Four Ways Leaders Can Promote Constructive Social Change

Leaders can inspire others to achieve a common goal and drive social change. This blog post will explore four key ways effective leadership can promote constructive social change and create a more just and equitable society.  AtOmega Graduate School , we offer aDoctor of Social Leadership (DSL) degree for professionals who want to lead social change and solve social problems. Keep reading to learn more!

1. Cast a Compelling Vision

Leadership starts with a clear, compelling vision articulating a better future for the common good. A leader’s vision should be grounded in a deep understanding of the issues and challenges facing our communities and society, and it should inspire hope for a better future. Effective leaders communicate our vision in a way that resonates with people’s values and aspirations and we engage with diverse stakeholders to build support and momentum for change. Through casting a compelling vision, leaders can galvanize people to take action and create a shared purpose that drives social change forward.

2. Build Strong Relationships and Networks

Leadership is not just about having a vision but also about building strong relationships and networks that can help to make that vision a reality. Effective leaders listen to and engage with diverse stakeholders, including community members, activists, and policymakers, to understand their needs and perspectives. We also build partnerships and coalitions with organizations and individuals that share their vision and goals and use their networks to leverage resources and influence. By building strong relationships and networks, leaders can create a broad support base for constructive social change and work collaboratively towards shared goals.

3. Challenge the Status Quo through Innovation

Effective leadership involves challenging the status quo and innovating solutions that can lead to social change. Leaders must be willing to take risks and push boundaries and be open to new and innovative solutions to longstanding problems. We must also be willing to confront entrenched power structures and social norms that perpetuate injustice and inequality and work to create new systems and institutions that foster greater equity and inclusion. Research skills drive innovation in society. Through our leadership, we can challenge the status quo and promote innovation to drive constructive social change. 

4. Integrate Faith-Based Approaches to Social Change

Finally, faith-based approaches to leadership can play a critical role in promoting social change. Many faith traditions are deeply committed to justice, equity, and compassion, and their teachings can provide a powerful moral foundation for social action. Faith leaders can inspire and mobilize their communities to work towards common goals, and we can be a powerful voice for marginalized or oppressed people. We can also bring a unique perspective to social issues, drawing on their spiritual and moral traditions to promote new and innovative solutions. Faith-based leaders can contribute to a more just and equitable society.

Effective leadership is critical in promoting social change and creating a more just and equitable society. By setting a compelling vision, building strong relationships and networks, challenging the status quo, and integrating faith-based approaches, leaders can inspire and mobilize others to work towards a common goal. Through their actions and influence, leaders can help create a better future for all, where everyone can thrive and succeed.

Interested in a Doctoral Degree in Social Leadership?

Omega Graduate School offers aDoctor of Social Leadership (DSL) degree for professionals who want to lead social change and solve social problems. Our affordable and accredited program combines coursework in sociology, leadership, and Christian worldview studies to prepare you for leadership in religious and social professions. Our faith-integrated program is personalized and flexible to fit your needs and goals. The DSL degree emphasizes action research and applied sociology. As a DSL graduate, you will be competent in action research methodology, able to develop practical solutions to social problems, and exhibit leadership to transform social and organizational problems. The DSL program is not designed to lead to any particular profession or career but to enhance existing professions and help leaders increase their understanding of leading social change.

Apply now and earn your DSL degree in as little as 36 months for as low as $250/month.

Omega Graduate School is an accredited, independent, freestanding, non-profit, non-discriminatory, faith-based graduate school of social research in Dayton, TN.

Reflections on the Overturn of Roe vs. Wade

Joshua D. Reichard, PhD, EdS, CCS
President and CEO, Certified Clinical Sociologist

As President of a faith-based graduate school of social research, I thought it was imperative for me to respond to today’s official Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe vs. Wade. Like past issues, I will frame this discussion in personal terms — and, I recognize I am a male speaking to an issue that does not directly affect me, so I will try to speak with a dose of humility. Those who know me well know that I try to take moderate positions on most issues and look for truth that transcends political extremes.

For years I have argued that the political right, driven by the religious right, would not actually follow through on an overturn of Roe vs. Wade. I have viewed abortion rights as a political “wedge issue” to drive voters, especially religious voters, to the polls for the purposes of advancing other agendas such as favorable tax policies for the wealthy or protecting systems of power and privilege. I did not believe this day would actually come — but clearly, I was wrong. My political cynicism was short-sighted. But, as I understand it, this ruling simply means the states will have more flexibility to establish abortion laws for themselves without the Federal guarantee of Roe.

At the time of writing this article, there has not yet been any notable political violence at the capitol in response to the decision, but just as our board of regents, chancellor, founder, and myself have condemned political violence in the past, we condemn it again should it arise in response to this decision. Even as I’m writing, our Chief Academic Officer, professors, and a group of doctoral students are in Washington, DC at the Library of Congress on a research trip. I will only note that abortion activists tend not to advance their agenda in the name of Christ or by carrying Christian flags. Pro-abortion activists tend not to represent the majority Christian position. Nevertheless, political violence of all forms must be condemned to ensure the stability of a democratic society. 

