We have watched these past few weeks unfold before us in our secular world of political division.

Some of us have lost Facebook “friends” over the election debacle of 2024. Some of us will be seeing fewer family members at our Thanksgiving tables this week. Some of us won’t recognize our niece because she shaved her head. And, some women have sworn off having intimate relations with their husbands (or men, in general if they are single).

The gloves have come off. We scroll past individuals daily; those we knew from high school ranting expletives (at us) on social media. Occasionally, we see the posts from the ones who did not scrub their social media for Trump voters, “If you voted for that guy, kindly remove me as a friend.”

Do we take extract ourselves? Or do we just keep scrolling?

Kindly disregard any other common bond we had as brothers and sisters. Kindly forget memories and who that person is on the inside. Kindly just take yourself out because you are “trash” and I will kindly remind you of this every waking second of the next four years.

To see this perspective, I had to go back to 2020 and put myself in their shoes. Joe Biden won the election. We were still in the midst of COVID lockdowns and dining outside-in the rain-if we wanted to support our local restaurant. Our kids were still learning from home due to school closures. Winter sports for our kids who did them were postponed, TFN. Some of us were told to get a jab in the arm or to not even consider coming to work. We knew Joe Biden and Kamala Harris did not have the competency or mere desire to pull us out of this misery. We watched as our family member and friends took a deep sigh of relief from a second Trump term.

Did some rage? Yes? But I would be willing to bet that most did something some of our neighbors did not do this election cycle.

They prayed, those hillbillies. We prayed. (I know, we are “garbage” humans). Middle America cried out to God. Jim Daly offers up some great perspective:

The common denominator present in these titanic tantrums is that those having them have quite obviously placed all their hope in the hands of Big Brother. In other words, government, not God, is their savior. Politics is their religion – and they’re devout. For the radical activist, their dogma is not divinely inspired but legislatively drafted and crafted.

In this limited worldview, temporal elections hold seemingly eternal consequences. With that much on the line, it’s no wonder a loss is so devastating as to evoke such frenzy and rage.”-Jim Daly, Focus on The Family

They believe this world is all there is. They believe in secular salvation. They honestly believe people are their saviors. They believe the government is their savior.

They believe the right government policies will save us and solve all our problems. This wager leaves no room for dissent and threatens to cancel anyone who disagrees.

From abortion fanaticism to championing policies that celebrate sexual confusion, radicals practice their political ideology with a religious zeal and fervor.”-Jim Daly, Focus on the Family

Things went as far this past election cycle when Kamala Harris told a group who claimed “Jesus is Lord” they were “at the wrong rally“.

To some, abortion IS their religion. Taking away a life in this secular world to protect one’s selfish interests means more to them than the life God created Himself.

To also understand this perspective, I went back to the 90s. I was in my 20s. I voted blue and I, too, repeated the script that was spoon-fed to me in my lecture halls and by those I felt who were intellectually superior to me. I honestly believed in secular salvation myself. The government was going to pay for my education. I was in charge, not some “Big Man in the Clouds”. Christianity was weird, boring and restrictive, and I wasn’t about to be surrounded by those “Jesus Freaks”. I was going to be as promiscuous, foul-mouthed and, at times, offensive, as I wanted to be. I cringe when I remember saying I would rather go to Hell because “Hell was going to have the better parties”.

I placed my faith in earthy things and realized, years later, that Earth is a version of hell. This is the place where other humans drop you and discard you if your beliefs don’t align with the popular opinion. They will outright cancel you from their lives if you disagree. They will straight-up stab you in the back. We see this playing out in many ways now. People are slaves to material consumption, slaves to The State, slaves to a script, to their political party and to their ideologies and to what their moral and intellectual “betters” tell them to believe. They take their life advice and counsel from everyone else but God Almighty. I know this because I was once one of these people.

And as they, “delete, delete, delete”, because they “can’t even imagine WHY someone voted differently than they did”, they are wiping those out of their lives, one by one.

Banished is your Christian mother-in-law who voted for Donald Trump. Forbidden are your children from ever knowing or having a relationship with their grandparent. If this is not the work of the devil, I don’t know what the hell else is.

Secular salvation will not come from George Clooney or CardiB or Katy Perry or Madonna or Julia Roberts or Beyoncé or JLo or Cher or Eminem. More likely, these worldly creatures will save themselves before ever thinking about helping a (Trump-voting) neighbor in need. Secular salvation will not come to us by way of the ladies on The View or any of the other talking heads on the evening news. Secular salvation will not come to us by Donald Trump, either. Secular salvation is a thing of fiction in this very non-fictional world of ours. Hoping and praying for any type of secular salvation is false hope.

Even though we all have a seat at His table, there will be many who will not be sitting at our tables this holiday season because they chose to worship at the wrong throne. There is only one Savior and He does not live in The White House.

Featured image via HeartlandMom on Pixabay, cropped, Pixabay license