5 Ways to Find Peace in God Amidst Political Tensions

September 16, 2024

The majority of us are feeling exhausted and angry by contemporary politics. When asked about America’s political climate in a large survey this year, words like these came to mind: Disgusting, divisive, dysfunctional. Corrupt, crazy, confusing. Broken, bad, sad. And yet in this election year, we’re confronted with politics everywhere we turn. Our religious communities haven’t always helped very much either. As a pastor, I regularly hear people talk about their disappointment with their churches, how they’ve approved of all kinds of toxic people and policies in political life, or how they’ve been disengaged and silent, as if our politics don’t matter at all. Is there a better way for us? How can faith in God and participation in church bring us peace in the middle of a distressing election season? 

Peace is a big part of the promise of the good news of Jesus.

Jesus brought steady peace to his closest friends and followers amidst storms, both literal and metaphorical. In his final days with them, he acknowledged that while their lives will sometimes be full of trouble, he will bring them peace. “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you,” Jesus said. (John 14:27) After his resurrection from the dead, Jesus found those same disciples hiding behind a locked door, and like a parent calming and anxious child, he got close to them, breathed on them, and said, “Peace be with you.” (John 20:21) Later in the Bible, the early followers of Jesus name peace as one of the foremost fruits – benefits or results – of faith in God and also promise a peace that goes past all our understanding as the result of learning to pray, entrusting our cares and concerns to a kind and loving God. (Galatians 5:22, Philippians 4:7) 

Peace is a big part of the promise of the good news of Jesus. But what does this peace look like, especially as it relates to the stresses of politics? And then how do we actually find or cultivate this peace in our lives?

It might help to first name what the peace of God is not. 

We know that when we are endlessly reactive to horrible political news, doom scrolling through the biggest tragedies in public life, outraged by the weirdest and most harmful things our politicians say and do; we are not at peace. If we focus too often on all the biggest threats in the world, those real and those manufactured or exaggerated by others, we will be stressed out more than is good for us or anyone else. Human beings were never meant to have access to so many sad or scary things. Most of them are bigger than our ability to really do much of anything about them. Regular emotional reactivity, outrage, fear, and stress over our world and its politics are not the way of peace.

We also know that some people promote a kind of peace which is nothing more than apathy mixed with fantasy. In biblical times, the prophet Jeremiah criticized the privileged and checked out influencers of his age who pretended the world was better than it really was. He said, “They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.” (Jeremiah 6:14) Not caring about the violence or suffering of the world because you close your eyes to it all is not the way of peace. Disengaging from politics or public life entirely because you are privileged or naive enough to not think you are affected by it is also not the way of peace. 

Instead, real peace comes when we are engaged in seeking harmony, justice, and well-being in the world for ourselves and for others, while we are also anchored in perspective, hope, and commitment to our own well-being. To put it bluntly, peace is the art of taking a deep breath while still giving a damn. Indigenous wisdom keeper and follower of Jesus, Randy Woodley, puts it more artfully than this. He says that peace is living on earth in harmony together. 

At their worst, Christian churches have been disturbers of the peace. They’ve disengaged from their call to pursue justice, turning their back on the evils of the world or even perpetuating them. Or they’ve failed to become sanctuaries, where our bodies and spirits can find safe harbor and be protected and renewed amidst the troubles of our lives and the threats of the world. 

But at their best, Christian churches have been powerful promoters of peace, teaching and practicing ways of sanctuary and renewal for body and spirit, and seeking a more just and peaceful society, in a spirit of love, friendship, and hope. 

Let’s look at five ways that faith in God and participation in a local faith community can promote this kind of deeper peace this fall: 

1. Cultivating Detachment

Detachment is being less urgently invested in particular dramas and situations. It’s learning that our well-being doesn’t need to be tied to the outcome of most circumstances. Most spiritual and religious traditions encourage different ways to cultivate this kind of attachment. The way of Jesus is no exception. In the prayerbook of the Bible, called the Psalms, we’re reminded not to put too much trust in any human leaders, who are mostly not coming to save us. (Psalm 146:3) This includes our favorite politicians, by the way. Even at their best, they have our interests in mind less than they claim and can help us less than they say they can. We can get a little less invested in particular political outcomes through gratitude, noticing and saying thank you to people and to God for the good in the present, despite whatever dangers and threats we face. We can also cultivate detachment by spending less time on social media, television news, or wherever else we’re most likely to get caught up in the endless outrage-driven news cycle or our age. 