As I expressed in an article back in 2020, I consider myself “pro-life” insofar as I believe a fetus is a human person and not a blob of cells. I do believe 50 years removed from the original decision on Roe vs. Wade, we are in a different place in our scientific understanding of life inside the womb. All theology aside, I am not a materialist and do not believe we can be reduced to matter alone — and I think those who do are utterly inconsistent in their own views. All life, but especially human life, is more than biology. My friend and mentor, the Rev. Dr. Michael Lloyd at the University of Oxford has said, “Sin is Anti-Human” and “Death is Anti-God”. I don’t know that I could express it any better — all death, whether “natural”, by murder, by war, by the death penalty, or by disease, is contrary to the purposes of God. The Resurrection of Jesus represents the triumph of life over death (1 Corinthians 15:55-57). Death never was, and never is, God’s will.

Our experiences with our daughter Maria’s premature birth, at just 27 weeks, made me realize that her little life was viable and surely worth saving. To see the beautiful young lady she has grown into today makes the notion of terminating her life, especially in the dawn of the third trimester, unconscionable to me. I empathize with pro-life people of faith and understand why there are strong feelings about protecting the lives of the unborn. Maria survived outside the womb for nearly two months in an incubator in the NICU. I can’t countenance the idea that terminating a life like hers is somehow something to be celebrated.

With all that said, I am also the father of two daughters and I want them to grow to have autonomy over their own bodies. I do not want men to control their bodies or force them to do things they do not want to do. I want them to make wise choices, develop healthy and God-honoring sexuality, and live productive lives. But, I also recognize that we live in a very broken and sin-stained world where bad things happen like rape and forced pregnancies. Moreover, there are serious complications, such as ectopic pregnancies, where the life of the mother is threatened. Having spent many years working among the poor, I have seen how women are often mistreated at the hands of more powerful men: if not rape, pregnancies are forced upon women who are left to raise children in poverty and the men are largely absent from the picture. In the case of pregnancy, the burden is entirely on the female and her body; a man can abandon both woman and child with little, if any consequence. Of course, these issues tend to affect women of color most. Any reasonable person can acknowledge that an unwanted pregnancy can cause immense suffering to a woman, especially if she lacks social support and personal autonomy. Worse, the thought of suffering women being driven to unsafe “back-alley” abortions should not be discounted. But, what is also often ignored, is the fact that women who have abortions undergo immense emotional and psychological trauma and may suffer PTSD for the rest of their lives. In fact, at OGS, we have a current student and licensed therapist who is researching the effects of “moral injury”, a term used in the context of the kind of PTSD soldiers suffer in war, on women who have abortions.

I acknowledge that the issue is complicated. We do not have the right to murder one another to ensure our own wellbeing or our constitutional right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. We do not have the right to terminate the lives of our children after they are born for the sake of financial stability or career goals. While the child is surely dependent on the womb of the mother, Maria’s case shows us a child is quite viable outside of the womb and outside of a woman’s body even before the third trimester.

Some Sociological and Theological Reflections

As a sociologist with a proclivity for quantitative research, I want to believe the data, which, though a little dated, suggest that only 1.4% of all abortions occur at or after 21 weeks (CDC, 2014). Late term abortions were very rare and, like the number of abortions overall, have been declining since the original decision on Roe in 1973. Most late term abortions are due to a major complication in pregnancy or a threat to the life of the mother. Abortions have bene declining overall in the United States because society is quite different from the 1970s. Women have achieved greater social equity, greater autonomy over their own lives and decisions, and greater access to birth control and safe sex practices. My girls are growing up in a world where women have far more autonomy than they did half a century ago. I know it sounds somewhat misogynistic and old-fashioned, but sociologically speaking, healthy family structures — beyond the 20th century suburban nuclear family — are an may inhibit the need for abortions at all. Multigenerational families, respect for elders and mothers and fathers, but liberated from some of the abusive and unhealthy paternalism of the past, can help reduce the need for abortions as well.

I do think the question of terminating a pregnancy in the first trimester is an open one and things like the “morning after pill” have changed the abortion debate entirely. Ideally, I think I speak for many who would prefer to see childbearing in the context of healthy, committed, monogamous marriage, followed by contraception and safe sex practices, followed by something like the morning after pill — and, if some states still permit abortions (which is highly likely), I pray they are safe and rare and conducted only when there was rape, incest, or the life of the mother is threatened. We have far too many tools at our disposal today to justify late term abortions for the sake of convenience, and the data support that fact. Besides, I want to believe it is a very extreme minority who would support late term abortions for “any reason”. 

As a theologian, I unquestionably affirm that all human persons are made in God’s image and of infinite eternal worth. We are more than our biology and I refuse to reduce even a fetus to anything less than the miracle and wonder of every individual human life. I have never been able to understand how taking a human life, inside or outside the womb, could possibly be celebrated in any way — and for the most part, even those who support abortion rights acknowledge that it’s always something to be mourned, not celebrated. Hillary Clinton said that abortions should be “rare and safe” — and that, at least, is a sober position. I do not think the decision to overturn Roe was simply the imposition of religious views of radical justices on the rest of society. There is a very real and fundamental constitutional question at issue: how can a society ensure the “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” of both a mother and her unborn child? Even Chief Justice Roberts said in the opinion, “I would take a more measured course.”

This thoughtful video from Phil Vischer (the Holy Post Podcast), a friend of our chancellor Dr. David Anderson and the creator of the hit Christian children’s program “Veggie Tales”, does a good job explaining the issue of Christians and abortion as a political issue. I’m sure he’ll be doing a video update in the near future! Here is also a video response from our Chancellor, Dr. David Anderson.

