Race, Not Faith Decided the Evangelical Vote

On November 4, Christianity today reported this statistic:

65% of white Americans with evangelical beliefs plan to vote for Trump
10% plan to vote for Clinton

62% of African/Hispanic/Asian Americans with evangelical beliefs plan to vote for Clinton
15% plan to vote for Trump

Exit polls show the final number was closer to 81% for white evangelicals voting for Trump when all was said and done (it was 88% in Georgia). I think we can reasonably expect that the outcome for Black Asian and Hispanic evangelicals likewise came closer to 75-80% for Clinton. If someone has an actual exit poll on black evangelicals, I’d love to see it.

What this should say to bible-believing Evangelicals everywhere is one simple thing: there is at least an 80% chance that your vote was informed more by the color of your skin than a carefully formulated evangelical worldview. Actually I think the number is much higher since generational culture is also a significant factor.

If you voted for Trump and you just can’t figure out how a Christ-following Evangelical could sleep at night voting for Clinton, don’t. Go ask any 4 out of 5 black evangelicals and they’ll tell you. And don’t even think about saying that minority evangelicals possess a less orthodox or biblical or Spirit-filled faith than you. Their worldview is just as “biblical” as yours. But their vote couldn’t be more different. And don’t say that you’re the rare bird that carefully thought through the issues and found God’s favorite candidate. Because you probably didn’t. That may be hard for you to hear, but it is the most statistically likely reality. Actually, it is the reality to one degree or another for ALL of us. Culture and background and the beliefs of those around us play an invisible but immutable role in which candidates and media outlets and basic narratives we essentially trust, and which ones we don’t.

Really this race-based division of political values in the church should be a sobering realization of just how little our Christian beliefs inform our politics. We talk as though they do, but only because it makes us feel morally superior. In fact it is our tribe and clan, not the heart of God, which tells us who to vote for more often than not. For us in the ministry world, it is what we call a failure of discipleship. Or if evangelicalism were a factory, I’d say our quality control department really sucks.

All this should also cause reflection for millennials like myself who could never fathom a Trump vote. Because if it had been up to 18-25 year olds, Mr. Trump would have gotten exactly 23 electoral votes. And that has far more to do with our cultural beliefs than our religious convictions.

So where do we go from here?

First, we can stop saying “I just can’t believe a good Christian could vote for _____.” Because clearly lots and lots of “good Christians” voted for both candidates. I also think we can TALK. We can talk to people who voted differently and try to listen. I’m not saying I think voting for Trump or Clinton was an equally valid. I’m not saying this choice we’ve just made won’t lead to the emboldening of hate crimes, deepening division, and harmful policies which hurt vulnerable people. On the contrary, I think that scenario is likely. And I pray I’m wrong. I may never be able to excuse the choice (painful as it was) that so many of my family and friends made on Tuesday.  But I am saying that listening humanizes and invites people to move beyond disembodied rhetoric to real people their real stories. And in that space, people can disagree with every fiber of their being without doing violence to each other.

One of the best embodiments of this I’ve seen personally came yesterday from one of our ministry’s board members—a Trump voter—who called me yesterday. He told me that although he voted for Trump it was the hardest vote he has ever cast. He also told me that he was sorry that things didn’t go the way I had hoped and he understood I must be feeling very disappointed. He told me he grew up in a place where everyone thought the same way and now he was being challenged by his African American friends and his 20-something kids to broaden his perspective. He invited me to share my perspective with him so that he could continue to learn and grow. He expressed love and acceptance for me without requiring me to change my views. I told him how much I appreciated him saying those things. I told him I also wanted to keep talking and understand more about his perspective on faith and politics.

Not once did we excuse or validate the other’s vote. Not once did we say, “oh yeah, I totally get how you could vote for that person.” But we did agree to get lunch, to talk, to press in on each other’s beliefs and assumptions, and to just be friends. That’s the only way forward I can see here: to recognize that our culture and upbringing typically play a more pivotal role in our opinions and platforms than our religious beliefs... to name our biases... and to keep inviting each other to think deeper and to seek God’s actual heart not just for our society but for the real people who live here: for your LGBTQ family members, and racist friends, and that hard-working farm community off the highway, and the entitled millennials your friends gripe about, and the scared Latino kids your daughter goes to school with.

