Happy 2025! What does this new year promise for us?

In an essay entitled “The Seasons of God,” African American mystic and pastor Howard Thurman quotes 17th-century French Catholic leader and theologian Francois Fenelon who wrote:

“Time bears a very different aspect at different seasons of one’s life, but there is one maxim which applies to all seasons, namely that none should go by uselessly; that every season carries with it various duties of God’s own appointing.”

Building on Fenelon’s words, Thurman writes that the notion of seasons of life applies at various levels of one’s life all at one time. We are moved to ask: What season is God in as it relates to our individual lives? What is the season of our nation? What season is it for God’s work in our world?

I write these words on January 6, 2025. In the Church calendar, January 6 is the day of Epiphany, traditionally celebrated as the day Persian astrologers, known as the Magi, came to pay homage and worship to the infant Jesus and his parents. In so doing the Magi demonstrated that Jesus was not just the Promised One for the Jews, but for people of all faiths and backgrounds, that Yahweh was not simply a Jewish God but God of all humanity.

However, this day, January 6, 2025, carries a more somber meaning for many people, including me, as it marks the fourth anniversary of the assault on the U.S. Capitol by the faithful followers of Donald Trump whose goal was to overthrow the results of 2020. Now four years later Trump is on the verge of being inaugurated as President again. He continues to deny the 2020 election results and has promised to reverse the convictions of over one thousand people for their role in the Capitol attack. He has also vowed to bring criminal charges against those Congress people who worked for his impeachment for his role in the January 6 attack.

And so, we find ourselves entering a new season with widely different meanings for many Americans. On the day after the November election, Dr. Owen Strachan, a noted Southern Baptist theologian (and also my nephew) wrote in his blog these words: 

It is official: Donald Trump is the 47th President of America. For the second time in my lifetime, Trump has stormed the political scene, and won an election that many thought he could not win. By any fair measure, Trump is a political supernova, a force, a once-in-a-lifetime figure, a unique and complicated man who fought the most ferocious outbreak of woke paganism the modern world has witnessed, and triumphed.

But mark this well: Trump is not the true victor here. God is the one who has acted in immeasurable mercy toward our nation. God is the one who gets all the glory and deserves all the praise. In his magnificent kindness and common grace, God has chosen to spare us the plenteous vicissitudes of a Harris administration. The magnitude of common grace in this act is nearly unprecedented in Western history.

Clearly for Strachan, Trump’s election was a sign of God’s victory for the MAGA movement. While Strachan uses words like “a political supernova, a force, a once-in-a-lifetime figure, a unique and complicated man” to describe Trump, others in the Christian Nationalist Movement compare him to Cyrus, Jehu, and even the Savior. For these folks, we are entering a season of victory, productivity, and a return to what they consider basic Christian values.

However, for many progressives from a variety of faith traditions, the season feels much darker, ominous, and threatening. Despite his continuous denials, Trump has been convicted of a sexual attack and fraudulent business dealings. Simply put, he is a convicted felon according to New York State Law. Not only that, but fact-checkers have consistently accused him of gross exaggeration or outright lying. He has made clear he is out to use his power and position to punish and convict political opponents. Even my writing these words make me vulnerable to Trump’s attacks.

So, as I consider the season I am in on this day, it is to speak the truth as I understand it (recognizing sometimes I may have to admit I am wrong), to resist in nonviolent ways the hate Trump often engenders in his followers, and to stand and serve those who are most vulnerable in Trump’s administration: LGBTQ folks, undocumented migrants and families on the lower rung of the socioeconomic ladder. Given the undisciplined and chaotic nature of Trump’s personality and that of the people around him (e.g. Elon Musk, Steve Miller, Steve Bannon, etc.), there will no doubt be upheaval among those who supported Trump that may present opportunities to interact with those disillusioned by his actions. If so, I am committed to reaching out for dialogue across our differences.

Thurman concludes his essay with these words:

Therefore, I will bring to my day, as commonplace and insignificant as it may seem, the fullest mind, the greatest purpose, and the most significant intent of which I am capable, because my time is not merely mine, but because my time is in God’s hands as well.”

Source: Howard Thurman, (1985). “The Seasons of God, The Mood of Christmas Richmond, IN: Friends United Press, pp 49-51.