Where Do We Go From Here?

It seems to me that now the hard work begins. Although I don’t think we will see a huge difference in late term abortion practices, the social landscape will surely change. Since Roe vs. Wade has been overturned, there will be more children born in poverty, more unwed mothers struggling to care for their children, more men with less accountability for the children they father. I’m not sure people of faith are prepared for the tidal wave of social need coming our way. Are we now prepared to care for mothers and children? Are we prepared to adopt more born but unwanted children? We must now be ready to care for the born with as much passion and religious fervor as we have cared for the unborn, especially among the poor. Can we advocate for the expansion of healthcare for women and children? How about access to healthy food, mental health services, and clean, affordable housing? For all the years of political activism on this issue, it’s now time to align our walk with our talk and do all we can to meet the needs of those who need us most: widows and orphans (James 1:27). Now is the time for people of faith to shift from being anti-abortion to being pro-women and pro-children.

I pray that Omega Graduate School can continue to be an instrument for constructive social change. I pray our students can be the researchers who now find solutions to ensure healthy families are fostered, women and children have access to affordable healthcare, housing, and social support, and men are held accountable for the children they procreate and women they leave to raise their children. I pray we can be a voice of reason, hope, and love in the midst of the political rancor — and always continue to use the pen, rather than the sword, to do so.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Reichard, DPhil, PhD, EdS, CCS
President and CEO, Certified Clinical Sociologist
Omega Graduate School
American Centre for Religion/Society Studies (ACRSS)
500 Oxford Drive, Dayton, TN 37321 USA
Web: http://www.ogs.edu/

References

CDC — Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2014, November 28, accessed 2014, December 23). “Abortion Surveillance — United States, 2011.” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 63(SS-11). [Online].  http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6311a1.htm?s_cid=ss6311a1_w.

Half Politics and Whole People: A Call to Repentance and Reform

Joshua D. Reichard, PhD, EdS, CCS
President and CEO, Omega Graduate School, American Centre for Religion/Society Studies (ACRSS)

 

“Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” — James 1:4

 

In my previous essay, “Political Homelessness and People of Faith”, I shared a personal story framed around the births of my two daughters. The implication of my article suggested many people of faith are politically “homeless”, sojourners in a broken system. America’s 2020 Election is coming to a close and our polarization has not eased, it has intensified. Many of us feel more homeless and alienated than we were before November 3!

However, homelessness should not imply aimlessness. Alienation does not imply a lack of conviction. I hinted at such positions calling for Christians to transcend, rather than conform to, American politics. Instead, I’m afraid we have settled on being half-minded and half-hearted people.

In this essay, I intend to appeal to a deeper conviction. I am calling for Christians to repent of our political allegiances and complicity in polarization. In my previous essay, I condemned political enthusiasm, especially, as idolatry. We must repent of the golden calves have made for ourselves. Repentance for our political allegiances is only the first step: we must not wander aimlessly in the wilderness but have conviction about who we are and where we are going. We must not be double-minded, we must not be directionless, we must not be lukewarm (James 1:8; Revelation 3:16). We must strive to be whole people in a polarized world. I’m not calling for centrism or moderation. I’m calling for deep conviction that cuts through untenable extremes.

Half Politics Make Half People

There has been no time in recent history where our politics have been more divided, save the turbulence of the 1960s. In 1970, the Quaker theologian D. Elton Trueblood authored an insightful cultural critique entitled, The New Man for Our Time. I intend to use Trueblood’s text as a guide for my argument, as his insight rings truer today than ever. In fact, I will use several lengthy excerpts, as Trueblood says it better than I could paraphrase, with one exception: I prefer the more inclusive terms “people” and “person”.

Trueblood observed: “the Christian witness is fractured today because of the emergence of opposing parties” (p. 17), by which he does not just mean political parties, but religious factions. Trueblood was concerned about growing polarization between the “pietist” and “activist” divisions in the Christian community. Pietists are focused on a personal relationship with Christ and activists are focused on outward service. Incidentally, Jesus responded to the Pharisees, who pressed him to prioritize the “Greatest Commandment”, by stating not one, but two answers: loving God and loving others (Matthew 22:36-40). Jesus confounded demands to box in God’s law. Trueblood called this the “double priority” of the Christian faith.

Artificial divisions can be as clearly seen in our political allegiances: Republican and Democrat, Libertarian and Green. Prioritization of individual liberties versus the common good, representative government versus majority rule, free marketism versus regulated economies, etc. Incidentally, the framers of the constitution recognized the merit of both: America is a democratic republic with carefully designed checks and balances between not only branches of government but between the merits of a republic and a democracy. The more polarized our two parties become, the more we are driven to false choices between two distorted visions of a “half politic”. Politics become a wedge keeping us from becoming all we can be as a collective nation and and as individual human persons.

Equating political allegiance to Christian virtue has been an egregious error of the Christian community and it is no more egregiously on display than in the 2020 election. White Evangelical Christians especially, but all politically-polarized Christians as well, have settled for being half-people with a half-politic. It seems Christians do not realize, politics is not governance. Politics is about winning elections. Our naivete of the incredulity of the entire political operation and the devilishness of ruthless politicking makes us settle for simple arguments. We submit our hearts and minds to manipulation to the point of willfully believing lies. Instead of accepting the possibility we might be wrong, we spiral deeper into more and more absurd conspiracy theories driven by paranoia and fear. It is dehumanizing.