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I don’t ever want to gloss over the seriousness of the decision we have just made as a nation. I’m not going to tell you “it’s going to be okay.” It very well may not be okay. But I can tell you that I’m going to keep asking questions and trying to understand. I’m not going to retreat to my group of likeminded friends. I’m going to keep loving people, not as symbolic representations of a political worldview but as people; messy, crazy, lovely people just like me.

Leaders Are Developed (Zambia 2016, Part 2)

(Warning: this one contains a good bit of shop talk about pedagogy and program implementation. I won’t be offended if you get bored!)

Zambia is hot in October. Not ridiculously hot, and the beads of perspiration evaporate instantly into the dry season dust. Still, throughout the afternoon all twelve men squirmed and blinked at each other in the churched as we waited for the sun to sink lower in the sky. But 95 and dry was a walk in the park compared to Ghana’s 106 and humid. We all soldiered on.

Mindolo Baptist church is settled inside a walled compound with a parish, a dirt patch in the corner to burn garbage, and about 20 cars from the community parked in the security of the compound for a small daily fee. Some of the trucks had been abandoned by the owners and were now pillaged skeletons.

The twelve men sat circled inside for something unique within Zambia: a Restoring Your Heart training. I say it’s unique because in an emotionally siloed and intensely gendered country with few good counselors and fewer support groups (especially for men), the news of a bunch of pastors and church elders starting a string of emotional healing groups for men is sure to raise some eyebrows. At one time I wondered if it would be relevant. Perhaps the ultra-polite Zambian culture had mechanisms to encourage emotional health and deal with problems. If there is, neither I, nor my Zambian friends seem to know about it. Because when I introduced the idea to a group of Zambian pastors a couple years ago that emotional healing is tied to spiritual growth, the response was cacophonous: Come back prepared to teach more on this subject or else.

So last week I returned with a stack of workbooks and teaching notes ready to train some leaders. I knew what I wanted them to do: start Restoring Your Heart groups under supervision. But to accomplish this I needed to get through some significant logistical obstacles.

Obstacle #1: Materials. I brought some nice workbooks for the leaders but it won’t be enough for 50 new group members come January. So we visited an industrial printer, got a quote, made a plan for a first run of English books and a second run of Bembe books once they get translated. Check.

Obstacle #2: Cost. The more I work in Africa, the more I realize that free equals non-valuable most of the time. But in Zambia, the shadow of Western paternalism casts an ugly shadow on anything you give away. So we opened it up to the leaders and came up with a cost for groups that everyone felt was reasonable and that would ensure the ministry becomes self-sustaining as the groups grow. Check.

Obstacle #3: Training. No inspiring sermon or fascinating lecture could cause this group to internalize everything they need to learn and apply in leading this group, understanding emotional needs, spotting depression, understanding the grieving process, understanding forgiveness, building an emotional vocabulary, completing developmental tasks, etc.

So I slowed the group down and systematically opened each topic up for conversation. I made sure all the major points were covered but I wanted them to find the answers on their own. And they did. Then I gave tests every day. The first one was a train wreck but the rest got progressively better and reinforced the major points. I let one of them lead a session and we did a group critique. I took them through the experience they would soon lead and made them do the homework they would ask their participants to do. We even did role-plays. The letters of forgiveness they read out loud in the group on Thursday morning were wonderfully cathartic and some of them reported a “weight being lifted.” Others shared things they have never spoken to another living soul. It was beautiful.

In the end, I was happy with their comprehension. I was also happy with their buy-in. 8 of the guys indicated their intention to start a group of their own. I’d lie if I said I was fully confident in them as group leaders but I think with good coaching and ongoing training they can get there. Which brings me to...

Obstacle #4: Follow up. This has perhaps been the biggest missing piece in other training seminars. We have no natural mechanism to monitor progress and develop people over a period of time. This is my first stab at a follow-up plan but I think it’s a step forward. So those who want to start a group will do so in together in January and be part of an email coaching group for the next 8 months. Every 2 weeks, I’ll send them a training resource and require a few reflective questions including questions or problems in their group. The email group is only for group leaders. Then I’ll do a follow-up training with those leaders next July as well as a round 1 training for women (I’ll need to find a gal to come along for that). This plan gives us accountability, a natural funnel to identify serious leaders, and shows them that we’re committed to developing them. The next couple months will be telling. It’s a start though right?

