Prosecutor or Criminal? Prosecutor or Criminal? Prosecutor or Criminal?

It was a consistent mantra throughout the Democratic National Convention. While I didn’t watch all four nights, I watched enough for that to be one of my takeaways. 

While this was still on my mind, I watched a news story about a growing group supporting Trump for president— evangelical Christian nationalists. I watched this investigative report, dumbstruck, as I listened to people of faith go as far as to say, “Trump is mandated by God to lead us.”

My jaw dropped. My heart broke and my gut churned.

Days later, these two opposing views kept swirling through my thoughts. As I rode my bike, which is when thoughts are often sparked in me, these two sound bites converged with the question of a gathered mob two millennia ago, “Jesus or Barabbas?” Explosive comparison!

Let me be quick to say that I do not think of Kamala Harris as the Messiah or of Trump as the anti-Christ. Yet, there are similarities between the choices of past and present. 

Do you choose a person who strives to make communities better or one who makes decisions for personal gain? Rabbi/Prophet/Savior or Thief? Prosecutor or Criminal?

I wonder if the choice simply comes down to voting for truth or lies. 

In his novel “Beartown,” Fredrik Backman writes about a remote town in the forest of Sweden whose love for hockey unites its people. The major conflict that divides the town is whether to believe their young hockey star raped the daughter of the hockey team’s general manager.

The town has been waiting decades to win the national championship and they have hung their hopes on this rising star. Although the signs of trauma are visible, a majority of the town cannot allow themselves to believe her. 

Even after an eyewitness confesses to seeing what happened, the police dismiss the case for lack of evidence. Their desire to win outweighs the truth.

A paragraph in the book has stuck with me.

Backman writes: “Hate can be a deeply stimulating emotion. The world becomes easier to understand and much less terrifying if you divide everything and everyone into friends and enemies, we and they, good and evil. The easiest way to unite a group isn’t through love, because love is hard, It makes demands. Hate is simple. So the first thing that happens in a conflict is that we choose a side, because that’s easier than trying to hold two thoughts in our heads at the same time. The second thing that happens is that we seek out facts that confirm what we want to believe – comforting facts, ones that permit life to go on as normal. The third is that we dehumanize our enemy.”

Did the majority in that Jerusalem square choose Barabbas because that choice would allow life to go on as normal? Most likely. 

Jesus’s disruptive beliefs and behaviors were too hard to comprehend by the maddening crowd. So why will voters choose a known criminal over a successful prosecutor for the people? 

Greed? Selfish gain?

If love equals truth and evil equals lies, it is harder to believe the truth because we must take responsibility for our own contribution to it. Truth makes us look in the mirror and address the flaws we see. Lies make a home in our shadow side, where we tell ourselves we are okay as is.

Much hype has been made about this being the most important election of our lifetime. Maybe. 

But if we were to remove politics from this choice, it would come down to what we want to believe in ourselves. Love/truth or hate/lies? Prosecutor or criminal?

Lord, may we learn from the mistakes of first-century Jerusalem and a fictional place called Beartown.