Christians seem to love to quote 2 Chronicles 7:14 around every election season. Do we not realize the passage is not calling for pagan hordes to humble themselves and pray but for God’s people to do so? It is us who carry the complicity of sinfulness! We built the golden calf not the Egyptians or Philistines! We must repent of our politically polarized idolatry. From my reading, a political “win” is not God’s promised reward for our humility and repentance. God simply promises to hear from heaven and heal our land.

Let’s Judge Ourselves!

Interestingly, an aphorism Christians like to fling at one another, and non-Christians like to fling at Christians, is “judge not”. Trueblood notes the folly of this misinterpretation of Jesus’ words. Judgment is necessary, but we must recognize our judgements are always “potential boomerangs” (p. 27). Trueblood observed, “that Christ judged the Pharisees is obvious” (p. 27). Judgement of sinners is reserved for God alone, but judgment of religious hypocrites is part and parcel of Jesus’ ministry. Trueblood observes,

The essence of Christ’s ministry is not that he forbade [judgment], but that He made clear what its implications are. The crucial words, therefore, are to the effect that every judgment involves a self-judgement. “For with the judgement you pronounce you will be judged” (Matthew 7:2). Every activist who criticizes the pietist for presenting less than the whole gospel should examine [their] own stance and vice versa (p. 27).

Yes, I am calling for Christians to engage in self-judgment. Are we afraid to look in the mirror because we’re afraid of the half-person we might see there? We all have logs in our eyes and removing them so we can see clearly to remove the specks from the eyes of our brothers and sisters can be painful (Matthew 7:5). But self-judgment enables us to see one another much more clearly!

In our journey to wholeness, we can welcome hearing from opposing views, especially within the Christian community, and allow the process of self-correction to unfold. White Evangelicals, listen to your Black and Latino Christian brothers and sisters! Urban Christian activists, listen to the angst of your rural Christian fellows! I’m not calling for a Kumbaya moment or a false sense of unity – I’m calling for mutual transformation and correction that comes through the boomerang effect of self-judgement. That effect applies even to the positions I’m taking in this essay.

We must repent of our half-mindedness. We must repent our half-heartedness. Much of the ugliness I’ve seen in political banter throughout this election results in total refusal to hear counter arguments at best and cold indifference to needs and pain of others at worst. We must repent of our stubborn unwillingness to engage in critical self-judgment. Repentance can follow the painful, but essential, process of judgment.

New People for Our Time

What follows repentance? Healing and wholeness. We must become “New People for Our Time”, broken free from the bondage of half-politics. “New People for Our Time” are whole people who refuse to be half-people. We must strive to be whole-minded instead of half-minded, whole-hearted instead of half-hearted. Trueblood points to Paul Tillich, who defined this “new person” as one who “refuses to settle… who is not overimpressed by the particular idols of [their] particular age” (p. 28). Trueblood continues:

The new [person] for our time is the whole [person] who consciously rejects the temptation to limit [themselves] to one part of a totality, when such limitation is not required (p. 32).

Trueblood called for wholeness in a very broken and very fractured world:

But where is the inspiration for wholeness found? It is certainly not found in our current political operations, and seldom is it found in science. The truth is that is most likely to be found in the Christian faith. Though it is sorrowfully true that some of the worst fragmentation is currently demonstrated in the Christian community itself, the Christian faith possesses resources for transcendence of one-sidedness. By the miracle of the preservation of the Gospels, Christians have a marvelous antidote to divisiveness of every kind (pp. 32-33).

A friend and colleague of mine, Church of God (Anderson, Indiana) theologian, Barry L. Callen, wrote a book called Caught Between Truths, suggesting the deepest of Christian truths are paradoxical and by nature in healthy tension with themselves. Christian truth is not black and white — but it is not a muddy shade of grey. It is living, active, fraught with paradox, antinomy, and tension. The living and active nature of Christian truth makes it impossible to bottle up, pin down, or worst of all, ally to a political party. Christian truth must not succumb to one-sidedness. When it does, it ceases to be “sharper than any double-edged sword” and instead becomes nothing more than a blunt hatchet (Hebrews 4:12).

Overused as it may be, Trueblood points to the word “and” as “one of the greatest of all Christian terms” (p. 29). Trueblood’s intellectual honesty is honorable:

The revolutionary and truly contemporary message is that choice is not always required, the pressures of the age notwithstanding. It is a mistake, for example, to suppose that we must choose between being liberals and being conservatives, inasmuch as every sound person is something of both. Everyone who is intellectually and spiritually alive is liberal, in the sense that [they] are open to truth from any quarter, welcoming any evidence without the bondage of prejudgment. Similarly, each person who thinks with any care is a conservative, partly because [they] are unwilling to waste whatever has proved itself in the long experience of history, and partly because [they] know that the most recent emphasis is not automatically the most wise. It is conceivable that at any particular juncture in history, it may be right and good to emphasize one side of the liberal-conservative totality, because immediate needs demand such emphasis, but no really wise [person] will ever settle permanently for either one alone. The thinking involved in the use of “and” is far more profound than that involved in the employment of “either-or” (p. 30).