Personally, it has felt good to release myself from the pressure to entertain people or put on a great seminar with a potent delivery. I told the guys this week that I have very little interest in teaching people. But I have loads of interest in helping people learn and grow. I’m interested in building good connections with a smaller group of leaders and working with them over a course of years. I think it lines up better with who I am anyway.

Leaders Aren't Trained (Zambia 2016, Part 1)

It was a dusty day in Kitwe when I walked out of the blinding sun into the stick and tin structure serving as a small church. Inside, I there was a seemingly random assortment of middle aged men in suits, breastfeeding mothers, and a handful of nuns sitting on log benches oiled shiny by the skin of countless worshippers. I clenched a bundle of notes, some typed some handwritten and photocopied with my own chicken scratch on the margins. My 70-something colleague Dave had handed them to me and mildly wished me luck. I squinted my eyes at them all across the Atlantic trying to make sense of all this talk of progress disciple-making, foundational assumptions, and strange sounding acronyms. Then it was show time.

I’m not much of a teacher now. But in 2010, fresh out of seminary and woefully insecure, I’m certain I put those nuns to sleep as I droned on reciting every sentence in those notes, inserting my own dry anecdotes and instantly getting lost and having to search the page to find my next bullet point. Every Zambian there assured me after four days that the seminar was a true inspiration and had changed their lives forever. In my memory Dave said something like, “yeah okay not bad for your first time.” Thanks Dave.

I suppose I began to believe that if I could just become a more eloquent and confident teacher, mastering those notes and perfecting my delivery, maybe then I actually could change some lives. So for the next few years I tried. Oh I tried. And I improved. I left the notes on the podium. My anecdotes got better. I inserted my own fiery convictions. And people in the Congo, Ethiopia, and Ghana assured me that with increasing fervor that I was changing their lives forever with my revolutionary teachings. But I couldn’t shake this sneaking suspicion that most of those people were going home and setting their eagerly scratched notes reverently on a pile of notes from other life-changing seminars about farming practices, micro-enterprises, social entrepreneurship, or community health and then going about their real lives as usual. I can’t blame them. I’ve done the same thing countless times after any number of life changing conferences, retreats, and special events. That is, I’ve done nothing. I might discuss those new ideas with a couple friends or dream of some new possibilities, but in the end, my “real life” calls me back to earth.

I came across and interesting article in Forbes recently that told me what I long suspected but preferred not to hear: leaders aren’t trained. Leaders are developed. In fact the article went on to tell me that most leadership “trainings” do more harm than good. How could this be? Because, one friend told me as we discussed it, trainings can give people the impression that they have changed when in fact they haven’t. They’ve been inspired, educated, and convinced but not changed. Change happens in the nitty gritty behavioral choices we make tomorrow morning, next month, and next year. Because a seminar is a radically different environment from our daily lives, it is harder than we think to make that application leap. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen. It does. But it requires a level of inspiration, personal conviction, and reinforcing experiences that most people will never attain in a seminar and no lecturer can guarantee no matter how eloquent.

So what’s a trainer to do?

First we need to pay attention to how people learn. I promise you, a content-heavy lecture is NOT how people learn. They learn by discussing. They learn by reinforcing experiences. Most of all, they learn by teaching others. They learn through a frequent teacher-student feedback loop.

Second, we need to be willing to get into the nitty gritty. Visionary types like me hate the nitty gritty. I don’t know, it’s just so... nitty gritty. But as they say, the devil is in the details. So let’s say I just blew your mind with the seminar to end all seminars. What are you really going to do with it tomorrow? Have I made it abundantly clear what I want you to do? Do you think you can do it? Did I give you the resources and materials to do it? Do you feel it would be worth it? Who is going to remind you to do it when the gravity well of the status quo starts calling you? Who do you ask when you have a question or run into a problem? I’m afraid I haven’t had good answers for those questions in the past. I’ve just hoped they would figure it out.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying these last 6 years of training national leaders has been a waste. I genuinely believe that many people’s lives have been impacted. And along the way, I’ve been intentional about building friendships with a few key people and nurturing those friendships over the course of years. Plus I’ve learned a ton and honed a boatload of my own leadership skills along the way. I’ve gotten comfortable in Africa and developed a genuine love for my friends and colleagues there. I would do it all again.

