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A Pastoral Letter to the New President
Posted Jan 16, 2009 by Jim Harnish
Updated Jan 16, 2009 at 07:33 AM
Dear Barack:
Please know that our prayers are with you as you take up the almost incomprehensible weight of the Presidential office at a critical moment in our history. May God’s grace sustain you, God’s wisdom guide you and God’s Spirit be in you. For what it’s worth, here’s my pastoral advice for you:
1. Take us deeper. For far too long we’ve been tricked into thinking that there are simplistic answers to complex questions. Take us beyond the 30-second news bites and the 24-hour cable news chatter. Help us think more deeply about the critical issues of our time, the way you did with your speech on race in Philadelphia. In other words, treat us like adults who are capable of intelligent thought.
2. Tell us the hard truth and challenge us to sacrifice for a nobler vision. While thousands of our young men and women have made horrendous sacrifices in a questionable war, the folks back home have pretty much had a free ride. But things have changed. The evidence is that many of our young people are ready for a challenge. In the tradition of FDR and JFK, I encourage you to use your exceptional oratorical gifts to lift us out of the morass of narrow self-interest and jingoist nationalism into a more hopeful vision of the difference we can make in this world.
3. Ignore the extremists and unite us in the central values of our national heritage. The way I figure, if you’re being criticized by the far left for inviting Rick Warren to pray at the Inauguration and he is taking grief from the religious right for doing it, there’s a good chance that both of you are doing the right thing. Thanks for going to supper with George Will and inviting John McCain to dinner. May these be small signs of the ways we can rise above petty political ideology and find our way toward what the Pilgrim founders called “the common good.”
4. Work at making peace. We’ve seen again the way revenge results in violence that leads to more violence until someone breaks through the stalemate of death and does the hard work of peacemaking. People around the world are hungry for leadership that will work for solutions to the global struggles of our time in ways that unite us with other people who share our commitment to justice and freedom. Help us move from “for us or against us” toward “for us and with us” in facing the threats of terrorism, global warming, AIDS and poverty.
5. Live out of the roots of your faith. Historically, the black church has had a unique way of seeing the current situation in light of the prophetic vision of scripture, epitomized by Martin Luther King, Jr. Regardless of the church your family attends in Washington, I encourage you to draw strength from the deepest roots of the spiritual tradition in which you found your way to Christ and allow it to shape your vision of the future.
6. Stay healthy. We like seeing you on the basketball court and playing with your daughters. Don’t forget that even while you are in the White House, your highest calling is as a husband and father.
7. Find joy along the way. Your day-brightening smile can lift our spirits. By your leadership, may the whole world find reason to smile again.
Your pastor and brother in Christ,
Jim
The Rev. Dr. James A. Harnish
Senior Pastor
Hyde Park United Methodist Church
500 W. Platt St.
Tampa, FL 3366
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