The Means Matter More

When we focus on the ends, we lose our soul along the way

Photo by VAWiley from Getty Images Signature on Canva Pro

Note: Part of my life journey has been working through who I am in relation to my fellow citizens and as a Christian. I believe that politics have a far bigger influence on our lives than many people want to believe, because decisions that are made locally, at the state level, and nationally affect the ways we work, play, parent, and commune with each other. Therefore, in 2024, I will have pieces that process where I am in both my faith and in my role as a citizen. My prayer is that we can find a better way forward by the end of 2024.

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“We have to do it for the babies.”

I heard it in 2016 and then again in 2020. The reason why Christians had to bury their consciences and vote for Donald Trump was to protect innocent lives from being murdered in the womb.

Never mind what would happen to them once they were born. Never mind the struggles their parents would face because of GOP policies. Never mind the lives of those at the border who were suffering because of bad immigration policy. The most Christian thing we could do was vote for a man who had defied all Christian principles. A man who had been married three times, been unfaithful to all three wives, been credibly accused of sexual assault, cheated regular people out of millions of dollars, lied on his tax returns, and demonstrated over and over again a preference for racist policies that hurt those who needed the help most.

Bullshit.

I had heard all of my life that character in leadership matters. I had heard that we wanted the influence of Christians in politics because they would make our politics and policy better.

After four years of watching babies taken from their mothers at the border, increases in violence against non-white immigrants, tolerance of Christian Nationalism and the alt-right, and then the collapse of leadership during a global pandemic, it was pretty clear that even the suggestion that Donald Trump would surround himself with men and women of character wasn’t enough to save the argument for why he should be president. And that was before the January 6 insurrection.

But I guess he got to select three of the nine Supreme Court justices and hundreds of other federal judges with life appointments, so it was all worth it, right?

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We Could Have Made Roe Irrelevant

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We’ve heard it all of our lives in a variety of contexts: “The ends justify the means.” The older I get, the more I see how problematic that is in many different circumstances. And as a Christian, I’ve come to see that in both the private and public sector, that belief comes at too great a cost. The ends do not justify the means because more often than not, the means are just too destructive.

We live in a pluralistic society. As American citizens, we’ve always lived in a pluralistic society. That is the nature of what it means to live in a country settled by Europeans of different denominational beliefs who shoved the original indigenous inhabitants off of their land and onto reservations while importing men, women, and children stolen from the African continent.

Slave owners argued that they were “saving” their slaves from heathen beliefs that would damn them to eternity. But this ignores the historical fact that Christianity reached the African continent before it took over Europe. And it ignores the deep faith that rose from the ashes of slavery, a theology that was directly opposed to the beliefs of those who enslaved their fellow human beings, people created in the image of God.

During the era of Westward expansion, the refrain in handling the indigenous populations was “Kill the Indian, save the man.” The result was Indian schools that stole children from their families and forced them to deny their traditions and heritage to adopt acceptable Western clothing, beliefs, and social practices. Families were destroyed, children died, and we lost access to environmentally friendly agricultural practices that would have benefitted all Americans.

We waged wars and proxy wars during the Cold War which destroyed nations and hurt our own citizens, all in an effort to stop the advancement of communism. Our government often made unsavory deals with world leaders who opposed American principles.¹ Lives were destroyed and communism still exists around the globe, the destructive means never achieving the desired ends.

Americans have become people who consistently use the ends to justify the means. And while this is an issue that plagues groups along the ideological spectrum, I’m most concerned with how it is affecting our Christian witness.

In his book Rethinking Life, Shane Claiborne argues that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “said that we are not meant to be the mast of the state or the servant of the state. Instead, the church is to be the conscience of the state.”² When the Church starts to see itself as a power broker in the social and political fabric of a society, it finds ways to justify all sorts of behavior that we are told would normally be abhorrent. Instead of believing that God is all-powerful and will work for the good of those who love Him, it turns itself into an army that will enact its own justice on detractors. Instead of believers living lives that make people curious about God and ask questions about how to live differently, we force our beliefs onto others, then end result being a twisted faith.

It is an idolatry that places power and comfort over the well-being of our neighbors. It is a blasphemy that turns political leaders into saviors.³ For those of us who interact outside of Christian circles, we are seeing more and more people who say that they agree with the teaching of Jesus, but they are questioning the positives of organized religion. When people are asking if Christianity is good, it might be time to pause and ask why.

Here is what is non-negotiable: “And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” Micah 6:8.

When the means cause irrevocable harm to the vulnerable, they can no longer be justified.

I’ve heard my entire life that Jesus said that the world would hate us, but I’m beginning to think that this warning has been taken completely out of context. Being countercultural doesn’t mean forcing everyone else to fall into line. It doesn’t mean seeking more power. It doesn’t mean pursuing victory at all costs.

The means matter because we are not in control of the end, but we do have a say in how we get there.

Personally, I’d prefer to not leave a trail of destruction behind me.

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I found this Christianity Today piece by Russell Moore to be particularly convicting related to this topic.

This piece by Kristin Du Mez is also an important read related to the rise of Christian Nationalism and how it is destroying our Christian witness.

Thickening Webs on the Christian Right

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1. When I found out that we were the ones responsible for arming the Taliban in their fight against the Soviet Union, my mind was blown. We armed the people who turned around and attacked us.

2. Claiborne, Shane. Rethinking Life: Embracing the Sacredness of Every Person. Zondervan, 2023, p. 248

3. Donald Trump has been repeatedly compared to Jesus, as demonstrated by this article after his 2023 arrest: https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-arraignment-jesus-christ-conspiracy-theory-670c45bd71b3466dcd6e8e188badcd1d