Adam Russell Taylor

I’ll admit I struggle to face the reality that many in our country — roughly 51 percent of the popular vote, according to current estimates — are feeling some combination of elation, pride, and excitement that their chosen candidate has won. Even in my pain and grief, I know that as a follower of Jesus, I am called to pray for the incoming Trump administration and the people who voted for it. I’m committed to doing that work, but I confess: It feels hard right now.

SOLITUDE OFTEN CAN be dismissed as a spiritual luxury or afterthought. But as I’ve grown in ministry and activism, I have become convinced that solitude is a spiritual necessity.

I found myself spiritually depleted this past summer, carrying the weight of dismay and uncertainty associated with the election, anxiety and stress tied to the responsibilities of leading Sojourners in this season, and so much more. I debated whether to take some of my sabbatical. (Sojourners employees receive a one-month sabbatical after every seven years of employment.) My soul desperately needed it, but I kept pushing it off due to the tyranny of the urgent. I finally committed to a plan for August.

I’m beyond grateful for a vacation with my family, followed by a five-day silent retreat at Prince of Peace Abbey, a Benedictine monastery north of San Diego. My soul needed this spiritual reset.

But while assessing who wins a debate can be fairly subjective, determining who wins the upcoming election can’t — or shouldn’t be. As we’ve learned since 2020, confidence in our electoral system has increasingly become a partisan issue, with over 70 percent of Republican voters believing that President Joe Biden’s win in 2020 was illegitimate, a belief fueled by the pernicious, big lie that the election was stolen due to widespread voter fraud. Changing these numbers and restoring bipartisan confidence in our electoral system will require real work — and leadership from our elected officials.

COUNTERACTING CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM can feel like political shadowboxing: The thing you are trying to push back against feels elusive, moving like a butterfly but stinging like a bee. It’s somehow both everywhere and staying under cover. With rare exceptions, such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Sen. Josh Hawley, few politicians or even Christian leaders self-identify as Christian nationalists. Far-Right Christian leaders such as Tony Perkins have even argued that Christian nationalism is an invention by the Left and academics to marginalize Christian conservatives. But we can’t be fooled. The peril that Christian nationalism poses to our Christian witness and faith and to our democracy is real.

One challenge in confronting Christian nationalism is succinctly defining it. Sociologists Samuel L. Perry and Philip S. Gorski talk about it as “a constellation of beliefs” — such as that the founding of the United States was “divinely inspired” — that are connected to political goals. Another challenge is that Christian nationalism exists on a spectrum, from the quiet but insidious kind that has seeped into many of our churches to the louder, more overt forms we saw on January 6. It has been present in groups throughout our history, from the Ku Klux Klan to the Religious Right to a powerful constituency now helping fuel the MAGA movement. It can be an ideology that asserts that a specific ethno-nationalist brand of Christianity, intertwined with white supremacy, patriarchy, and xenophobia, is the one true faith. And it is a strategy being harnessed to build political power and undermine our democracy. Project 2025, made in collaboration with more than 100 Far-Right organizations, provides a chilling policy and governing blueprint that embraces many tenets of Christian nationalism and would push our nation toward autocracy. We need a variety of approaches to address this continuum.

Many of us are feeling fear, disorientation, or anger at this moment. As Christians, we need to meet perilous feelings with a resolve to follow Jesus and remember his teachings: The truth will set us free, and we must learn to love our enemies.

When election season rolls around, both politicians will no doubt hope to have the votes of people living at or near poverty, particularly those living in the urban centers of swing states. But what hope can people experiencing poverty have that their government has their best interests at heart when most candidates only seem to acknowledge their existence as voters rather than as people with inherent dignity and very specific and urgent needs?

You don’t have to be a civil rights history nerd to understand why these milestones matter today: In case you haven’t noticed, we’re currently in the midst of a major backlash against racial justice, including many of the rights and freedoms that inspired civil rights leaders. These include book bans, assaults on DEI programs, the Supreme Court’s decision to end affirmative action programs in higher education, and forestalled efforts to transform our justice system and end racialized police violence. These courageous actions taken by our predecessors aren’t just a milestone to celebrate with a nice speech and a historical plaque; these actions reverberate through time, offering us inspiration and resilience for the unfinished cause of freedom and justice.

SINCE THE RECORD-BREAKING Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, we have witnessed a right-wing backlash against efforts to advance racial justice, exemplified by state and local laws to ban books and censor how we teach history. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, especially those in the corporate world and higher education, are also increasingly vilified.

Of course, these attacks on DEI are just a repackaging of old grievances. I’ve written extensively about how the political right in the United States has long sought to win and maintain political power by inflaming white racial prejudice through a never-ending culture war. To counteract this, we need to make a more persuasive and forceful case for why DEI programs align with and advance our core faith and civic values.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion programs address inequities experienced by people from historically marginalized identities, whether based on race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or any other element of humanity used to exclude and disadvantage. A DEI framework expands an organization or institution’s focus beyond simply recruiting a more diverse staff or student body to include diligent attention to equitable policies, compensation, and opportunities. When equity and inclusion are added to the picture, organizations can better build a shared sense of belonging, possibility, and ownership. That should be reflected not just in an organization’s culture, but in its material realities, including wages and promotions.

The “how” of politics — engaging in ways that uplift civility, truthfulness, empathy, and integrity — still matters, particularly in a time in which our democratic norms and systems are being challenged. From a Christian standpoint, how we engage in politics should be rooted in the fruit of spirit, which in his letter to the Galatian church, the Apostle Paul describes as “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). Obviously, these virtues are not the norm in our body politic. And while it’s easy to blame politicians, we must first remove the speck from our own eyes.