But after this last week in Zambia, I’ve begun to have some hope beyond my seminar cynicism. I think there are better pedagogies out there and I think I’m starting to understand what is required to build a successful leadership community in Africa built around shared values and practices. It may take more time and energy than I ever imagined but I think it’s possible and it’s starting to happen. Most importantly, I think I’m willing to give it a shot. Stay tuned. In part two, I’ll let you know a bit of what I’ve been implementing this last week and the new possibilities and challenges we’ll be facing.

Immanuel Approach: How an unspiritual encounter with God over Skype changed my whole stinking life

Six weeks ago, I spent 90 minutes praying with a friend over Skype and it changed my life. I felt the effects right away: I felt light, happy. Wave after wave of peace and gratitude flooded every dusty corner of my heart as I experienced a level of personal connection to Jesus that I’ve never felt before. It completely blew my analytical circuits. Within 48 hours I noticed I wasn’t compulsively judging people the way I used to. My social anxiety had gone down. Conflict in my marriage disappeared. (Yes, really!) A chronic fear of spiritual intimacy in my marriage I’ve struggled with for a solid decade simply vanished. I started enjoying my kids more. Heck, I even started craving healthy foods! It seemed that nearly every problematic area of my life was touched in some way by this seemingly benign prayer time.

I knew then that much of the novelty would wear off over time. Of course I would start craving nachos again. And surely some of the old anxiety would return. So I held off writing this for 6 weeks so I could study and analyze what was happening to me and report back to you without a lot of the customary fluff that can surround an ecstatic or life-changing experience. I know what a “spiritual high” is and I wanted to see how much of this experience would stick and how much would fall away. Some of it did fall way. But today, I can say the effects of that experience have continued to snowball into greater levels of peacefulness, personal security, gratitude, self-awareness, and maturity along with a sustained connection to God unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. To say I feel “born again” would be fitting in this case.

So... Here it is.

That Skype call prayer was no ordinary prayer time. My friend was introducing me to the “Immanuel Approach”, a very simple approach to prayer that accesses our memories to build a present, interactive connection with Jesus and heal traumatic memories. Designed by Dr. Karl Lehman, a Christian psychiatrist in Chicago, it was initially used as a therapeutic intervention in his private practice. But it has found applications in people’s daily lives as they use it to connect with God in simple everyday ways. I was intrigued by it because some friends whom I knew had been in counseling for years to deal with entrenched emotional issues experienced sudden and dramatic progress in those areas using the Immanuel Approach. They also talked about greater intimacy and faith in God. So I thought I’d give it a try. Here is how it goes.

1. Simple opening prayer

2. Access a memory in which you experienced God strongly and/or felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude. Describe everything you see/feel/experience out loud even if it doesn’t feel significant.

3. Invite God to turn that past memory into a present connection with him. (This is where the fireworks start to happen).

4. Invite God to also be in the room with you NOW in the present.

5. Visualize a negative memory in which you did NOT feel God’s presence.

6. Invite God’s presence to be with you there as well. Wait. Describe everything you see/feel/experience out loud even if it doesn’t feel significant. Be patient.

7. Whether you feel God working in the negative memory or not, return to steps 2-4 to close.

Pretty simple right? Some of you may be thinking, “oh sure! I’ve experienced something like that,” or, “I could at least see how that might be helpful.” Others may be thinking, “sounds nice but what if it doesn’t work? Is it right to get people’s hopes up?” Some may think, “good for you but everybody has different spiritual and emotional pathways so don’t assume what worked for you will work for other people.” Still others have learned from experience not to trust “simple” solutions and techniques. It’s a party trick. It’s all sounds a bit too mystical. It’s using God as a therapeutic crutch. Sounds like a spiritual “get rich quick scheme.” You would be right to feel skeptical. I’ve thought all those things myself. So I’ll just tell you what I know and let you draw your own conclusions.

