Child Prisons, Merrick Garland, and the Theology of Being an Overwhelmed Liberal

The news has been bleak lately.

As the President conspires to wrestle babies from their mothers and lock them indefinitely in chain-link cages, the Supreme Court approves a veritable Muslim ban. All the while, Justice Kennedy plans his resignation, inevitably tilting the ideological balance of the court away from principled conservatism and likely towards unabashed white nationalism.

Signs of frustration, particularly on immigration, pile up on both sides of the aisle, while signs of despair and outright cynicism increase from the left. As disillusionment builds, futile acts of resistance mount. And while west wing staffers find themselves down a place to eat dinner, they surely find themselves all the more politically emboldened.

Those who value globalization, inclusivity, and a fair and independent judiciary have ample cause to despair. But maybe a theological lens can provide some modicum of hope for disillusioned liberals like me.

Theology, one may remember, is simply thinking about how God is acting in the world. The task of the theologian is to evaluate what a God of liberation and redemption might be up to in any given situation. 

The fundamental conceit of the Christian theologian is that the God who makes Godself known on a criminal's cross is unequivocally on the side of the powerless, downtrodden, and defeated. The God who was raised up from the criminal's cross promises to do the same for the powerless, downtrodden, and defeated. 

Put contextually, a Christian theologian (as opposed to a proto-Christian white nationalist ala Sessions or Sanders) knows that God is active in our shocking political reality. Only theology can remind us that God sits in solidarity with the children Jeff Sessions has sent to cages. Only theology reveals that God is present with anguished parents who know not if or when they will be reunited with their children. Only theology confirms that God will in God's time do what God does: liberate, redeem, and create all things anew - even in a time of child prisons.

Last week, I overheard two millennials talking about the church in Trump's America. They had evidently been frustrated by the church's inability to accomplish meaningful acts of resistance - as demonstrated by the administration's ability to easily impound young children. Their frustration is entirely justified.

But maybe in these times where the future seems dark, our moral compass seems broken, and our democracy appears in peril, the job of the church is not to resist (though it certainly isn't to sit passively, either).

Maybe instead the job of the church is to bring us all back to theological inquiry - to examine where God might be working, right now, in this ungodly and vicious news cycle - then to share the message that the powers of God are working, even when the powers of Trump may seem particularly intractable.

If the church centers itself around this question, we might begin to emerge from the political malaise of June 2018. For when we ask this question, we realize how near we all are to the God who was crucified at the hands of empire - a God who broke through the shackles of imperial oppression in order to continue liberating, redeeming, and creating anew.

Where is God working in this dark night of America's political soul? Though answers to this question may be difficult to find, it is the pursuit of these answers that might restore some hope. 

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@RyanPanzer is a theology blogger and disillusioned liberal, who thinks Merrick Garland still deserves a vote before the Senate. 

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