When Pastor Patrick Purcell woke up the morning Donald J. Trump was projected to win the presidential election, he said he kept hearing one word, “Peace.” Not everyone experienced that. However, Purcell and other church leaders say the next four years may not be as damning as we expect.
They actually offered some words of encouragement and strategy on how we can conquer the next four years.
Initial Reactions
The 86 percent of Black voters who participated in the primary election, hoping to see the first Black woman in the highest seat in the nation were left disappointed but not surprised by the election results. Of those disappointed voters was Rev. Joseph Darby and his congregation at Morris Brown A.M.E. Church in South Carolina.
According to Rev. Darby, a highly respected pastor known across the nation, reactions ranged from outrage to anguish. “This is still America. I was hoping that America was ready to elect not just a woman but a Black woman, and America lived down to its regular values and refused to do that,” he said. “It wasn’t a total surprise.”
Purcell, pastor of Kingdom Alliance Global Ministries, likened the outcome of the election to the account in the Bible of how King Saul came to power.
“[God said] this is synonymous to the children of Israel when they decided to put Saul in office because they wanted someone to represent them as other nations and they decided this nation that is under God no longer needs God’s guidance,” Purcell said. Though, he followed with an important reminder.
“But in the end, God said, ‘Guess what? I still have David. I’ve already chosen.’ Don’t ever forget that God raised up David in the midst of a king that the people wanted but God did not want.”
How Do We Get Through The Next Four Years?
Civil Rights activist and professor Bishop William Barber II advised the community to do one crucial thing: listen. Through all the mumbo jumbo Trump typically spews, Barber said the content of his speeches are worth cross examining with our Bibles and even our Constitution.
“We got to listen to what Donald Trump is saying, no matter how vicious or vile it is. On Inauguration Day, we should be listening because what he said as a candidate is one thing. What he says as President is another,” Barber said.
He added we need to have a commitment to justice, stand for love and maintain unwavering faith.
“Our faith doesn’t change based on the election. We stood for justice, love, healthcare, living wages, public education and equal treatment under the law on Monday regardless of what happened on Tuesday [the election]. We still stand for those things on Wednesday,” he said.
Pastor Purcell encouraged his congregation to stay in prayer moving forward, not entertaining the fear-mongering but discerning beyond the propaganda.
“I know there are many things people have tried to say will happen… The children of God shall remain safe and they shall remain prosperous because the prophecy of the Lord is not submitted to the enemy. It is only submitted to the authority of the Father,” Purcell said. “I want us to keep our nation and our President in prayer because sometimes people are the face of an agenda but they are not the agenda.”
Rev. Darby encouraged us to speak truth to power. Darby went on to say that we need a voice like that of Frederick Douglass, one that was considered to be contrary to the optimism of the Civil War but was actually speaking truth to power. In doing so, we can be the voice of conscience he says America needs.
“I think that the church, if it’s going to be authentic, has to speak truth to power,” he said. “What disturbs me about a lot of ‘liberals’ is that they are so careful about what they say and how they say it, that the language becomes so good, it becomes good for nothing.”
In the end, the consensus is that God still holds all power and will make a way for his people despite what it looks like and despite the enemy’s plans. Purcell highlighted this scripture to hold onto moving forward:
“For the king trusteth in the Lord, and through the mercy of the most High he shall not be moved. Thine hand shall find out all thine enemies: thy right hand shall find out those that hate thee. Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven in the time of thine anger: the Lord shall swallow them up in his wrath, and the fire shall devour them. Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth, and their seed from among the children of men. For they intended evil against thee: they imagined a mischievous device, which they are not able to perform,” (Psalm 21:7-11 KJV).