When I went into my brain searching for a positive connection memory, I landed on an abandoned concrete pier near my childhood home that jutted out into Lake Superior. I walked down there many mornings in high school to dangle my legs over the icy blue water and watch the sun peek over the far horizon. I could feel the crisp Duluth air breathing gently across the choppy waves, the warm morning sun piercing the autumn chill. It was magic, and I felt God was there. As I rehearsed all this to my friend, suddenly I could see Jesus sitting next to me, dangling his legs over the pier too, just happy to be there hanging out with me. As we looked out over the pristine water, a bible reference floated across my thoughts. When I paused to look it up, I was surprised by how fitting the reference was!

Psalm 29:3—“The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the LORD thunders over the mighty waters.”

In my memory, the scene changed and dark thunderheads crowded in from all horizons until the scene was ominous and continuous muffled thunder rolled out over the waves. But it was still strangely comforting as the scene became pregnant with a sense of God being there with me. I felt that same excited expectation I feel just before thunderclouds drop their payload. I felt tuned in, engaged, eager with anticipation but also safe in God’s care. The funny thing is that now when I think back to that memory out on the pier, I think of it with the storm clouds and Jesus sitting next to me as a real part of the memory. It wasn’t part of my original autobiographical memory, but those details now seem to be “written” in as if they were part of the original event.

Back inside the memory, Jesus grabbed my hand and we started walking down the timeline of my life, which was represented by a physical path. This is where it gets funny. Halfway down the road, Jesus breaks out (I kid you not) pogo sticks and with a goofy grin on his face exclaims, “let’s hop the rest of the way!” At the time I thought this was strange. Why would Jesus do something so silly and seemingly meaningless in the middle of my intense spiritual/emotional experience? Could this be my imagination getting away with me? But it didn’t feel like my imagination. I still felt a strong connection to him. So why pogo sticks?

The real question is “why delight?”

As I’ve gone through the Immanual Approach personally and led about 8 other people through it, I’ve seen Jesus manifest himself in surprising pictures of humor and delight. As people reach the “ground floor” of their experience with him, they often see him doing embarrassingly fun and joyful things. He’s skipping through the forest, he’s grinning in a Hawaiian shirt, he’s a goofy looking electrician with a bundle of wires and a gleam in his eye that says “I’m rewiring this whole thing.” He’s uncomfortably affectionate, he’s cracking jokes. Even the most skeptical, rational people can’t help smiling and laughing when they see Jesus’ sense of humor. While not everybody experiences it this way, I’m learning to watch for these manifestations of God’s humor and delight as a sign of progress.

Personally, as I’ve learned to access God through his delight, I’ve noticed a lot of things seem to correct themselves. One of the more interesting things is that in that “delight space”, a lot of things in the bible that have always felt like complex and heavy tensions begin to feel simple, acceptable, and good. Perhaps it’s not that those things now make perfect sense, but I no longer feel afraid that going down those rabbit holes will lead me to a dark and dreary place spiritually. Similarly, not only is biblical truth no longer scary to me, general truth about myself and the world has also become non-threatening. I’m perhaps more honest with myself now than I’ve ever been. I’m able to quickly acknowledge personal flaws without feeling overwhelmed by their magnitude or powerless to do anything about them. I don’t excuse myself. And I don’t condemn myself. And I attribute that primarily to a personal experience with a kind and light-hearted God.

As an aside, I talked to a good friend recently who is raising small children. He says his biggest struggle as a father is not so much learning how to instruct or discipline his kids. He told me his biggest struggle and the thing he wants to grow in the most as a parent is learning how to enjoy his kids. He talked about how he had started drawing his kids into the things that give him delight (rather than just trying to figure out what they are into). As he has started involving his kids in these areas of his delight, they have started enjoying those things too. More importantly, they have started enjoying their time together. I thought this was a profound parental insight. Because my experience with God’s enjoyment and delight has unlocked my mind to reframe things like God’s discipline, the serious things he wants me to learn, even things like his sovereignty and wrath in a healthier light. I imagine the same is true for the ways we parent: when our kids experience our loving delight in them, a LOT of the discipline and life skills issues seem to resolve themselves because those kids know their daddy or mommy enjoys them.

