Truth Unites - Is Trump Changing? What Christians Should Remember

Episode Date: July 20, 2024

Gavin Ortlund reminds Christians that amidst turmoil connected to Donald Trump and recent political events, our ultimate hope must be in Christ. Truth Unites exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville. SUPPORT: Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://truthunites.org/

This is not a partisan video. This is a pastoral reflection on how followers of Jesus can function and find hope in a time of political turmoil. I've been thinking about this the last few days as I watched, ever since I watched President Trump's speech at the Republican National Convention. Fascinating to watch and just see things unfolding right now. I was horrified, of course, as so many others were, by the assassination attempt on him on July 13th. And there's been this curiosity of sort of how he will respond to that and how he will move forward from that. And there's even a supposed prophecy from this man about how Donald Trump will be radically reborn through this experience. And as one who's been very critical of President Trump at various points, I have to say I was gratefully surprised during the early portions of his speech. The tone was more subdued, less insults. There's even a lot of rhetoric about unifying Americans and healing our divisions and standing together and so forth.

And then, of course, you have his own expression and recognition of God's grace in his survival. So this is heartening. And by the way, again, in the spirit of this is not partisan, I'm just going to describe the current turmoil and then really have a pastoral reflection springing from it. When we hear that, though, I think just as we should pray for President Biden, we should pray for President Trump, I take this to be the case that we're commanded in Scripture to pray for our leaders, pray that God would restrain evil, promote good. and then we pray for them as individuals, for their soul. And so we should do that. When we hear someone express some kind of recognition of God's grace in their life, we pray that that would continue.

And that would be the first step of more and more, understanding the grace of God. If Donald Trump's speech had stayed there focused on, you know, it could have been a kind of positive rallying point at this time. Unfortunately, as it rambled forward for more than an hour and a half, record-breaking speech in terms of the time. It seemed to break away from that script at points. And then there's also this new development coming in sideways that I see causing a lot of turmoil for Christians especially, and that's the movement of the Republican Party away from a clear and consistent pro-life position. And this has come up in Donald Trump's statements about

leaving abortion to the states to decide. And it's also been a point of discussion more recently with J.D. Vance and his appointment as the vice presidential candidate. So among those of us, who are pro-life, like myself, there's been a lot of discussion and concern about the seeming receding social conservatism in the Republican Party, and then you're asking, what does this mean for the future, and so forth? Now, I rarely mention politics. That's not my primary area of training and calling, but I've been thinking about this at a pastoral level of just our overall orientation in our culture, in our world, toward politics and everything else right now in time of such upheaval. And I think there's an opportunity for a more basic reminder of how

how we walk through seasons like this, where we put our hope and so forth, a lot of us are feeling politically displaced right now from different angles. Some of us have felt this way for a while. Some of us now are feeling this way more, but more a sense of being politically homeless, where we don't fit in with the major parties and so forth. And it helps to remember that this is how Christians often will feel in this world. We often, because I think the initial instinct, when this happens is there is a kind of panic. There is a kind of fear. You feel this sense of a loss and helps to remember this, especially when you study church history. Actually, it's tremendously edifying to see how frequently the church has been pushed out into the margins. And it doesn't

fit in with the sort of prevailing categories of the day. And then what do you do? And you function, you follow Christ to the best of your ability there in that place. And God does some of his most powerful work through that process. And I understand how church, this is to talk about because we don't want to minimize the particular events that are going on. We don't want to minimize the importance of politics. But there's an ability to accept the play-by-play events of the world without panic, with this reminder, with this fundamental orientation that our ultimate hope is not in this world. We're operating on a little bit of a different wavelength as followers of Christ. We're not minimizing the events that are going on around us,

but we're just aware there's a higher plane of reality that takes priority, and remembering that enables us to face the challenges with a sense of hope in our hearts rather than panic or anger or hatred, which I think is a huge need in our world right now in and outside of the church. What's most deeply on my heart these days is to seek and pray for renewal in the church. This is what I have resolved to give my life toward without any sense of reservation or hesitation to just pour myself out, do whatever I can do, to seek and pray for a fresh movement of rediscovering the gospel in our day. And so to that end, two things that I'm thinking about right now that I would like to invite others to join me in that I think are helpful for us right now, even if they don't answer all the questions or solve all the problems. Number one is outside of the church as well, but especially within the church, to learn how to talk about our political differences without a sense of hatred or contempt for one another. When we fall into that, the hatred and the contempt, we're often contributing to the problems rather than to the solutions.