2. Practicing Regular Rest

The ancient ways of faith in which Jesus lived included commitments to regular rest and renewal, commitments that are meant to guard and ground us in any season of life, however abundant or meager, however hopeful or scary. Jesus practiced and taught what the Bible calls sabbath rest. Sabbath is the old Hebrew word for regular rest and renewal. The Bible encourages us to break our rhythms of work and any other required or compulsive activity to remind ourselves that to be human is not just to work, consume, and react. To be human is first to be free. It is to rest, to play, and to love. It is to be alive again. Choosing an hour per day, or a day per week, or whatever else makes sense in your life, to not work, to not use technology, to break any other patterns of busyness and consumption, can have a powerful impact on the peace of our bodies and spirits.

3. Learning to Pray

Prayer is like the legs of faith. It is the art of living our lives as the small, finite creatures we are, while knowing there is a loving, wise, divine creator who cares about us all. One powerful prayer practice for peace is called centering prayer. In centering prayer, we sit silently for 5, 10, or 20 minutes, letting our attention rest on a positive spiritual word whenever our mind returns its distractions or worries. Another powerful prayer practice for peace is called the examine, where we call to mind or write down the highs and lows of our days, and let ourselves say thank you to God for the good, say sorry to God for the times we lost our way, and say please to God for the help we need for the day to come. A third powerful prayer practice for peace is to do what the Bible calls, “casting our anxieties on God because he cares for us.” (I Peter 5:7). Name your anxieties of the moment, hold your hands open in front of you, and imagine God picking up your worries and fears and holding them for you. 

Any way we can be real with ourselves in communion with a higher power we name as God, talking out our concerns in the light of a bigger love and truth, is going to increase our peace.

4. Becoming a Mystic Activist

I get the phrase “mystic activist” from the wise Christian leader and author Curtiss DeYoung. It’s also promoted by the contemporary author and activist Christena Cleveland and was at the heart of the genius of the great American author, philosopher, and civil rights activist Howard Thurman. A mystic activist is active in working for a more just world. A mystic activist commits to the spiritual and personal renewal that keeps one from getting chewed up or burned out by the difficulty of it all. A mystic activist cares enough about the state of the world to feel the anger and despair of the way things are. But a mystic activist stays connected to faith, hope, and love to not be consumed by anger or overtaken by despair. This is a combination of getting into the game of making a more just and peaceful world and staying in the game sustainably as a healthy and peaceful person. 

Beginner mystic activists like me, and maybe like you, regularly look for a few ways to care a little more, to be a little more active in our part in political or public life to work for a more just world. At the same time, beginner mystic activists also look for a few ways to go deeper into a more robust faith, a more abiding hope, and a more steady love for all people and all things. Healthy religion will major in this, with practical and regular invitations to deep and healthy spirituality and to powerful, helpful action in the world.

5. Participating in a Supportive Spiritual Community

We don’t become mystic activists without a lot of help. Most of us have no shot at learning to pray, practicing regular rest and renewal, and cultivating detachment without a community that is teaching us to do these things, modeling and encouraging us in it on a regular basis. If a spiritual community is regularly pushing you to be more afraid and to judge more, it’s not doing its job. That’s not the community for you. But if it is giving you ways to know and be known, to trust and to love, it’s going to help you find peace. Not only that, it’s going to help you be a peacemaker, someone that promotes harmony and well-being not just in yourself, but in your communities and in your world at large.

Reservoir Church’s Mission Amidst Political Tensions

You can be a caring, engaged person in the world, involved in politics and other parts of public life, and still be a person of deep peace. We can live in harmony with others and ourselves, even in scary, violent, threatening times and even in toxic and stressful political seasons.

At Reservoir Church in particular, we’re organizing our fall around exploring these things; what the Way of Jesus looks like in public life and how we can be people of peace and justice in a tricky, complex time in American life. Prominent nationally acclaimed friends like David Gushee and Drew Hart will join our own pastors in teaching how Jesus’ vision for the purposes of God in our communities can encourage, inspire, and guide us. We hope you can join us in person on a Sunday in Cambridge, MA or online through our YouTube or Spotify channels as we all explore what profound peace looks like for us all in this season. To say up to date on what’s happening at Reservoir, subscribe to our mailing list today!