I will go as far as to say anyone who oversimplifies political parties into “good” and “evil” categories does not understand the ruthless nature of American (or any) politics. The laws and policies which emerge from political candidates once they are in a position to govern are never as simple as they might seem; perhaps that’s why politicians have such a hard time keeping promises! When the political dust settles, the work of governing is far messier and more complex than mere politicking presents.

More than 2,500 years ago, the philosopher Plato himself was concerned about the limits of democracy and the devolution of democratic ideals into political buffoonery. Plato recognized the distinction between politicking and governing and his concern was that democracies would eventually devolve into putting people into power who are the best at winning elections (politicking) at the expense of those who are best at governing. In like manner, Alexander Hamilton was concerned that “the little arts of popularity may alone suffice to elevate a [person] to the presidency”. Politics are nasty business, focused only on winning at all costs, and are always a choice between two evils. Politics are about acquiring power and ultimately control of wealth. In America, our lack of publicly funded and shorter-term elections based on meaningful policy proposals make sensible deliberation between legitimate choices all the more impossible. As the political parties become more radically polarized, legitimate choices become less and less possible and instead become more and more ridiculous and divisive.

Trueblood suggests we need a healthy counterbalance of genuine ideas and ideals,

What is becoming increasingly clear is that the major tragedy of the new separatism emerges because each party is deprived of something that it needs, and something that the opposite party has to offer (p. 33).

With that said, we must be careful not to presume political parties can somehow produce New People for Our Time. They cannot. Am I suggesting all people of faith become registered Independents? Imagine what that would do to change the world! Realistically, I am simply asking, as I did in my last essay, for Christians to approach the political process with more humility, contrition, brokenness, and sobriety. That would at least be a start.

Ultimately, Trueblood called for Christianity itself to be the factor that cuts through political and religious polarization. This is not a vain call for “the nation to come together” or the empty platitudes of a call for national unity. Trueblood proposed, and I am echoing, a call for Christians to realize the power of their faith to transcend the easy defaults of polarization in our culture and in our churches. If we repent of our complicity in the polarization, we can reclaim the power to affirm the virtues and call out nonsense on all sides. We may be politically “homeless” but we are not voiceless.

Finding Our Voices as Whole People

At Omega Graduate School, we prepare Christian social researchers who can change the world. I have spent a good deal of time in my own professional practice trying to conceptualize what it means to do the work of sociology Christianly. More importantly, I am concerned about how we can reclaim the credibility of a Christian voice in the public square. Trueblood is helpful to this end. He suggests our ability to be New People for Our Time requires three, not two, poles:

The three necessary elements of any genuine Christianity are, first, the experience of inner vitality that comes by the life of prayer, second, the experience of outer action in which the Christian carries on a healing ministry, both to individuals and to social institutions, and third, the experience of careful thinking by which the credibility of the entire operation may supported. Religions tend to die when any one of the three is omitted for an extended period of time (p. 34).

As part of our PhD in Social Research at Omega Graduate School, we teach a foundational class called “Orthodoxy and Orthopraxis” which reflects Trueblood’s first two elements of a genuine Christianity. We also teach a “Faith-Learning Integration for Interdisciplinary Research” class which reflects Trueblood’s third element of a genuine Christianity. What I pray we can do better, for the sake of all Christians in society, is teach “half people” how to do be “whole people” by breaking the shackles of blind political partisanship.

OGS Chancellor Dr. David Anderson, promotes “gracism” as a practice by which we can see and appreciate and honor our differences. He recently called on Christians to recognize God’s color is not red or blue but purple, the color of royalty. The gospel, plain and simple, is “Jesus is Lord!” and if He is, then Caesar, any Caesar, is not (Acts 10:34-43). The powerful transcendence of the Christian good news must be wholistic rather than reductionistic.

We must be able to “pray, serve, and think”, as Trueblood notes, but as long as we are bound to the slavery of polarization and division, we can do none of them effectively. If we demonize “the other side”, we cannot authentically pray for, or deeply empathize with (as Bonhoeffer defined it), our fellow human beings. Our intercession is loveless. If we see social reform as a matter of power and control, we cannot effectively serve those who need us most. Our service is suspicious. If we pledge blind allegiance to dubious political narratives, we cannot really think critically about how the place of our faith in the public square. Our intellectual integrity is incredulous.

Trueblood predicted,

If the Christian view of the world is not true, and if people discover that it is not true, it will not endure. If it cannot meet the most searching intellectual inquiry, prayer will cease because it will be rightly seen as a form of self-hypnosis, and Christian social action will, accordingly, lose its central motivation (p. 35).

We must repent of our half-mindedness and half-heartedness. We must refuse to engage in political polarization. We must go deeper instead of going left or right. We must reject the temptation of political enthusiasm. We must demonstrate a Christianity to the world that is prayerful, just, and intellectually honest. By my estimation, that’s not lacking conviction; it’s deeper conviction.

We must become New People for Our Time: whole people in the face of polarizations aiming to make us half people. I, for one, refuse to be a half person. I refuse to be half-minded and half-hearted. I refuse to sell my soul to a political party or candidate. I refuse to capitulate to partisan extremes when we have a faith with the power to transcend them all. I am not whole yet, but I am persevering to become mature and complete so I lack nothing (James 1:4). Will you join me?

