America is going through our quadrennial bout of political theatre. Some think it’s great fun, some that it’s “par for the course,” some that it’s worse than ever, while most are in a just-be-quiet-and-tell-me-when-it’s-over mode. In any case, it has to be admitted openly: it is not overly begraced with saintliness. Or even sanity.
Actually no knowledgeable person can be surprised at such antics. Hobbes said man’s natural state is war, Acton (for some, the historian) that “no historian thinks well of human nature,” Freud that all men everywhere are power-hungry and incorrigibly aggressive, Nietzsche that all men are brutal power-seekers, Solomon that every man’s heart is full of madness, St. Paul that “all men have sinned and come short of the glory of God,” St. John that all men sin continually, and Jesus that all humans are so sinful that no one—no exceptions!—can reach heaven apart from His saving grace. The heavy hitters all got it right! Not one of them would be surprised at the hysteria.
How shall we think about it all? What is the larger view?
(1) Most of us, if in the politician’s seat, would suffer similar diseases. Admit it. You may well think there will be no truly sane and sober candidate until you enter the race. No offense, but I don’t. Maybe a bit better, maybe a lot worse.
(2) Leading others is a difficult task; if that weren’t so, somebody would be doing it much better than they—or we—are. In America or anywhere else. In settings little or large.
(3) American politics often reeks of braggadocio, and worse, but most (!) people all over the earth would gladly trade their governance process with ours. They’re trying to get in, not out, as you must have noticed.
(4) I’m reading “The Founding Fathers Guide to the Constitution,” by Brion McClanahan” and, again, am shocked at the contentiousness of the debate in Philadelphia in 1787 when “The Miracle of Philadelphia,” our constitution, was crafted. Much more erudite language was used, but the temperature was about the same. (The book is a must read for all of us.)
(5) We have lived through worse times (the Revolutionary War, World War I and II, the Great Depression, plus several administrations which manifested something less than Solomonic wisdom) but here we are, still stumbling along after 240 years. Lincoln knew it was going to be tough: remember his warning, given just eighty-seven years after the nation’s birth, that the great battle of his day was about determining whether a nation “so conceived and so dedicated, could long endure!” He was hopeful, but not certain. If God got us through all that, maybe He is not devoid of nation-saving power yet.
(6) Easter? I watched, just recently, a memorial service. It was a moving ceremony of the former wife of the most powerful man on earth, and, thus, a woman who experienced deference, wealth, power and privilege, at a level unimaginable to most of us. And famed, too, around the earth for her cinematic success. She was also a woman rich in political “creds,” as they say, and used them with consummate skill and effect. Put simply, she was a world-famous politician with all the expected accoutrements.
But here’s the question: when “the tumult and the shouting dies” and “the captains and the kings depart,” will Nancy Reagan be in what Jesus called “the resurrection of the just” (John 5:29) or not? One hopes so. And if so, it will only be because she believed the central event in that first Easter, and received, existentially and personally, His resurrection life into hers. You and I can hope for her; we can make sure of only one person who ever lived, who lives, or who will ever live: ourselves.
All Americans should appreciate the grace Nancy Reagan brought to the American presidency. And, in retrospect, feel a bit sorry for her having to experience our current process several times.
But what mattered then will not matter at all in the end. I said, what mattered then won’t matter at all in the end. That is in no way to denigrate her, or our political process. It is to tell the telling truth.