Okay back to the story. Pogo sticks. Right. So we’re hopping down the road and we land back in the present. A bunch of stuff happens but the gist of it is Jesus is no longer in the memory. Now he’s in the room with me. In my mind’s eye, I can see exactly where he is standing and what he is doing. I’m not used to experiencing him is such vivid ways. It’s surprising. I think a lot of people are surprised by how quickly and strongly they sense Jesus with them in the process. As I’ve led other people through it, I’ve learned that most people sense God in some way that is particularly strong relative to their typical experience. It’s usually not completely out of context to how they’ve experienced God in the past. But typically their experience seems to be uniquely strong for them.

Then it was time to go into a negative memory. I didn’t have one picked out. But as I asked Jesus to lead me, I landed on a memory that didn’t initially feel negative or traumatic. But as I unpacked it, I identified a profoundly negative message that memory had reinforced in my life. And it was scary because as soon as I found myself there, the warm connection with God fizzled. I felt alone. And I didn’t know if I could hitch the negative memory in some way to the positive experience with Jesus that now felt so far away. But as I sat there alone in that memory, inviting Jesus to be there with me, he came, slowly at first, then strongly. He cupped his hands around my heart in a nurturing, protective gesture. I felt him with me and suddenly the negative messages associated with that memory lost their power. The negative payload of the memory fell away. And just like the positive memory before it, I can think about that memory and the added details of my interaction with Jesus—which were not a part of the original autobiographical memory—have now been inserted as though they were. In words, the healing interaction with Jesus in that memory continues to feel real, as though it really happened as a part of the original event.

That’s one of the amazing things about the Immanuel Approach. I should say, that’s one of the amazing things about inviting Jesus into your painful memories. All your wrong beliefs about yourself, about the world, about people, and about God... they are buried in your memories. And when God inserts himself into those memories, they lose their toxic payload and your wrong beliefs correct themselves based on the new information of God’s loving presence.

It has started happening in my life. That’s why I say I literally feel “born again.” Now in fairness, I need to admit that this has been a perfect storm for me. I didn’t just go through this thing once. I’ve been through it again since then. I’ve led others through it. I’ve made a habit of spending 45 minutes each day in the woods walking, praying, meditating, and expressing gratitude. This task has become much easier because my kids are in school now and because the emotional and spiritual payoff is so obvious. When I miss this time, it’s hard for me to concentrate on my work and I end up wasting a lot of time and energy throughout the day. I should also say that the last 18 months have been especially difficult and God has done a lot of work preparing me for the season I’m in now. Also, I would be amiss if I didn’t give credit to an amazing mentor who meets with me each month and has totally been an anchor for me the last few years.

But even considering all those things, the changes I’m seeing today are significant if not miraculous. Debra and I have not had a true fight in 6 weeks. That has NEVER happened in 10 years of marriage. Ever. When my buttons get pushed, it is significantly easier for me to say objectively, “wow, I’m getting triggered right now. But I know that’s about me, not you. Be patient with me while I sort it all out.” In all my relationships, it’s easier to wade through conflict. I’m not threatened by conflict the way I once was. And when there is a conflict it is relatively easy for me to sort through the emotions, pull out the things of value, and throw away the junk. It’s easier for me to maintain healthy detachment while staying emotionally present, which is a HUGE deal for me.

The biggest thus-far permanent change for me is that I now believe (not only intellectually but experientially) that God is with me. I actually think He will show up when I need Him, and that He will meet my physical and emotional needs. I don’t just think that intellectually. I believe it experientially. And if I don’t see or feel Him now, no big deal. I feel confident that I will soon. That belief in itself touches every area of my life. So it’s no wonder I feel as though God’s kingdom (simply put, that invisible place where God is in charge) is breaking in through every door and window of my life, realigning and rearranging everything from top to bottom. It is.

PS- if you want to experience the Immanuel Approach for yourself, feel free to give me a shout! You don’t have to be a Christian or even a very spiritual person. So far it seems the only qualification is willingness to try it. I’m not a pro, but I love to give it away!