Unity is a word most often used by good people who are overtly naïve, or by evil people who are deceptively seductive. Unity, when achieved, is seldom what it appears on the surface and is therefore almost always a precursor to trial and trouble.

                     

     Unity is a word most often used by good people who are overtly naïve, or by evil people who are deceptively seductive. Unity, when achieved, is seldom what it appears on the surface and is therefore almost always a precursor to trial and trouble.

     That isn't to say teamwork and cohesion aren't good; in fact, they're biblical concepts, but unity most definitely is NOT a biblical concept, at least not as we humans tend to define it. Teamwork and cohesion are terms used to describe people with vast differences working toward common goals; while unity is almost always a byword for forcing people to think alike.

     We need only see the firestorm over Rick Warren's invocation to understand why unity is NOT what Americans---and American followers of Jesus Christ---should be asking God to grant us. Those people who oppose the teachings of Jesus will not be satisfied with inviting us to the table in a joint effort to serve human need, but will instead press us to adapt or be silent.

     How President Obama manages that crucial difference will define his place in God's plan, and thus in eternity's record books, and there is reason for both hope and despair in his actions already. Still, it isn't the President whom God will look to most, and judge most sternly, in the coming days. It's us, the men and women who claim to be followers of Jesus, whom God expects to be agents of change in an era of temptation.

     So how should we be viewing this Presidency?

     If you voted for, and remain a supporter of, the new President, then your role is one of conciliation; trying to blunt the already dizzying temptation to gloat among those who've been disappointed-rightly or wrongly-by the public face of Christianity over the past decade. Like labor and management, and Democrats and Republicans, and Yankees and Red Sox, no one seems to learn from history that gloating and heavy-handedness while in power lead to retaliatory gloating and heavy-handedness by the other side when we're out of power. Somebody has to blunt the swing of the pendulum, and Christians who support Obama can help to do this by not participating in the words and actions that force the pendulum to swing forcefully back. The new President's refusal to remove Rick Warren from his inauguration plans is an encouraging sign he may share this view.

     If you voted against, or have since lost your enthusiasm for, the new President, then your role is one of conciliation also; trying to blunt the already dizzying temptation to sabotage any forward progress. While the past four Presidents, from Reagan to Bush to Clinton to Bush, have all faced audiences eager to dismantle their efforts on opening day-sadly, even Christians have often been found in these audiences-we have yet another chance to be different; to act different, and in so doing, to make Jesus Christ more readily apparent as the agent of change in our lives as in culture.

     There is precedent for this in Scripture, when the people of God were carried to captivity by a Babylonian king. Amidst the clutter and chaos of crumbling Jerusalem, Daniel and a host of young best-and-brightest servants of God became favored power brokers of the new king. And even as He raised from within the new administration of Babylon these movers and shakers of His choosing, so too did He comfort those who were taken from the places and things they held dear, commanding them to pray for the prosperity of their new circumstance because "I know the plans I have for you" He declared to them.

     President Obama faces terribly difficult circumstances as President. Governing a nation made up of people who love God and hate God, who honor Jesus and belittle Jesus, who love truth and hate truth, is surely a task bigger than any human, requiring both God's wisdom and humanity's patience. Regardless of how you feel about his election, now is the time to look and feel and act like Jesus; serving with humility while boldly holding to truth; and turning the other cheek in the face of insults while knowing when to say no to compromise that violates God's laws.

     As we face this new era, where human need and human struggle plead for our attention, may we find ways to be partners in efforts to ease the suffering and feed the hungry; even as we refuse to buy into definitions of unity that sell out our souls.

Our prayer: May God bless President Obama and the nation he leads; may our nation be His instrument for aid to those in need around the globe, and, may we Christians never be an obstacle to those who seek to serve.

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.-Jeremiah 29:11-13