His campaign, and now his proposed appointments, have appealed to people’s basest instincts, garnering the support of groups with racist agendas. Surely you have seen and heard that threats and crimes of racial and religious hatred have gone up since his election.
Please, in the name of God, I beg you to do your duty as an elector by keeping Donald Trump from taking office.
Sincerely yours,
Gary Neal Hansen
Thanks for the thought-provoking post.
Whatever happens, my sense is that this a time when churches and pastoral leadership need to be promoting practices of civil dialogue across party/ideological lines and helping people to resist temptations to demonize one another.
Basic elements of the gospel also should be stressed: hospitality to strangers and refugees; special regard for those who are vulnerable to thoughtless or malicious exercises of power, whether by the majority or by a political elite or by a deranged individual; and practices of peacemaking and reconciliation, especially with those we tend to regard as the enemy. These things are non-negotiable if we want to take the gospel seriously, regardless of party affiliation or political ideology.
We need to resist voices who will try to turn define things through the narrow prism of Democrats vs. Republicans. The guiding questions in the coming years must be not “who is on my side” or “who shares my ideological agenda” but rather: What does it look like to faithfully follow Jesus in the public sphere? What serves to build up our civic character in a way that contributes to an open society and to solving concrete problems? How can we hone our practices of critical thinking so that we can distinguish between facts and opinion — especially when facts don’t fit in with our preconceived ideas?
It would be great to learn from your readers what concrete actions they have seen in parishes and congregations.
Thanks so much, Gary. Well said as always.
I too would love to hear what Christians are doing concretely to embody the gospel in civic life.
This post hasn’t had much promotion (one Tweet), though I just noticed that it got 23 Facebook shares. Soon a link to it will be in the email boxes of my subscribers, so maybe they will chime in.
(The lack of promotion by me was because of having previously posted the text of the letter directly on to Facebook where it got passed around pretty broadly — at least by my personal standards.)