Three days before the 2016 presidential election, two Mennonites arrived in Washington D.C. from Ontario, Canada, on a kind of exploratory mission, a self-described “pilgrimage” to the American capital.
Their pilgrimage was a reprise of one taken five years ago, when the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial was unveiled on the National Mall.
Over the next four days, before and after the election, D. Michael Hostetler ’75 and Will Winterfeld would witness fear, doubt and unrest, manifested in demonstrations and angry confrontations on the National Mall and in their own interviews with people of faith.
The election, won by Republican candidate Donald J. Trump, had a wide impact, “whether you are Canadian or not,” said Hostetler, advertising manager of Canadian Mennonite magazine and an American who has lived in Canada for 11 years. “The question remains, what should our response be under these circumstances as people committed to the way of Jesus? I feel like we found some powerful answers.”
Those “life-giving and hope-filling” answers are shared in a 15-minute documentary that Hostetler produced with Winterfeld, a Canadian friend who lived for 18 years in Georgia.
View “Hope Was Not On The Ballot” at the Canadian Mennonite magazine website.
The title comes from the words of The Rev. Dr. Keith W. Byrd Sr., pastor of Zion Baptist Church in Washington D.C. during a post-election day interview in which he shared his congregation’s varying degrees of disappointment.
In sermons and conversations leading up to the election, “we tried to remind the congregation that hope was not on the ballot, because our hope is in Christ,” Byrd says in the documentary. “Regardless of who is in office, our work continues, our mandate still holds true. We still have great work to do as believers, as disciples of Jesus Christ.”
The narcissistic attitudes pervasive in American society are “antithetical to what our faith is, which is a faith of fellowship, of community, of being with one another … we ought to see this as an incredible opportunity to shine the light of Christ that much brighter.”
Lawrence Ressler ’76 and Sharon Martin ’78 Ressler, hosts of The International Guest House where the men stayed, are also interviewed.
“Our challenge as a church is to be ministers of reconciliation, however that plays out,” Lawrence Ressler says. “It can be simple honesty, it can be people bringing people together, people developing systems that have integrity, economic systems that are more just. There are so many opportunities for this work.”
The doors may be opening for a “holistic word-and-deed Christianity” that may attract new followers, Sharon Ressler adds.
Winterfeld said that the trip and production of the thought-provoking video was “following God’s impulse.” It’s not the first time the duo had sought and shared answers in travel and investigation; five years previously, on a trip to the unveiling of the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial on the National Mall, they had produced a slideshow and shared the experience with Stirling Avenue Mennonite Church upon return.
Similarly, this video was screened in front of approximately 55 congregants a few weeks ago, which led to thoughtful conversation and “a time of confession cautioning us in Canada not to get too smug about our political situation and reminding those present of the need for humility and compassion for those who suffer as a result of current political realities,” Hostetler said.
Jesus was born and grew up in the world where the political forces of the time were a grave threat, he added. “It’s fitting to be asking these questions about how do we react in this time and place.”
Home from his travels, Winterfeld has one answer, among others, urging people to move past the “carnival barker” and “see how much the country is suffering from division and pride. One of his favorite scriptures is from Hebrews, which he offers in the abbreviated form: “Provoke one another with love.”
In its entirety, the words are also powerful: “Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works.” (Hebrews 10:23-24 KJV)
What would be your response/documentary if Hillary Clinton elected?
It’s hard to say. I believe Pastor Byrd’s comment is on target: our hope does not lie in what happens on the political front. Our first calling as followers of Jesus is to be faithful to what he teaches us through the Gospels and what he calls us to as his followers regardless of where the political winds are blowing.
My response I shared at 5 a.m. with my children and their families, the morning after the election:
“As I awoke this morning, turned on the TV about an hour and half ago, and saw that the United States elected Donald Trump, the temptation to think the darkest thoughts began to cross my mind. However, there is one thought, though not so much a positive one, but it is a HOPEFUL one from many places in the ancient scriptures, such as Psalm 146, ‘Do not put your trust in princes in whom there is no help.’
“I am not yet ready to opt out of the political system here in our country. Within the political world, there may be a countering spirit and force that will emerge somehow, somewhere to limit the dark and deadly forces that have been unleashed in this election cycle; I have no idea about that but I no longer simply trust the political realm to do that.
“The reason I say this is because the calming spirit that I am beginning to feel does not come from anything “out there,” nothing outside of me. It comes from within. Admittedly, it does come with a true sense of admonishment for the fact that I have not been consciously aware that I had “put my trust in princes.” For a child of God/Love, it can be an insidious thing, to be lured into thinking that true hope and happiness is attainable outside of Love itself.
“I am also feeling a sense of peace and hope because of the opposite thing I can do, opposite from “putting my trust in princes.” There is a source of strength that cannot be quenched, a fountain of love that cannot be depleted, a reservoir of peace that is without measure. However you name it–God, Love, Truth, Spirit–this is the ultimate source, and the fountain, and the reservoir in which we live. All of us live in this whether we know it or not; whether it is realized or recognized or not; whether it is even desired.
“All of creation, every living creature, all human beings, yes, even Donald Trump, lives within the realm of God/Love/Truth/Spirit. For this is not something that depends on our ‘making it happen’; it is not anything that we need to or even can strive for. It is there for me to simply recognize and yield to unreservedly. Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest, who writes a daily meditation that I usually read every morning said it this way earlier this week, ‘The full Gospel (that simply means, good news) takes away from you any power to decide and discriminate where God is and where God isn?t.’
“This gospel is not the private possession of any single person, any religion, any group, nation, race, etc. It belongs to all of us, yes, even the animals and plant life (it is intuitive in their nature!).
“So, this good news that Love embodies, will harbor no plans for building walls, pitting classes or nations against each other, or have competing games of who is better or who is right, etc. Dad”\
I remain in this desire to live within, and daily access this Love.