Only by striving to become whole people can we change ourselves — and change the world.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Reichard, DPhil, PhD, EdS, CCS
President and CEO, Certified Clinical Sociologist
Omega Graduate School
American Centre for Religion/Society Studies (ACRSS)
500 Oxford Drive, Dayton, TN 37321 USA
Web: http://www.ogs.edu/

Political Homelessness and People of Faith: A Tale of Two Daughters

“Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests,
but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” — Luke 9:58

 

Joshua D. Reichard, PhD, EdS, CCS
President and CEO, Omega Graduate School, American Centre for Religion/Society Studies (ACRSS)

 

Several faith leaders have made public statements regarding the impending 2020 election. The following essay is my attempt to do so as well. My statement is not an official position from Omega Graduate School. While I have clumsily struggled to provoke meaningful, nuanced, and civil conversations around these issues with fellow people of faith, I encourage you to read and consider my thoughts, experiences, and convictions with an open heart and mind.

The 2020 election is unlike any election people of faith have encountered in my lifetime. Although there have been politically charged elections (2016 notwithstanding), the electorate and the party platforms are more polarized than ever. I intend to share my faith journey and my political journey to help others understand my sense of “homelessness” in the political realm, why I cannot enthusiastically support either party or candidate, and what I believe the political role of thoughtful Christians must be in the future. I speak as a Christian academic, the president of a Christian graduate school of social research, and most importantly, as a father of two miracle daughters. Indeed, I will be engaging in more pathos than logos in my argument.

Although I was raised in the United Methodist Church (a Mainline Protestant denomination), my faith journey has been shaped more by Evangelicalism from youth to adulthood. I have sojourned in the Pentecostal-Charismatic movements and have served in Evangelically-affiliated organizations and institutions for most of my career. I accepted Christ in a charismatic youth movement as a teenager and believe in the core Evangelical tenets of personal conversion, saving faith by grace alone, and in the authority of scripture. For all intents and purposes, I’m an evangelical insider.

Through lively discussions on social media and in casual conversation, many of my Christian friends have asked me why I do not share a strong political allegiance to Donald Trump. In this brief essay, I intend to articulate how I arrived at a place of political “homelessness” through my life journey and why I believe political allegiance to either party, and concession of our faith community to a “voting block”, is not only an exercise in futility, but idolatrous. My hope is to convince people of faith to tone down our rhetoric and approach politics with more humility, contrition, and a broken heart.

To give you an idea of why Sara and I are complicated people, I’d like to share a synopsis of our life experiences. We have served as missionaries in a majority world country and we’ve served as Christian school administrators in one of the highest poverty school districts in the country. We live on the east side of the city of Youngstown. Our neighbors are Black and Hispanic. I was raised in a working class rural Pennsylvania home; I grew up hunting, fishing, and playing in the woods. Sara was raised in California and Ohio; she lived in a car with her single mother for a period of time. In our extended families we have experienced ugly divorces and painful alcoholism and drug addiction. We have family members in same-sex and interracial marriages. Our children have always attended Christian school. I’ve started businesses, invested in real estate, and climbed the professional ladder. We have traveled the globe, studied at some of the world’s top universities, and earned advanced degrees. Sara is a registered nurse; I’m a certified clinical sociologist and state licensed school superintendent. We have a family full of proud veterans. We own guns. We have a hobby farm with a horse, a donkey, goats, and chickens, and yet we live just around the corner from the nearest low-income housing project. You’ll find me in work boots as much as you’ll find me in a suit and tie. We are not easily pigeonholed by all the typical demographic indicators used to classify party affiliation.

I offer a little biography to help set the stage for the rest of our journey. Inevitably, life experiences shape us, and to appreciate the rest of this essay, I think it’s important to understand who we are and how our lives have been shaped: politically and religiously. Below, I will craft our political tension through the lens of the births of our two daughters, who, more than any other life experiences, have rattled our political allegiances and forced us into a place of political “homelessness”. In so doing, I focus solely on the issue of “life” which motivates evangelicals more than any other. Let me explain.

Maria: A Picture of Protecting Life Inside the Womb

Our daughter Maria was born at just 27 weeks old. She weighed 1 lb 13 oz at birth. She was delivered by emergency C-section after attempts to keep her alive inside the womb for 48 hours or so. A baby weighting less than two pounds is incredibly small. She could fit in the palm of our hands. She spent the next two months of her life in an incubator struggling for every heartbeat and every breath. As we stood by that incubator day-by-day, we could not help thinking we were glimpsing into an unborn child’s life in the womb. Although we were already politically aligned with an anti-abortion position, seeing Maria struggle for life fortified our position all the more.

To destroy a child’s life, especially at this stage, was unconscionable. And while every situation may be unique, we simply couldn’t imagine how anyone would willfully choose to terminate a child in the womb while we were fighting to artificially simulate the womb to save our daughter’s life. At 26 weeks, Maria was most certainly a human life. We were staunchly anti-abortion.

Many of our Christian friends faithfully came to the hospital to pray for her daily, they stood with us and supported us through the struggle. The fight was long, difficult, and painful. Maria is now 15 years old. She is strong, healthy, beautiful and vibrant. She has some ongoing health concerns, including high-functioning autism. We’ve had our struggles through her growth and development, but she is growing every day in her faith, character, creativity, and responsibility.