And it comes into my heart right now, and believe me, this is not just a scolding of anybody else. I put this before myself as well. How in the Bible there's the year of Jubilee in the Old Testament where records and debts are canceled and you have a sense of a fresh start. What if we had a fresh start within the body of Christ? What if we canceled debts and we canceled resentments? As much as we can, I understand that some of these issues that divide us are so serious and it could be a personal wound where you need to keep your distance from someone.

I'm not trying to be unrealistic. Life is complicated. But in general, where we have political differences with each other, for example, what might it look like to approach one another with a fresh sense of love in our hearts? And debate the issues, talk them through, but less hatred, less contempt, less suspicion, less condescension. We need that right now. So I think about, you know, when we have differences, here's a great question to ask us,

how do we move towards one another and soften our hearts a little bit? The second thing I'm thinking of is what does it look like right now to pray for and seek revival and renewal in the church? To not be driven by fear, but to lift our eyes up to the larger purposes of Christ. And it's not minimizing what's happening. There's a lot to be afraid of. I get it. As a father of five young kids, I know that temptation. I understand those feelings.

Looking out of the world, it's a time of great upheaval. But there is this ability to look up beyond that and say, God, what might you do that only you can do precisely in this time of upheaval? Our nation needs renewal and revival. The church right now is seeing so much division and declension. The church needs renewal and revival. What if those of us who want to see that could rally around this? And amidst, this is why, you know, for all the criticism, the phrase truth unites takes,

this is why I still like that phrase, and I'm never going to change the name of my channel. I would like to put forward things that are worthy of being a rallying point for all Christians who can say the Apostles' Creed. And one thing I would like to put forward and say, why don't we rally around this is why don't we pray for renewal of the gospel in our time? That can happen in times of political and cultural upheaval. God has done that before. Some of the greatest revivals in church history happen in times of great upheaval. And we have a hope that nothing in this world can take away, and we need to stand in that, fight for good from that standpoint, from a standpoint. standpoint of hope rather than from anger and fear and so forth. Here's an image I always think of when I think

about the hope that we have that goes beyond this world. One of my favorite theologians is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great German theologian who was opposed by the Nazis and ultimately killed by them. And I, if you watch my channel, you know that I love studying about martyrs. I remember reading about the final seasons of his life and being curious what his experience would be like. And there was a sense of randomness and mundaneness in his story because, you know, World War II is kind of winding down and his experience is, you know, it's just sort of, it's kind of a slow process before he's finally executed. At one point, I always think of this one scene where he's being transported from one prison to another with 16 other prisoners in this van, it's taking forever to get there.

And at one point, the van breaks down and they have to try to repair it. They finally get to that destination, then they just only to have to go to somewhere else. And then finally after they get to that location, a few days after that, he's executed. And there's this feeling. And I'm reading this. I always think of that aimless van ride. And I feel like that's what life feels like sometimes in this world. If you don't have a hope beyond what happens in this world, of course we'll be tempted to panic and hatred. Life feels like that a lot of times. And with Bonhofer, you're thinking like, I'm finishing reading this, I'm like, really? Is this it? You know, there's no sort of, no more drama here at the end of the story. Well, a few days later, as he's taking to be executed, Bonhofer turns to

his other prison mates and he says, this is the end, but for me, the beginning of life. Oh, how I love that quote. What a great concrete encapsulation of Christian hope. You know, even in this incredibly dismal, down form of suffering that ultimately ends his life in this world, he's saying, this is the beginning of life for me, and that's what we have in Christ. We have something that nothing that happens in this world can take away from us. We have a hope that is an anchor, and that, even the worst experiences of this world, like suffering and death, can only further Christ's purpose in our lives. So nothing can take away our hope. And that doesn't make it easy. That's not not just, that doesn't just paper over all the realities we're facing today, but it enables us to face

those realities with a sense of hope rather than with fear or anger. And I think that's what we need right now.