One of my all-time favorite films is No Country for Old Men, based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy. I realize that it’s an odd pick, as it is most certainly not a feel-good film. On the surface, the story simply appears to be a cat-and-mouse game between a psychopathic hitman and a blue-collar everyman who stumbles upon millions of dollars in a drug deal gone wrong. Local sheriff Ed Tom Bell gets caught between the two, and while his role seems secondary, this character is actually what the story is about. The scene above presents Sheriff Bell explaining to his cousin Ellis why he is retiring which is that he feels “overmatched” in a changing world. His cousin responds by describing a horrific murder that took place a century prior, illustrating the same point found in Ecclesiastes that “there’s nothing new under the sun.” While this could be perceived as dismissive of Bell’s feelings, his cousin actually offers an absolution of sorts. To the man who feels responsible for holding back the onslaught of evil, Ellis tells him, “What you got ain't nothin' new. This country's hard on people. You can't stop what's coming. It ain't all waiting on you. That's vanity.”
Several years back, I was visiting with a seminary friend who had just been relieved of his duties at a religious institution. Despite being an excellent scholar and an even better human being, he had committed the transgression of dispassionately teaching on various controversial topics. Because of his failure to be appropriately combative towards views that he himself opposed, a mob labeled him a “liberal” and came for his job. Having invested over a decade there, I asked him how he was processing the loss of employment, relationships, and ministry. His response struck me as profound; he essentially said that the place he had poured his life into no longer existed. To be sure, the building was still standing, the governing board still met, the website was still operational, and familiar faces still roamed the halls. What was gone, though, was the dynamic, the shared values, the mission, the trust, etc. Without those things, whatever was left was something entirely different.
I’ve come back to this conversation in the days since our nation signed itself up for another round of Trump. As we witness huge drops in the stock market, the closest similarities are around cataclysmic events such as Pearl Harbor, the Kennedy assassination, and 9/11. Though this wound was self-inflicted, lumping Trump’s election to a second term in with those occasions is entirely appropriate in my view. By elevating this deeply flawed man (as evidenced HERE in his interview with Terry Moran) to the most powerful position in the world, our security, our freedom, our prosperity, and our futures are now jeopardized. We now have an administration that arrests judges who rule against them, ignores Supreme Court rulings, threatens media corporations that publish unfavorable news, strips the funding of academic institutions that will not succumb to their demands, dismantles government agencies without congressional approval, brazenly flaunts their corruption, denies due process to those within our nation, etc. Having caused significant damage in the first 100 days of his presidency, what’s glaringly obvious is that the place we reside now is fundamentally different than it once was. Whenever Trump does leave office (p.s., it won’t be anytime soon without incident), the stars and stripes may be flown, the national anthem may be performed, and the Pledge of Allegiance may be recited. However, with our abandoning our Constitution, our values, and our allies in service to Trump, sadly the nation that I grew up in no longer exists.
In a strange way, there is an extent to which I am actually relieved to acknowledge this. That’s not to say I felt this way on election night. Anyone who knows me can tell you I don’t like change. It resonates with me when I hear John Cougar Mellencamp singing, “I was born in a small town and I can breathe in a small town, gonna die in a small town and that’s probably where they’ll bury me.” There’s something reassuring about the stability, familiarity, and predictability of a world where things stay the same. In my adulthood, I’ve had to come to terms with the harsh reality that the only constant really is change. Sometimes change may take place rapidly, and other times more gradually. Nevertheless, it is inevitable. Major events happen in human history or our own histories that alter the course of our lives. These can transform us into different people, reorient our priorities, reshape our circumstances, and impact our relationships. Jesus said as much about his own kingdom, which would disrupt even something as foundational as the traditional family structure. Though my natural inclination is to resist change, the passage of time doesn’t care about my preferences. I think that’s the reason why I enjoy No Country for Old Men so much. I appreciate watching the sheriff come to terms with the futility of fighting against change and moving forward even in a world he does not understand. In the same way, if the country we love no longer exists in the same sense, let’s call it what it is rather than being paralyzed with grief.
But while change itself may be inevitable, I hold out hope that the result of that change isn’t — contrary to the nihilism/fatalism of Cormac McCarthy that reduces everything down to a coin flip. Many will use the expression of being on the ‘right’ side of history, perhaps appealing to MLK’s quote that “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” The implication is that there is some governing principle or guidance from outside forces that is moving the world in a positive direction. It’s a nice idea, but I’m not buying it. If anything, Murphy’s law seems more applicable. Even the Psalmists struggle to find rhyme or reason in a world where evil often prospers and the righteous suffer. Whatever one’s views are concerning divine providence vs. human responsibility, few operate with a faith/worldview leading to complete passivity. Those whose preferred deity is ‘MAGA Jesus’ certainly aren’t waiting on the sidelines for their ‘god’ to act. Terrible human beings like Russell Vought with his Project 2025 (read more HERE) are actively working to destroy anything good from the last 50 years. The carnage would make Anton Chigurh proud. In his view, America will be great again if we can go back to our glory days — whether it be the period Trump longs for with high tariffs and ‘robber barons’ free to run wild, or 1940s when ironically our nation actually stood against fascism, or pre-1965 when those who weren’t white ‘Christian’ men knew their place, or the perceived economic utopia of the Reagan years sans the AIDS epidemic. However, they can no more replicate these periods of history than we can go back in time to yesterday. Time marches on, and the past is prologue. The question is, ‘What is the future going to look like?’ Whether it will be our current trajectory or something more inspiring remains to be seen. The bottom line is that those in opposition to Trump cannot stay stuck in the past. The future is at stake.