For us, Maria demonstrates why it is morally essential to protect life inside the womb. I cannot imagine a world without her. Politically, the Republican party platform clearly has the moral high ground on this issue. Although late-term abortions comprise <1% of abortions in the US, abortions overall have been on a steady decline since Roe v. Wade, and I have a hard time believing anyone likes the idea of abortion or is consciously in favor of taking the life of a child, the platform of the Democrat party continues to move in a mind-bogglingly radical direction on this issue. I understand my friends who are “single issue” pro-life voters and I admire many of them who stand firmly on their convictions on this issue.

Olivia: A Picture of Protecting Life Outside the Womb

As if we had not already been through enough with Maria, in 2008, Olivia was born with a major congenital heart defect called “transposition of the great vessels”. She would have died shortly after birth, but a relatively new life-saving reconstructive surgery was possible. Our insurance company, United Healthcare, claimed her congenital heart defect was a “pre-existing condition” (she was two weeks old) and we had to fight to get her life-saving surgery covered. The insurance company actually suggested we “let her go”, presumably because of the actuarial expenses they would foresee for the rest of her life. I could not believe we were faced with such a choice, which was tantamount to post-natal abortion because she would be “too expensive” to keep alive.

Our congressman intervened with the Ohio Board of Insurance and after we had exhausted all of our appeals, Olivia’s claims were finally covered. But, Olivia had used half of her lifetime cap in her first month of life, would be placed into a high-risk, high premium pool, and she would likely be denied coverage later in life for having a pre-existing condition. We were just as terrified about the prospects of the rest of her life as we were at the time she was born.

During those years, we were paying at least $20,000/year for our family’s healthcare coverage. I worked extra jobs to pay for it. I did what I needed to do for my child and my family. To be clear, though, I was not a “deadbeat”, and was not asking for free or socialized healthcare.

Soon, political platforms started to become less black and white for us. The year after Olivia’s ordeal, I witnessed a defiant Republican party fight against the Affordable Care Act. I watched in horror as the “Pro-Life” party was actively fighting against the reform my child desperately needed. The ACA was far from perfect. In fact, in many respects, it was fundamentally flawed. But it saved our family and it protected Olivia. The Democrats, not the Republicans, were, for us, the party protecting life outside the womb. At least they did something and for us, something was better than nothing.

For the next 10 years, the Republican party would rail against “Obamacare” and make no mistake about their desire to repeal it. And all the while, no viable replacement legislation was put forward, even when Republicans controlled congress. The party has had more than a decade to come up with a just and viable alternative. And yet, nothing.

The party of pro-life has fought hard against the only law we have to protect Olivia’s life, and countless other lives like hers, and has done nothing to come up with a viable alternative. I would have entertained any viable alternative to the ACA from the Republican side of the isle. At present, the Republican party prefers to roll back protections to pre-ACA levels: that is exactly what the president’s executive order says. My fear is our political system is held captive by the insurance lobby. Why can’t Republicans take the lead on meaningful healthcare reform and demonstrate their commitment to being “pro-life” for children inside and outside the womb?

And here we are again, in 2020, with the appointment of Justice Coney-Barrett to the Supreme Court, prospects of the ACA being repealed or ruled unconstitutional with nothing ready to replace it. Thank God, Olivia is strong, vibrant, loving, joyful, and energetic. But she still sees her pediatric cardiologist annually. She may lose critical protections (not just coverage for her pre-existing conditions) that could very well save her life should she need further surgeries in the future. “Let her go”, they might suggest again. For an insurance company to deny a sick child life-saving coverage is morally equivalent to a very late-term abortion. To me, that’s a mind-bogglingly radical position.

For us, Olivia demonstrates why it is morally essential to protect life outside the womb. Again, I cannot imagine a world without her. Politically, the Democrat platform has the moral high ground and legislative action on this issue. I do not believe anyone wants to actively deny a sick child medical care, but on this issue, the platform of the Republican party is more concerned with protecting the profits of insurance companies than care for children like Olivia. Therefore, I understand my friends who are “single issue” voters around healthcare reform and I admire many of them who stand firmly on their convictions on this issue.

Political Homelessness

In this essay, I have only focused on the issue of “life”, but Sara and I care about many other important issues on both sides of the isle: religious freedom, racial and economic justice, healthcare reform, economic responsibility, criminal justice reform, ecological stewardship, school choice, sensible immigration reform, care for veterans, the opioid epidemic, and the list goes on. I’m sure many other Christians feel the same way and feel a sense of being torn between false choices.

A sense of political “homelessness” seems appropriate. Jesus said,

“Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” — Luke 9:58

While the Democrat platform is clearly in favor of expanded abortion and does not defend life inside the womb, the Republican platform opposes meaningful healthcare reform and does not sufficiently defend life outside the womb. Hence, I frame my sense of political “homelessness”. From my view, to vote Democrat is to reject the protection of tiny babies like Maria. To vote Republican is to deny the protection of children like Olivia. Political polarization has forced Christians like me into false choices between two extremes. My cynical side questions how much stock we should put in platform positions at all. Politics are fraught with half-truths, mistruths, and lies. Politics are filled with incendiary rhetoric, mean-spiritedness, vulgarity, and rage. Politics are corrupted by the money of powerful lobbies and special interests. My sense of political alienation has never been stronger.

