He's Not Our Savior

 

He’s Not Our Savior

October 14, 2020

 

The 2020 general election takes place three weeks from yesterday. People call it the most consequential election of our lifetimes, and I think that’s correct. It’s correct because the power duo of Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell is so powerfully destructive. They have perhaps done more harm to our country than even Ronald Reagan did with his greed is good economic policies and his rampant militarism. They have continued Reagan’s benefit the rich, greed is good economic policies while destroying the environment and attempting to destroy the pathetically weak social safety net that’s all this country has. It’s not that the Democrats are all that good. They are nearly as beholden to big money as the Republicans are, though their tax policy isn’t nearly as bad a the GOP’s is. They won’t stand up for the universal, single-payer health insurance system that we so desperately need. They won’t adequately condemn and reduce the amount of our national wealth that we spend on the military and ever more efficient ways to kill people. They won’t repeal the cap on the amount of income on which Social Security and Medicare payments are made, another thing we desperately need to save those two indispensable programs. The list of the Democrats’ shortcomings goes on and on, and still the Republicans are so bad that the Democrats are our only real choice.

Psalm 146 says:

 

Do not put your trust in princes,

              in mortals in whom there is no

                             help. Psalm 146:3 NRSV

 

As I reread those lines recently I thought: We need to stop looking to Joe Biden as our savior. That really is how a lot of us have been thinking of him. We tell ourselves he will save us from Donald Trump. Indeed he may save us from Donald Trump, although that very much remains to be seen. The frightened, bigoted, ignorant American electorate made him president once. How certain can we be that they won’t do it again? What we forget in our desperation to be rid of Donald Trump is that Joe Biden is, like the rest of us, is one of Psalm 146’s mortals in whom there is no help. Yet of course I just said two contradictory things about Biden. I said that he may save us from Donald Trump and that he is a mortal in whom there is no help. Clearly I have some explaining to do.

How Biden can save us from Donald Trump is clear enough. Trump is a profoundly immoral man. Biden is or at least comes across as a truly decent one. He is a man of faith. As far as I know he has lived a moral life. He is a committed family man. He has lived through unspeakable tragedy in his family life, and it has not crushed or warped him. He has overcome the stuttering he had when he was younger, and he seems to have true empathy for people dealing with personal difficulties in their lives. He doesn’t treat women or anyone else as objects there only for his personal use as Donald Trump does. At the very least he would restore personal integrity and decency to the White House. His policy proposals are far from perfect, but they are orders of magnitude better than those of Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell.

So why shouldn’t we look to Joe Biden as our savior? There are I think two parts to the answer to that question. The first is that the conditions of our politics is up to us, the American people, not to Joe Biden or any other mere mortal. The second is that we have a true Savior, one who is immortal and never fails us the way Joe Biden and every other mere mortal, ourselves included, inevitably will. I’ll address these two reasons in that order.

Psalm 146 says of princes,

 

When their breath departs, they

                             return to the earth;

on that very day their plans perish. Psalm 146:4 NRSV

 

We of course do not have princes in the traditional sense of having rulers who inherit their position of power. We have public figures we elect to public office rather than princes, yet our elected officials are as mortal as any prince. They are mortal in two ways, one literal and one metaphorical. They inevitably die just like the rest of us. We’ve had presidents die in office, John Kennedy be the most recent and tragic example. When their mortal lives end so does their ability to be political leaders. They are truly literally mortal.

The way that our elected officials are metaphorically mortal is that their terms of office come to an end while they’re still alive. That end is written into the US Constitution for presidents. They may serve no more than two four-year terms. Some states have similar legal limitations on the terms of their governors and perhaps other state officials. Where there is no legal term limit our elections can act as term limits at least in theory. All of our politicians’ time in office ends one way or another. They are replaced by other politicians whose political perspective is often quite different from that of their predecessors. Exhibit A? Donald Trump succeeded Barack Obama. No politician’s policies last forever. Sometimes that’s good, sometimes it’s not, but it’s always true.

There is however a much more profound reason why we Christians should look neither to Joe Biden nor to any other mere mortal to save us. We have a real Savior who is radically different from any mere human being. Our Savior is Jesus Christ. He is immortal, eternal. He is not a mere human being though he lived among us as one of us some two thousand years ago. Yet even as Jesus of Nazareth he wasn’t merely human. He was God the Son Incarnate. Today he is always with us. He holds us always in love and grace. He forgives our failings and always calls us to newness of life, newness of purpose, newness of love. He rejoices with us when we rejoice, and he grieves with us when we grieve. Princes and other mortals always fail us. Jesus Christ never has and never will.

So let us not put our trust in princes, be they hereditary or elected. We may rescue ourselves from Donald Trump by electing Joe Biden president, but he will never save us. We Americans must save ourselves from the political morass we’ve gotten ourselves into, with God’s help of course. We are the ones who must overcome the twin scourges of racism and white supremacy. We must save our planet from the havoc we are wreaking on it. We must solve the crisis of homelessness. We must solve the gross inadequacies of our health insurance and educational systems. Joe Biden and the Democrats will do more to help us do that than Donald Trump and his destructive Republican minions ever will, but they are not our saviors. We have an eternal Savior. With his help perhaps we can save ourselves.