How America reckons with its fractured reality

The first thing is always to listen. To sit. To feel.

Jared Stacy

Jared holds a Theological Ethics PhD from the University of Aberdeen. His research focuses conspiracy theory, politics, and evangelicalism.

Two people sit at the table, one dictates as the other types. Behind a banner reads: write a postcard to the next president.i

Artist Sheryl Oring types messages to the president.

instagram/usf_npml

Yesterday, the day after the election, I preached a funeral. I heard the name of our President-elect only once. But I did speak on Jesus and Lazarus. About pain and loss.

I named our enemy, death, that robber, cheat, and swindler. And I spoke about grief—we all grieve in so many different ways. And then about tears. I shared about the man from Nazareth, whose public grief before the tomb of his friend drew hushed whispers from onlookers.

It was, you may remember, a tomb he was about to open. He knew, Jesus did, what he was about to do. And did it so that those who were there would become witnesses to precisely what God is about: defeating death. “Come out, Lazarus!” says Jesus, and he does.

The Christian faith, I told the grieving, would have us believe that even in our grief, there is a hope that hems it in. That Jesus enters our darkness and comes to rob death of its finality. I love too that Jesus says next— “Unbind him!” —turning onlookers into witnesses and participants.

This was how I spent my day. I’m not sure I could have spend it any better. Not because it was an escape from the election, but it forced some perspective on me. Because T.S. Eliot is right: “we cannot bear much reality.”

Here, political autopsies are everywhere. Some talk of the Democrat’s conceit, of denying President Biden’s liability as a candidate, bypassing the primaries, refusing to meet economic concerns. There’s talk of Trump’s genius and what looks to be the end of his legal troubles. There’s talk of the downfall of America, of ascendant and aspiring authoritarianisms. Perhaps. Especially if we take Trump at his word.

But as the funeral ends, I’m weighed down by the messages I’m starting to read. Not about the results alone. Not questions about political strategy and futures. No, these are pained voices from a Christian community in America betraying itself.

My phone messages are filled with stories of pain and loss. Friends and strangers alike, enduring the same loss, the same betrayal. The communities that taught us the faith now distort it. And none of this is new.

Howard Thurman, who mentored Martin Luther King Jr., said it back in 1946: “the tragic truth is that the church permits various hate groups in our common life to establish squatter’s rights in the minds of believers because there has been no adequate teaching on the meaning of the faith in terms of human dignity.” This loss has been with us for generations. But these fissures and fractures are ours to bear today. And they are not unconnected from the social and political chaos of America.

Martin Luther once said, “living, dying, and being damned makes one a theologian.” This has taught me to welcome, rather than despise, accusations that question the validity of my faith. It’s also made me suspicious of the misplaced messianic hope from which such questions emerge. It’s a false hope not easily displaced.

Before I returned to the States from living in Scotland these last few years, a good friend told me honestly: “perhaps America will have to ride it out, all of it, until it’s done.” The thought seemed a far-off scenario then. But I think he’s right.

When Israel built the golden calf in the wilderness, Moses made them grind it up into powder, mixing it in their drinks. The Christian community in America, whether we realize it our not, will soon be drinking our idolatry down to the dregs with consequences beyond Christian community itself.

And people ask, “what should we do?” And I think that time is near for that question. But the first thing is always to listen. To sit. To feel. And to remember that it’s not for nothing that Jesus, who pronounced so many woes over Jerusalem, also wept over it.

This article’s image is of Sheryl Oring, an artist who invites the public to write to the next president. She has typed and sent thousands of messages to the White House every election since 2004 as part of her performance series I Wish to Say. Read more about her and the letters: Artist Invites the Public to Write Letters to the Next US President

Snippet

Change

Mental Health

15 October 2025

3 min read

When the seasons shift, so do we

Autumn brings beauty and melancholy in equal measure

Rachael Newham

Rachael is an author and theology of mental health specialist.

A man walks a dog along a misty city park path.

Ekaterina Novitskaya on Unsplash.

In my house, the arrival of Autumn heralds two distinct emotions. My husband feels gloom settle upon him as the days draw in and a chill begins to sharpen the morning air, whilst I’m cheerfully pointing out the curling leaves beginning to change colour and admiring the beauty of an early-evening sunset.

For me, there is something enchanting about autumn that feels even more of a ‘new year’ than January, but for my husband, it’s just a sign that winter is close and the summer holidays are a distant dream.

Ten years in, we’ve learned how to tread lightly through the seasonal changes which provoke such contradicting emotions in us. I know the dark mornings aren’t easy for him, and he appreciates that heat makes me grumpy.

And we aren’t alone in our strong feelings about the seasons changing. We all have preferences, but for some, the beginning of a new season may trigger illness, such as in the case of seasonal affective disorder (which, whilst most commonly suffered during the winter months, can affect people in the summer months instead).

Ultimately, each season brings its own unique joys and sorrows, enjoyed by some and endured by others, but what’s important is that we accept these differences and find a way to connect through the changes.

It’s something we see in the way the church journeys through the year, too. Sometimes called the liturgical year, as the seasons change, there is a focus on a different part of the story of scripture.

Autumn is when harvest is celebrated, when we offer our thankfulness for the natural world and how it provides for every living thing.

Whether meteorological or theological, following the rhythm of the seasons gives us the opportunity not just to celebrate together, but to learn how to suffer well and grieve together.

In the church year, the times of celebration, like Christmas and Easter, are preceded by times of reflection and lament. Advent is characterised by the people of God waiting for the light of the world to break through the darkness, whilst Lent offers the chance to seek forgiveness and grieve over all that is wrong with the world and within us. These seasons trace the story of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection - sometimes resonating with our own life seasons and at others contrasting painfully.

In the Bible, there’s a book called Ecclesiastes, written by an unknown person referred to as Quohelet or ‘teacher’ and it talks about there being “a season for everything under the sun”, they assert that ‘There is … a time to be born and a time to die … a time to weep and a time to laugh.’

It’s a reminder as we trace the seasons, that there is space in human life and faith for all of our emotions. We see it in the variety of emotions expressed not only in books like the Psalms, but in Jesus’ own life.

And the ability to come together and mark these seasons before God, even when they differ from what we’re experiencing personally, is one that draws us together. It reminds us that through all the maelstrom of emotions and changes life brings that there is a drumbeat through every season: We are loved by God and out of that, we love one another.

The changing of the seasons can evoke a multitude of memories and emotions, but if we let it, it can also act as a call to come together and be led by love. We can learn to do as the apostle Paul instructed the early Roman church to do: “Rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn.”

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