Without sounding sanctimonious, I believe as Christians we should have a sense of unease and discomfort about politics in general. The Kingdoms of this World are not the Kingdom of God. What troubles me most is the political fervor and enthusiasm I see by people of faith for political candidates. From my reading of scripture, governments, parties, and powers are nothing to be enthusiastic about. Paul calls Satan the “prince of this world” (Ephesians 2:2), John refers to Satan as the “rule of this world” (John 16:11), and perhaps, most starkly, Jesus himself rejected the kingdoms of the world:

Then the devil led Him up to a high place and showed Him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. “I will give You authority over all these kingdoms and all their glory,” he said. “For it has been relinquished to me, and I can give it to anyone I wish. So if You worship me, it will all be Yours. – Luke 4:5-7

Jesus also admonished us,

My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight… But my kingdom is from another place. — John 18:36

If the Kingdom of God is not, in fact, of this world, then I struggle to see how we can pledge allegiance to any political platform, regardless of the party. Living in a modern democratic republic, we surely have a civic duty to participate in the political process. But such participation, in my view, should come with such a deep sense of alienation and “homelessness”: we should take no joy in it. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest any feelings of being “at home” in  party or “excited” about a candidate’s prospects should cause us to pause and examine our hearts. Ultimately, we are strangers in a strange land: “resident aliens” as once denoted by Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon.

I’m speaking to people of faith. What troubles me most is the political fervor and enthusiasm of Christians, evangelicals in particular, for the Trump campaign. Obviously, there is little evangelical support for the Democrat platform, but if there was, I would level the same criticism. Proudly sporting MAGA hats, refusing to wear masks to show allegiance, and attending emotionally-charged Trump rallies suggests a religious-like devotion to a candidate. Regardless of who the candidate is, such devotion is dangerous. If we saw similar adulation for Biden, I’d be equally troubled. We cannot serve both God and mammon (Matthew 6:24). When I see Christian friends boasting in the name of their candidate, I wish they would consider what that victory means to others, whose lives will be negatively impacted. Political enthusiasm is not like supporting your favorite football team; the results have real consequences on the lives of others. Political wins come at the expense of the political losers, especially in our current hyper-partisan climate.

Perhaps worst of all, using political criteria as a litmus test for Christian faith is not only egregious, but blasphemous. For example, Black Christians tend to vote contrary to White Evangelicals, but the idea of judging the veracity of their faith by the way they vote is thoroughly unacceptable. Evangelicals, in particular, believe the “born again” experience is essential for Christian conversion. Imposing political criteria on the faith of others is tantamount to rendering under Caesar what belongs to God alone.

As Christians, we affirm Jesus will one day have victory and will rule righteously. There is a peaceable Kingdom coming, where justice will be done and all will be made right. Our hope lies in the coming Kingdom:

Then He will judge between the nations and arbitrate for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will no longer take up the sword against nation, nor train anymore for war. – Isaiah 2:4

Until then, I implore Christians, evangelicals especially, to tone down their political allegiances and approach the political process with a sense of humility and brokenness. Any ballot cast is a vote for a worldly system of government where blood will be shed, lives will be saved, evil will be done, and good will be advanced. I understand those who see one party or another as the lesser of two evils and I understand that conviction. But if that’s true, then we should approach politics with all the more contrition.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise. – Psalm 15:17

Billy Graham once defined the “spirit of the world” as “selfish pleasure, material success and the pride of life… ambitious, self-centered”. If so, then the disposition of Christians in the political realm must demonstrate the opposite qualities: self-denial, generosity, humility… reluctant, others-focused.

Does this mean we should not seek to advance the causes of justice? Of course not. But we must do so with a spirit of self-giving, others-empowering (“agape”) love, peace, and as much humility as we can muster. Sometimes legislative victories do advance the cause of justice for all, but more often than not, there are most assuredly winners and losers. I am not suggesting political centrism. I am suggesting political realism, where we acknowledge the limits of political power and temper our participation in them. When we vote, we should do so with a broken heart and a contrite spirit.

As the President of a Christian graduate school of social research, I believe we retain our ability to speak prophetically to the culture when we approach politics with such brokenness. Unlike other faith leaders, I will not publicly support a candidate. I can only encourage other Christian sociologists to embrace the role of being maverick outsiders who refuse to conform to monolithic political agendas. “Selling out” limits our ability to transcend party platforms. As Christian sociologists, we must retain our ability to speak critically to the world’s systems on both sides of the political isle. We are like the prophet Nathan who had the ability to speak truth to David’s power as an “outsider” to any political allegiances. I have personally paid the price for refusing to “toe the party line”. There is no joy in prophetic engagement.

For Sara and I, our sense of alienation and homelessness has intensified. The tale of our two daughters exemplifies the utterly broken polarization in both parties. The party which would support legislation to protect a child like Maria in the womb would oppose legislation to protect a child like Olivia outside the womb. The party which would support legislation to protect Olivia outside the womb would support legislation to allow a child like Maria to be aborted inside the womb. I refuse to be beholden to a false choice between these two precious lives (1 Kings 3:16-28).

Each of us must vote according to our conscience. But I implore you, please think about both Maria and Olivia when you cast your vote, hopefully embracing a sense of “homelessness”, as we all long for a Kingdom not of this world.

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Reichard, PhD, EdS, CSS
President and CEO
Omega Graduate School
American Centre for Religion/Society Studies (ACRSS)
Certified Clinical Sociologist